In the March, 2020 installment of National Bus Trader, I penned a scathing article about fare collection (see https://transalt.com/article/drivers-v-robots-part-8-collecting-the-fares-skimming-the-passengers/). But like many things in transit, things only and always get worse and worse. It is hardly surprising that ridership continues to decline, placing the future of transit at risk of soon disappearing in many part of the country. But my most recent experience with the New York City subway system was so exasperating that I felt it worth summarizing the key benchmarks in the history of fare collection. The Good Old Days When the introduction of buses began, car owners
In Part 1 of this two-installment series, I cited numbers representing the decline in automobile and, more radically, public transportation ridership from 2019 to 2022. These figures were initially cited in an extraordinary NYTimes article on November 6, 2023 (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/06/business/economy/commuting-change-covid.html) that provided figures for this decline in roughly 17 U.S. cities. As National Bus Trader readers may recall, the slightest decline among these cities occurred in New York City (25 percent) with the largest in Detroit (91 percent). Because motorcoach ridership (obviously mostly in commuter/express service) is more affected by the same reasons as transit ridership compared with other modes
Once in a while, a published article is so thought-provoking, or so filled with concern, that the thoughts are echoed that same day in multiple other publications. Today’s piece (October 6, 2023) in the NYTimes (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/06/business/economy/commuting-change-covid.html) about commuting triggered a spin-off in The Hill (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4292731-biden-funding-amtrak-northeast-corridor/) and the excellent daily post by Matt Daus. Less talked about in these articles were the implications for transit ridership – although some frightening figures about this were cited in the NYTimes piece. Reworking these thoughts for the transit and motorcoach industries, I am presenting them below. Despite the last few tumultuous years, most Americans
This is even true in public transportation, where it usually does. Just look at the non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) sector (see https://transalt.com/article/nemt-brokers-motivecare-and-mtm-stealing-hundred-of-billions-from-our-healthcare-system/ and https://transalt.com/article/responses-to-declining-ridership-part-1-contracting-independent-contractors-and-brokers/), where two mega-brokers – Motivcare (formerly LogistiCare) and Veyo (formally MTM) — steal between $200B and $300B a year (my conservative estimate) from our healthcare system. The corruption of Uber and Lyft is comparable but not as nuanced. And because Uber and Lyft are not “middlemen,” like brokers, the complexity of filing against them does not frighten away so many attorneys. Plus, the typical lazy lawyer too cheap and lazy to find and converse with an
The previous six installments of this series identified and explored, in considerable detail, the elements needed to make a public transportation system work. Not a hodgepodge of disjointed and sometimes overlapping or duplicative services. But a collection of system elements which fit together to form a coherent system. The goal of this series was not historical, although various installments note that every one of these elements was given serious consideration, often supported by a considerable number of articles and, often, substantial studies, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In some cases, these elements were actually implemented, often as “demonstration
High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes are the sixth element of public transportation services to be covered in this National Bus Trader series. Previous segments of this series covered other missing elements: Alternative Work Schedules (https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-1-alternative-work-schedules/), Park-and-Ride Lots (https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-2-park-and-ride-lots/); Feeder Service (https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-3-feeder-service/); System Design and Networks (https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-4-system-design-and-networks/) and Ridesharing. This segment covering HOV lanes somewhat overlaps some points made in the Ridesharing installment. However, this is somewhat true of every element in this series. This is so because, in an optimal system, all elements must work together. And, working together, one element necessarily overlaps or intersects with fellow elements. This is
This article is the fifth component of this series describing critical “missing pieces” of an operable public transit network (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-1-alternative-work-schedules/ https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-2-park-and-ride-lots/; https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-3-feeder-service/, and https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-4-system-design-and-networks/). This installment overviews another essential component of public transportation that, like the other components, has gone largely missing for decades: Ridesharing. As I reminded National Bus Trader readers often, all these elements were not just ideas kicked around in the 1970s. Many were implemented, to a great degree, that decade – and to lesser and lesser degrees afterwards, as our cities swelled in population and workers, traffic levels exploded, and air quality declined to a
I have written about the regrettable disappearance of system design in prior National Bus Trader articles (see https://transalt.com/article/survival-and-prosperity-part-4-service-concepts/; https://transalt.com/article/cutting-costs-by-mastering-time-and-space-part-i/ – including the substitution of robots for live Earthlings for creating routes and schedules and selecting stops (see https://transalt.com/article/drivers-v-robots-part-7-betrayal-by-robots/). Today, the term “system design” is most-commonly applied to digital systems or applications. In transportation, system design refers to an effort to configure the vehicles of a single mode, or a combination of modes, into some coherent form so that they work together as a system. At its best, the design of a public transportation system includes multiple modes (or types of
Continuing with this series describing critical “missing pieces” of an operable public transit network (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-1-alternative-work-schedules/ and https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-2-park-and-ride-lots/), this installment overviews yet another essential component of public transportation that has gone largely missing for decades: Feeder Service. In limited contexts, some feeder service still exists. The most common and visible remnant is service to airports – provided by a variety of modes including taxis, transportation network companies (which smother almost everything else on access roads in front of most or many airports’ terminals), personal automobiles (“visitors” dropping off or picking up airport passengers typically comprise about a third of the
Particularly regarding fixed route transit and paratransit, the abandonment of designing a system has cost these modes dearly. This is largely because software emerged in the early 1990s to configure routes, establish schedules select stops and dispatch – and we stopped bothering. As all National Bus Trader readers know, transportation involves more than just the vehicles. There must be roads, bridges, tunnels, rest stops and parking lots – for starters. And this is only if the “system” comprises personal vehicles, trucks and taxis. For shared-ride vehicles, especially large ones (buses and motorcoaches), much more is needed for a “system” to
