Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic (how many double parked Ubers jamming a single lane road will I see tomorrow? Will it be more or less than half a dozen?) would like a word.
> Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic
Is that the case? A quick Googling indicates that buses get 4–6 mpg; let’s go with the pessimistic end of that and assume 4 mpg. Diesel currently costs $3/gal and the average bus travels at 12.7 mph, which means that a bus is spending $9.53/hour on fuel. That’s a lot more than I expected, but how does it compare to bus driver wages?
Another quick Googling indicates that a bus driver makes a little over $15/hour. Double that for fully-loaded costs, and that comes out to $30/hr. That’s treble the cost of the gas, but still in the same ballpark. I’m genuinely surprised that the cost of fuel is so close to the cost of the driver. It may indeed be that fuel efficiency is a factor in bus size.
Yup. Also take into account that many municipalities have buses that run off natural gas, which is both cheaper and not (currently or generally) practical to run in a smaller vehicle.
You're right, not the only thing, but I do think it is by far the primary.
Efficiency-wise a large diesel vis-a-vis traditional car yes the bus wins by a lot, but with smaller multi-person autonomous electric busses I'm not sure if there are any meaningful efficiency gains.
Traffic-wise it may actually be better to have smaller autonomous busses than hulking road giants, because they're not stopping as frequently and they're more nimble. I swear every fifth time I'm around a bus it's stuck idling waiting for a bicyclist or someone to get out of the way, because it's too big to maneuver. Separated bus lanes help, but that isn't a property of the bus as much as urban planning.
I guess it depends on where when and where you ride the bus, but every time I get on a bus in San Francisco its overflowing with people to the point that they have difficulty closing the doors.
That's because you want to ride on the popular bus routes, which isn't a coincidence. If lots of people wanted to ride on the empty bus routes, they wouldn't be empty—they'd be the overflowing ones!
That depends on the municipality- I’ve definitely lived places where a goal of the transit system was “access” even if the buses were nearly empty on some routes. I’m not sure it’s an invalid goal eithier.
Is that the case? A quick Googling indicates that buses get 4–6 mpg; let’s go with the pessimistic end of that and assume 4 mpg. Diesel currently costs $3/gal and the average bus travels at 12.7 mph, which means that a bus is spending $9.53/hour on fuel. That’s a lot more than I expected, but how does it compare to bus driver wages?
Another quick Googling indicates that a bus driver makes a little over $15/hour. Double that for fully-loaded costs, and that comes out to $30/hr. That’s treble the cost of the gas, but still in the same ballpark. I’m genuinely surprised that the cost of fuel is so close to the cost of the driver. It may indeed be that fuel efficiency is a factor in bus size.