Eugene, Oregon’s Lane Transit District (LTD) is facing the same problem that is no doubt confronting transit agencies all over the country. High gasoline prices are encouraging some people to leave their cars at home and take transit. But those same high fuel prices are threatening LTD’s finances and may force cuts in service.
As noted in the Antiplanner’s recent study on transit and energy, part of the problem is that transit agencies tend to buy buses that are far larger than they need. The average LTD bus has nearly 43 seats and standing room for 30 more, but carries only 12 passengers. Obviously, if your system is operating at only one-sixth of its capacity, you are wasting a lot of fuel.
Transit riders may point out that the buses are crowded during rush hour. If so, they must be even emptier the rest of the day for the day-long average to be just 12.
LTD only made the problem worse when it spent nearly $1 million per bus for its bus-rapid transit line. These huge, articulated buses must really suck up the fuel, and from what I have seen on my occasional visits back to the town of my birth, they are rarely full.
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I’ve been to transit board meetings where they debated what size of bus to buy. The boards inevitably reasoned that the federal government would pay for the buses, and it cost the same to hire a bus driver to operate a small bus as a big one, so they might was well buy big buses. Transit agency staff never bothered to point out that the driver is not the only, or even the biggest, cost of operation. (In 2006, drivers accounted for about a quarter of the cost of operating public transit buses.)
The result of this reasoning, almost everywhere you go, is empty transit buses. Nationally, the average bus has 39 seats and room for 22 standees yet carries an average of less than 11 passengers.
Do transit agencies really need to have six times more capacity than is actually used? One alternative is to use smaller buses during the off-peak parts of the day. Another is to focus transit service in the corridors that receive the most use instead of trying to provide service to every remote suburb where most people drive.
The Transportation Research Board recently announced a quarter-million-dollar study about how transit agencies can recruit and develop good managers — to which one wag responded, “Why start now?”
The reality is that many transit agencies do have good managers. But what they are good at is persuading legislators to give them lots of tax dollars, not providing good transit service. Only when transit is funded largely out of user fees will managers have an incentive to focus on efficient service instead of pork barrel.
Giant buses for 12 people.
What idiots (planners, of course.)
Thanks
JK
the average bus has 39 seats and room for 22 standees yet carries an average of less than 11 passengers
So, the average bus runs at roughly 18% capacity.
How does that compare to the average SUV? And why don’t you question why people buy more capicity in SUVs and passenger cars than they typically need?
What idiots (planners, of course.
Again with the ad hominem attacks. If you keep that up, the Antiplanner will think you’re a Junk Scientist.
Meh, who am I kidding: anti-planning types can get away with anything around here.
Well for that matter BRT is not as energy efficient LRT, but still the big expense for a transit operation is the labor cost.
Though even for autos sake with an average of 1.2 people (this is an auto industry figure) per vehicle. That means most of the vehicles on the road are operating at 1/4 to 1/7 capcity.
Antiplanner,
The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority has been testing out a new hybrid bus that gets 7 miles per gallon, which is twice that of a typical 40+ passenger transit agency bus.
I do agree that a logical thing to do would be to use smaller vehicles to more accurately match the demand curve for transit, especially along lower utilitzed routes. However, you seem to forget that since many U.S. transit agencies are funded by mechanisms like a tax on commerce (a sales tax), it is more important to spend the money they take in. It is also politically important that local transit agencies at least attempt to try to offer some service, no matter how infrequent the headways (or poorly patronized), to all areas in their taxing jurisdictions, if for no other reason than to be able to tell residents politically that the transit agency is trying to give them something in return for being compelled to pay those taxes.
A very keen observation about transit agency managers. Most of them are good administrators, politicians, and lobbyists and very few are good businesspersons.
It would be interesting to here some suggestions about how to make a public transit service act more like a private business. Obviously a private transit company would increase service to areas where business was good and decrease service where demand was low. A private company would forced to innovate instead of just asking for more money.
I’m a fan of transit, but the buses here in Birmingham, AL operate infrequently (most routes run once per hour), break down often, and sometimes don’t come. It would be nice for things to operate more efficiently, especially for those people who depend on the bus.
Given fixed routes and schedules the increase in passengers could offset fuel cost increases. Those additional passengers are paying for the service and additional riders have a minor effect on fuel efficiency.
I still expect the managers to plead poverty and blame additional riders as well as high fuel costs. If there is one thing I’ve seen from the public sector over the years it’s blame as many things as possible for whatever ails you.
If there is one thing I’ve seen from the public sector over the years it’s blame as many things as possible for whatever ails you
Whereas private sector actors inevitably accept complete personal responsibility.
D4P,
Why yes, in fact we do accept responsibility since we cannot use force of law to extract more money from people who don’t want to pay.
I accept responsibility in other ways as well. I sign my own name and stand behind my statements. I risk my own money in my business and if it fails I am personally responsible. If people need to be fired I fire them. I pay my taxes and abide by the law. It very hard to do all the time but that’s part of being responsible.
Public sector players tend to blame other departments or outside influences for failure yet accept praise for success. They seldom lose their jobs for egregious mistakes. They are hesitant to share information or give full disclosure for fear of leveling the playing field. When things get really hairy I see a lot of public sector decision makers bail out and move on to the next job.
These conclusions of mine have come from many years of observing the governmental process and studying the failures of the present system. I’m not asking the public sector to be more like the private sector I’m asking them to just do things better and be accountable for failures.
A good example of blaming is my school districts using the claim of increased enrollment for creating a problem with one agency while claiming decreased enrollment for another problem with another agency. Bottom line is that even this level of duplicity will go unpunished and the responsible parties will continue brazenly doing it again and again. In private sector a customer treated in such a manner would take his business elsewhere. In the public sector we cannot.
“So, the average bus runs at roughly 18% capacity.
How does that compare to the average SUV? And why don’t you question why people buy more capicity in SUVs and passenger cars than they typically need?”
The issue at hand has nothing to do with the choices individuals are making. This blog post is bringing up the issue of how well managed transit agencies are today and what changes they could make to be better. It really is the same type of question your asking. The difference is that we’re talking about how a publicly funded organization is running itself.
Why do they continue to buy entire fleets of large buses?
Why do they run those buses during non-peak times on routes where they’re barely filled?
What would it cost to have change fleets?
How much of a difference would hybrid buses make?
Could some bus routes be automated (that is, driverless)?
Bus efficiency vs. auto efficiency:
I think I’m stating the obvious but…
Using public money carries the implicit constraint that you will make efficient use of it. If you use your own money you can use it as you wish. If you want, you buy gold toilets, if that’s, say, your dream.
StevePlunk said:
“I accept responsibility… “
And I do the same, not because I want to in itself, but because, unlike transit managers, I have competitors to whom I will loose my business and personal profit unless I do operate efficiently.
AP,
The size issue is definitely a good point, although I dont think the answer is always as clear cut. I certainly wouldnt disagree that smaller buses could be useful for off peak hours if it is economically justified.
Using public money carries the implicit constraint that you will make efficient use of it. If you use your own money you can use it as you wish.
By that definition, you seem to imply that only the government can be inefficient. Is comparing the efficiency of government to the private sector in their use of resoruces off limits now? I guess that explains why Antiplanners are against government so often. Everything the private sector does must be good, merely because it is done through ‘individual choice’?
What’s the smallest car made? 1 passenger? 2?
My god, man, next they’ll be coming after my gold toilet!