Routing for general education schoolbus service has been increasingly performed by robots for 25 years now. Yet general education schoolbus schedules are not nearly as tight as those of fixed route transit. One obvious reason is that schoolbus passengers cannot continuously be late to their destinations. If their bus schedules are the cause of it, they are eventually adjusted. In the wildly-unplanned schoolbus sector, these adjustments are most often made during the “shake-out” period during the first few weeks of the school year. But they are adjusted. When they are tight, it usually reflects weather, traffic, detours, parades, maintenance problems
Archives for National Bus Trader
Tight Schedules, Part 5: Motorcoach Service
National Bus Trader readers were treated (or subjected) to three brutal installments about tight schedules in the transit, non-emergency medical and paratransit sectors. Apart from motorcoaches deployed in transit service, tight schedules are a problem in only a handful of motorcoach scenarios. Still, coping with them is challenging in Today’s economic and operating environments. Geography, Regulations and Inflexibility In the August, 2003 National Bus Trader article titled “Pi R Squared,” I argued for doubling the size of a single vehicle’s service area by simply expanding the hours-of-service to 12 hours on-duty, an 18-hour span and, most importantly, verification of a
Tight Schedules, Part 3: Fixed Route Transit Service
For reasons different than those of other modes, transit schedules are often tight. In many urban systems, all or most schedules are tight. When schedules are tight, drivers compromise passenger, pedestrian and motorist safety to comply with them. A number of common safety compromises are summarized below. A deeper treatment of those compromises typical of fixed route transit service may be found on safetycompromises.com., and in the 12 National Bus Trader articles published on this subject in September through December, 2017 and April through December, 2018 issues. That series was organized by type of safety compromise. This series, organized mode
Tight Schedules, Part 2: Lessons from the NEMT Sector
How much a transportation provider is paid has an obvious impact on safety. But more important is the rate structure by which that provider is paid. Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) service is a poster child for the dysfunctional consequences of a hapless rate structure and compensation formula. Insights Squandered In 1964, President Johnson created the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) to support the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Model Cities Program. UMTA capital funds paid for 80 percent of buses, trains and other capital improvements. In 1967, when Johnson created the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), UMTA (now
Tight Schedules, Part 1: The Other Achilles Heel
Early in my 42 years working in the public transportation field, I learned that the industry’s Achilles Heel is negligent monitoring. Almost no one knows how to do this effectively. Few agencies or companies do this at all. Most of their officials do not care. So the industry is rife with crossing accidents, negligent retention, wheelchair tipovers and passenger molestation, among other common accident and incident scenarios. (See transalt.com/expertwitness/scenarios). From years observing patterns of failure, I’ve come to recognize that a second Achilles Heel in public transportation is tight schedules. In my examination of evidence in more than 600 public
The Folly of Fake Facts, Part 2
In Part One of this short series, we explored the rudiments of reaction time and braking distance. The arithmetic for understanding both concepts was learned in the third grade (multiplication), fourth grade (long division), seventh grade (fractions) and eleventh grade (drivers’ education). Most bus and motorcoach drivers have high school educations, during which time they presumably learned the four processes noted above. But they often do not retain these processes, and cannot convert them into safe driving practices. And their training rarely acknowledges the existence of these disciplines, much less their importance, much less the need to integrate them into
The Folly of Fake Facts
Thankfully, mowing down pedestrians in a crosswalk is not yet commonplace. But it is also not rare. This incident scenario is most common to transit buses making left turns (see “The Danger Deterrent,” National Bus Trader, April 2016) But it happens occasionally with almost every transportation mode. Yet the defenses almost always cited by the drivers are no match for someone with a high school diploma. Pencils and Erasers A driver or motorist requires some time to recognize that something bad is about to happen. Most drivers or motorists need roughly ¾ of a second to recognize this. It then
Safety Compromises, Part 12: Conclusions
The final installment of this series examines the socio-economic dynamics and choices which led to the increasing commission of safety compromises by America’s public transportation services. The trade-offs of safety for other benefits are more common and more severe in some modes then in others. The most common safety compromises also vary from mode to mode. But the same set of dynamics has affected all these modes, and has influenced the tendency to commit safety compromises of all types. Risks and Choices Particularly in our heavily-litigated society, the notion of risk is paramount. A tightrope walker assumes enormous risk. He
Safety Compromises, Part 11: Wheelchair and Passenger Securement
As with most things, the ADA requirement to make all new motorcoaches purchased after 2001 wheelchair-accessible, and the 2015 ruling to install three-point occupant restraint systems, introduced an entirely new spectrum of safety, liability and social concerns to the motorcoach industry. But a couple of responses to these requirements, particularly by one OEM and one supplier, have opened up a whole new set of opportunities for savvy motorcoach operators. For reasons noted below, few motorcoach operators currently transport many (or any) wheelchair users, just as most wheelchair users are reluctant to travel by motorcoach. With conventional coaches and traditional securement
Paradigm Shift in Motorcoach Accessibility, Part 3: The MCI D45 CTR LE Commuter Coach
In Part 1 of this series, I introduced National Bus Trader readers to a new vehicle: MCI’s 45-foot, ramp-equipped D45 CTR LE. And I hinted at its striking innovations and its promise down-the-road. In Part 2 of this series, I described the specific details of this vehicle, along with their significance. In this closing installment, I will examine this vehicle from the perspective of bus design — a discipline in which I have considerable professional experience. And I will both expand upon this vehicle’s brilliant starting point and explore its potential as the transformative vehicle I believe the D54 CTR LE can
- «Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- …
- 23
- Next Page»