[couchand]

This is a well-reasoned analysis but there are a few weaknesses:

- Are those 6 people travelling together (relatively unlikely), or are they being stuck in a shared vehicle with strangers? If it's the latter it seems likely to be much less comfortable than a bus, where there's usually a potential to move around a bit and you go into it expecting to make intermediate stops (and knowing where/when they are!).

- After taking plenty of effort to get the dollars right you gloss over the most important issue: routefinding. Mentioning some hypothetical "similar trip" is not all that meaningful. If you live near one stop and work near another on the same line it might be much faster to take transit. If you live in a world built primarily for cars with no regard for other modes, you may find it difficult to find any public transit option for your route.

- And a shift in traffic is laudable only if it doesn't serve to induce further demand [0].

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

[hershel]

True , some of those points i didn't take into account, but:

> Similar trip

I once read a research paper about "demand responsive transportation" that simulated such route aggregation in realistic traffic over a large part of a city(probably in finland), and got similar results with regards to route efficiency, as far as i can remember. Can't seem to find the paper , will look later again.

> induced demand

It's really hard to predict how much induced demand this will cause ,because:

1.Big efficiencies - hard to imagine all we be "eaten".

2.It lengthens trip time.

3.Once it's running, we have a software layer on top of transportation, which might be a powerful new tool for transportation management - which might greatly affect demand.

> comfort

You might be right on that, although for bus riders the decreased travel time will surely be worth the extra inconvenience.