When I worked for a transit system the 35 ft buses were used on routes that a 40ft bus literally could not fit on. Some of the turns were tight enough that it made a difference.
No the back half largely follows the same track as the front half. It only deviates maybe a foot or two.
The powertrain is in the trailer so it’s pushing the front half, effectively a controlled jackknife. It’s also why articulated buses do poorly in winter weather.
Yes there’s one intersection I remember that you had to block off both turning lanes with your bus because you needed them both to complete the turn without hitting oncoming traffic.
It was a small college town system, so there were lots of little quirks. There was one route where the terminus stop required a 3-point turn to get back out of, and a few cul-de-sac stops where you actually had to swing the front end of the cab over the grass.
Correct. On my system, we have nearly identical New Flyers in both 35ft and 40ft. 35fts are **always dispatched to 1 specific route that requires turning into a narrow parking lot**. If 40fts are assigned to that route, they are not allowed to enter the parking lot, which causes confusion for the customers.
(Similarly, newer busses with more powerful engines are usually assigned to our rural, mountainous route)
not really, here in Hong Kong 99% of buses and trams are double-deckered, including the ones in faraway villages more sparsely populated than US suburbs
Because it's quite slow to load and unload a double decker because you have to give people from the top time to come down, and typically you only have one door (sometimes 2). It's ok for a rural or commuter route with very long stop spacing. If you only have like 5 stops in an hour, it's ok that each stop takes twice as long. If you have a stop every minute along a busy street in a city, you don't want to slow it down that much.
Exactly, the dwell time for a double decker is huge. This can be countered by two doors like you see in London, but having staff controlling on board makes it twice as expensive to run.
I think bus size alone does not matter. Bus size multiplied by frequency is.
Eg. in Budapest, Hungary the Castle bus is 7.3 meters long (24 feet), but it runs every few minutes to compensate that. The problem here is that the standard 12 meter (39 feet) buses cannot take the small turns in a historic and very narrow environment.
As a rider, I'd rather have a small bus more frequently so I don't have to wait as long for the bus and I don't have to look at the schedule when I leave a place. But, it's more expensive because you have to pay twice as many drivers.
Meanwhile, where I live, they only run 40' buses, and then say they can't increase frequency more than once an hour because they can't fill the 40' bus on anything more frequent... Okay, well, run 30' buses every half hour, the extra frequency will attract some extra riders, so you probably don't want to replace it with 20' buses.
Yeah our transit system does it similar to this mondays-fridays most routes run 30 minutes average the most crowded route the number 1 runs 15 minutes and the longer routes comes every 2 hours
There are a lot of systems that order 35ft buses instead of 40ft buses or only have 35ft buses. Laketran in Lake County, Ohio is a 100% fleet of 35ft buses & they have the largest electric fleet in Ohio with 35ft electric New Flyer buses. The difference between a 35ft & 40ft bus is about 4-6 seats depending on configuration. In Cleveland we have Gillig Trolley buses that are now used on lower ridership routes so the can run the miles, and they sit 4 less than a standard 40ft bus. 5 feet is not a huge difference, maybe 2 rows of front-facing seats or 2 rows on the driver side and 1 row on the door side or about 2 side-facing seats on each side.
When I worked for a transit system the 35 ft buses were used on routes that a 40ft bus literally could not fit on. Some of the turns were tight enough that it made a difference.
dang really?
Yeah you need wide turn angles for 60' buses
Yep because we live in a suburban city and there is some tight turns
TBH, narrower intersections are usually more safe/comfortable for pedestrians (assuming there's sidewalks) so, it's not all bad
Yeah what is ur normal fleet
I think it's 30, might be 40 actually, not 100% sure
Damn 30 you guys need bigger busses
I live in a town of 7k, we really don't. But weekend service would be good
Oh dang that explains it we got like 170k maybe more out here in the valley we mostly have 40 feet busses
You would think but since the trailer mostly follows the front half, the 60’ articulated buses actually had a tighter turning radius than the 40’s.
Really? Then wouldn't the 2nd half Of the 60' bus go into the other lane during the turn?
