🚀 go-pugleaf

sruel@vcn.bc.ca (Steve Ruelle) wrote:

>Martin_Williamson@mindlink.bc.ca wrote:

(stuff deleted)

>UBC buses don't go to those exchanges, except for the #10 at Kootenay.

And the 25 to Brentwood (for connection with the 120, 151/152) and the
49th to Metrotown.  Both of these are approximately timed to catch
southbound suburban service.
  
>For the most part, timed bus exchanges are in the suburbs where 
>passengers have to make transfers to get where they are going.  I don't 
>consider UBC a bus exchange but a mass pickup/dropoff point for students 
>going to and coming from class.  Keeping a steady flow of buses entering 
>and leaving the loop is more appropriate in this context than having many 
>buses leave at once.

But students all get out of class at once.  Are you suggesting that
during the 50 minutes students are in class Transit should keep those
empty buses flowing away from the loop so that when the mass of
students come from class they have wait longer because the one that's
left surely won't carry them all.  This is say nothing of the cost of
having empty buses running around.

>: The day we can predict exactly all enevitabilities we won't need
>: transportation.
>
>I agree that it is hard to predict everything that can cause a bus not to 
>show up, but what about the passenger?  When a bus does not come (I'm not 
>talking about buses coming a few minutes late, I'm talking about not 
>showing up at all), nothing is done to notify the passenger and as a 
>result, they are left standing there.

Notification is something that is a concern but the practicality of it
in a real world is difficult.  The transit information department is
always notified of larger problems (power outages for trolley service,
etc) so they are the people to call.  Unfortunately the cost and
logistics of having someone run up and down bus lines over Transit's
service area (some 1200 square miles) to tell people of late and
missing buses would be prohibitive.
The driver's often know about major problems but, again, the logistics
constantly updated schedule information are not possible.

> I can forgive BC Transit if this 
>happens seldomly but in my 6 years of bussing, there has been a 10% 
>bus-cancellation rate.  This is an accurate stat, as I have been all 
>around the Vancouver system.  10% is unnacceptable.

Where did you get the stat?  I'm afraid it's not accurate.