The German bus systems I’ve used have been night and day better than US ones. Buses that mostly run to a schedule are incomprehensible to most in the US.
Probably related, I doubt we have a bus line with anywhere near that ridership.
I’ll report what I observed in 2 years of 3 to 4 times of using the bus a day in Germany.
Every time a bus was late, or tried to break the sound barrier™ in the hope of reducing some of the delay, was due to one of the following issues:
(a) A tourist with texan accent trying to get onto the bus, discussing with the bus driver if he can pay with credit card or in dollar (no), then asking the bus driver to wait while he’s going to get money from the nearest ATM (happens at about 5% of stops in the downtown areas where the tourists are)
(b) Rush hour traffic, 200 people squeezing into a single bus, and another few hundred waiting at the bus stop – busses coming every one or two minutes, and it takes quite some time until people stop trying to get into the bus, and leave enough space for the doors to close
(c) some kids with invalid tickets trying to cheat and getting caught
These issues can’t be fixed by automated busses, or trains.
Only by less tight schedules, and more busses and trains.
That is simply the state of public transportation in the US. I don't use buses very frequently, but the times I had to, my success rate with getting on a bus at the time it was scheduled is somewhere around 40%.
Sometimes it comes 15 minutes late, sometimes it doesn't come entirely and then it's a 30 minute wait (or longer) until the next one. One time it actually came early AND left early. I have no idea what the people who expected it 10 minutes later did. I guess they had to wait 40 minutes.
And it's not a walkable distance either (5-6 miles), so I still have to wait.
Coming from Munich, I was deeply disappointed by Dublin's buses. Munich's buses are actually fairly reliable, Dublin's bus timetables don't even qualify as suggestions. Often buses just wouldn't show up, period. We'd have to give up and find some other entirely different bus line going in the same general direction.
How is it possible to run buses with perfectly accurate timetables? I imagine traffic conditions are somewhat unpredictable in Switzerland, just like anywhere else.
I’ve been on a third-world minibus. In comparison to developed nation public transport, it was overcrowded by a factor of two, it only set off when it was full and not to any timetable, and (from what my partner told me after living there for years back when she was a teenager), most of the drivers constantly consume stimulants so they can work for 15-hour days.
(I would also describe the minibus as poorly maintained, but that’s by European standards — I was really surprised by the poor condition of American vehicles on each of my three visits, and it didn’t seem significantly worse than an American vehicle).
Buses work admirably, even in the USA. They're more economical, faster to deploy, and actually have a smaller carbon footprint. But bus systems tend to be underfunded, and there's a stigma for those who ride them -- essentially, many believe buses are for poor people. What a mistake!
In the German cities I lived in the fleets are very diverse (diesel, hybrids, purely electric). They must have worked something out, because I never once saw a broken bus in the last decade.
Given the development of FlixBus / MeinFernbus over the past 10 years here in Germany, I would expect them to massively expand the network very quickly.
There was an interview with one of the founders, André Schwämmlein, in the FAZ a few weeks ago in which he talked about his vision for the US to become the biggest market for them [0].
Google translate version:
> FAZ: In the US, greyhound has been synonymous with intercity buses for a century. Should the Americans think of the green Flix logo instead of a greyhound when it comes to bus transport?
[...]
> Schwämmlein: We are now bringing a lot of young people to the bus, for whom traveling by bus was not an option before. However, the image of many providers in the USA is not where it should be. We want to show people that the bus is an attractive alternative to the car. It WILL, of course, take a long time to grow in, given the size of the country. But our ambition is to see FlixBuses in Hollywood films at some point.
> FAZ: And in the sparsely populated Midwest?
> Schwämmlein: There is certainly still potential for the future. In the core relations in particular, we already aim to be the market leader in the near future.
> FAZ: What do you do differently than the established providers?
> Schwämmlein: It's about customer orientation in connections and stops. In L.A., most providers have one, two, or three stops - we have ten and we stop at universities, for example. Or in Vegas on the Strip and again in Downtown. We think of networks differently - not in terms of operation, but rather on the basis of the customer. If people want to drive from L.A. to Vegas on Friday afternoons to party, then the timetable has to map that with more trips instead of driving every hour all week when demand is significantly lower. The passenger determines the timetable.
> FAZ: Will America one day become the biggest market for FlixBus?
> Schwämmlein: It is very clear that this will happen within the next few years. In terms of potential, it can even be expected that it will be as big as all of Europe.
Yeah, but not in America, which is what we are talking about. I used to live in San Diego and took buses that ran once an hour. A high frequency bus was one that ran every 30 minutes.
I was really excited about the coach bus lines - until I took a trip with one. Did you take a (longer) trip with one yet?
In an IC(E), I can open my 13" Laptop and work fine, even if the person in front of me lowers their seat. On the particular bus I was riding, the table was just too small. Plus, the bus has much more unexpected movements than a train, I couldn't even look on a tablet screen for too long without feeling some travel-sickness. It was a very long, very boring ride.
The WiFi, btw, was a joke on the autobahn. It was working a bit in the cities...
Also, the trip took more than an hour longer than was planned, and the traffic on the autobahn was absolutely fine (I did the same trip with a car a couple of times). Driving into the cities took lots of time, but again the traffic probably would have looked the same any other average day.
A different perspective: it's weird that school buses that only run two routes per day exist. That has to be one of the most underutiluzed forms of public transport.
My home country Australia has free public transport for children. The public transport system gets kids to school and back with no issues. You don't get drivers and busses underutilized either.
Probably related, I doubt we have a bus line with anywhere near that ridership.
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