[PRCo] Re: of weird headways, the high tech era, and the haves and have-nots

[John Swindler]

Concerning high tech making 55 min. headway useful, I doubt it, Derrick, for 
reasons cited by HHG.  People can't adjust their quiting times.

It seems that somewhere between a 10 and 15 minute headway is where one 
needs to start keeping track of arrival times.  Less then 10 minutes, just 
show up at the transit stop and take your chances.  Average wait will be 5 
minutes or less.  More then 15 min. headway, then one starts to aim for a 
particular transit vehicle.

Harrisburg seems to like 30 min. headways.  But when I'd miss the 4:30 Camp 
Hill bus (I'd even walk down 12 flights of steps because we couldn't depend 
on elevator "schedule".) would frequently just start walking home.  About a 
five mile walk, but would be within a mile of home by time the 5:05 bus 
passed me.

Suspect many, both inside and outside the transit industry, believe they are 
selling a necessity.  But today, the public transit "product" is more of a 
'convenience', rather then 'necessity'.  (another one of my biased opinions)

So, going back to the 55 min. headway "problem" - or even 28 min. - perhaps 
the best solution is to try to consolidate services and increase ridership 
with a goal of trying to justify a less then 10-12 min. headway.

Sorry about rambling off on a tangent.

John



>From: Derrick J Brashear <shadow at dementia.org>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] of weird headways, the high tech era, and the haves and 
>have-nots
>Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 08:46:03 -0500 (EST)
>
>
>The 55 minute headways and what people do and don't remember has me
>thinking a bit. I found this page:
>http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/publicMap.shtml?a=MUNI&r=N
>
>(and the other Muni light rail lines have similar pages)
>
>Basically on this site you can view either a "live" route map showing
>where the cars are now, *or* you can choose a stop and a line and it will
>estimate based on where stuff is now when the next car will be along. I
>don't know how well it estimates if there are (known) delays on the line.
>
>Would this sort of thing make weird headways more palatable assuming
>general availability?
>
>Yeah, yeah, you're saying "but I'm not going to dial in just to check when
>the next bus will be along" and here's where the high-tech era stuff comes
>in. More and more people, though not nearly all of them, are getting
>"continuous high speed networking" installed in their homes. For instance,
>I have a cable modem, which is a step up from the 56k modem I had before,
>and a step down from the fiber optic T1 I had before the 56k
>modem:-) Better, or worse, I have a wireless network which covers my
>house, and a laptop capable of exploiting it, so I think nothing of
>walking out my door with my laptop open and using the network.
>
>And here's where it becomes local: note that that page is San
>Francisco-specific. Even if that system works, it's my perception that it
>won't work *here* for some time. The Bay Area is perceived as more
>tech-savvy, and as someone with some involvement in that sector, I think
>that's true, but isn't the entire problem.
>
>Recent Census data which was summarized in the Post-Gazette claimed "We're
>poor, but housing's cheap". I don't think that's conducive to such a
>system working here, because people who can afford "always on" network
>don't heavily overlap with likely transit users.
>
>Also, Allegheny County has the 2nd "oldest" population of any county in
>the country, and at least circumstantially it appears that the older you
>are the less likely to be "tech-savvy" you are... taken broadly and for
>now, anyhow.
>
>To now reduce this to a problem of managable scope, if the Port Authority
>(whose web site is one of the crappiest I've used, because they made it
>ADA compliant but gave no thought to interface beyond that) were to do
>something like this for *just the light rail lines* would a 55 minute
>headway on 52 Allentown then be acceptable? How about 28 minutes on
>42L Library?
>
>-D
>
>
>
>
>
>-- Trailing quotes stripped by Listar --
>
>


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