🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ms9am$fm6@morgoth.sfu.ca>, kbutler@sfu.ca (Kenneth Butler) wrote:
 
> >And eventually the software problems got fixed.  I also speculate that
> >with six car trains, bus service would have to be reconsidered in the
> >stations.  i.e. if unloading passengers from a four car train can almost
> >fill a bus, what happens when a single bus awaits the unloading of a six
> >car train?
> 
> This is not how it works, though, surely? The passengers off a typical 
> train are distributed over a number of bus routes, so the ones destined 
> for a particular route might fill only a quarter of a bus. In the 
> situation described above, the passengers are still arriving at the same 
> rate, so that 1/4 busfull every 4 minutes and 1/3 busfull every 5 work 
> out to the same thing (near enough).

O.K., let's give an example here.  Broadway Station and the #9 bus line. 
A 4 car train in both directions arrives while the service headway is bus
scheduled at 4 minutes.  That plus pedestrians adds up to 8 cars of
capacity plus wlak up people.  The bus pulls in and takes 2 minutes to
load to the doors.  The bus not only cannot load all the passengers at
Broadway Station, but passes up all the way to Main Street.  Now ...
extend that to a 6 car train in both directions.  3-4 minute headway on a 
bus route is considered to be just about saturation.  That means that you
can add busses, but you cannot space them out and translate that into
better service prequency.  They'll travel in packs.

Broadway Station is an extreme example, but Joyce and Metrotown at peak
hours offer similar situations.  To carry higher capacity less frequently
(long term) would mean a significant adjustment to bus service.

=====================================================================
George Johansen - johansen@portal.ca

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the official 
platform or policy of any political party or company.
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