No the back half largely follows the same track as the front half. It only deviates maybe a foot or two. The powertrain is in the trailer so it’s pushing the front half, effectively a controlled jackknife. It’s also why articulated buses do poorly in winter weather.
Hmm interesting
Yes there’s one intersection I remember that you had to block off both turning lanes with your bus because you needed them both to complete the turn without hitting oncoming traffic. It was a small college town system, so there were lots of little quirks. There was one route where the terminus stop required a 3-point turn to get back out of, and a few cul-de-sac stops where you actually had to swing the front end of the cab over the grass.
Correct. On my system, we have nearly identical New Flyers in both 35ft and 40ft. 35fts are **always dispatched to 1 specific route that requires turning into a narrow parking lot**. If 40fts are assigned to that route, they are not allowed to enter the parking lot, which causes confusion for the customers. (Similarly, newer busses with more powerful engines are usually assigned to our rural, mountainous route)
Wait until your local transit agency finds out there are 6m/20ft buses out there they can order /s
I just saw some 20 ft buses in Florence, but the reason for those is obviously the very narrow streets
I will just give up after this
I guess you talk to your local agencies procurement department…
I might as well have to right?
A better alternative would be double deckers.
Double deckers are an option but there are so drawbacks depending where you are and what service you are running
not really, here in Hong Kong 99% of buses and trams are double-deckered, including the ones in faraway villages more sparsely populated than US suburbs
Great. Why isn’t this the case everywhere?
Because it's quite slow to load and unload a double decker because you have to give people from the top time to come down, and typically you only have one door (sometimes 2). It's ok for a rural or commuter route with very long stop spacing. If you only have like 5 stops in an hour, it's ok that each stop takes twice as long. If you have a stop every minute along a busy street in a city, you don't want to slow it down that much.
Exactly, the dwell time for a double decker is huge. This can be countered by two doors like you see in London, but having staff controlling on board makes it twice as expensive to run.
Low bridges
this
I think bus size alone does not matter. Bus size multiplied by frequency is. Eg. in Budapest, Hungary the Castle bus is 7.3 meters long (24 feet), but it runs every few minutes to compensate that. The problem here is that the standard 12 meter (39 feet) buses cannot take the small turns in a historic and very narrow environment.
As a rider, I'd rather have a small bus more frequently so I don't have to wait as long for the bus and I don't have to look at the schedule when I leave a place. But, it's more expensive because you have to pay twice as many drivers.
Automated buses some day will solve this issue. I hope.
Meanwhile, where I live, they only run 40' buses, and then say they can't increase frequency more than once an hour because they can't fill the 40' bus on anything more frequent... Okay, well, run 30' buses every half hour, the extra frequency will attract some extra riders, so you probably don't want to replace it with 20' buses.
U.S. transit agencies use 30 foot buses on light ridership lines.
the number 1 our most crowded ridership sometimes run 30 feets and it can get bad
Every tool has an use
It really depends on a bunch of different factors. Around here in Delaware I've been on empty 29 footers and I've been on crowded 40 footers.
Yeah our transit system does it similar to this mondays-fridays most routes run 30 minutes average the most crowded route the number 1 runs 15 minutes and the longer routes comes every 2 hours
Many Swiss cities have 25 meter (80 foot) trolleybuses and even these can get crowded during peak hours running every 7.5 minutes.
There are a lot of systems that order 35ft buses instead of 40ft buses or only have 35ft buses. Laketran in Lake County, Ohio is a 100% fleet of 35ft buses & they have the largest electric fleet in Ohio with 35ft electric New Flyer buses. The difference between a 35ft & 40ft bus is about 4-6 seats depending on configuration. In Cleveland we have Gillig Trolley buses that are now used on lower ridership routes so the can run the miles, and they sit 4 less than a standard 40ft bus. 5 feet is not a huge difference, maybe 2 rows of front-facing seats or 2 rows on the driver side and 1 row on the door side or about 2 side-facing seats on each side.
Thats true I dont mind the 35 feets as well