Public transport bus service
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Public transport bus services are generally based on regular operation of transit buses along a route calling at agreed bus stops according to a published public transport timetable.
History of buses
Origins
While there are indications of experiments with
Another claim for the first public transport system for general use originated in
In 1828, Baudry went to Paris, where he founded a company under the name Entreprise générale des omnibus de Paris, while his son Edmond Baudry founded two similar companies in Bordeaux and in Lyon.[5]
A London newspaper reported on July 4, 1829, that "the new vehicle, called the omnibus, commenced running this morning from Paddington to the City", operated by George Shillibeer.
The first omnibus service in New York began in 1829, when Abraham Brower, an entrepreneur who had organized volunteer fire companies, established a route along Broadway starting at Bowling Green. Other American cities soon followed suit: Philadelphia in 1831, Boston in 1835 and Baltimore in 1844. In most cases, the city governments granted a private company—generally a small stableman already in the livery or freight-hauling business—an exclusive franchise to operate public coaches along a specified route. In return, the company agreed to maintain certain minimum levels of service.
In 1832, the New York omnibus had a rival when the first trams, or streetcars started operation along Bowery,[6] which offered the excellent improvement in amenity of riding on smooth iron rails rather than clattering over granite setts, called "Belgian blocks". The streetcars were financed by John Mason, a wealthy banker, and built by an Irish-American contractor, John Stephenson. The Fifth Avenue Coach Company introduced electric buses to Fifth Avenue in New York in 1898.
In 1831, New Yorker Washington Irving remarked of Britain's Reform Act (finally passed in 1832): "The great reform omnibus moves but slowly." Steam buses emerged in the 1830s as competition to the horse-drawn buses.
The omnibus extended the reach of the emerging cities. The walk from the former village of Paddington to the business heart of London in the City was a long one, even for a young man in good condition. The omnibus thus offered the suburbs more access to the inner city. The omnibus encouraged urbanization. Socially, the omnibus put city-dwellers, even if for only half an hour, into previously-unheard-of physical intimacy with strangers, squeezing them together knee-to-knee. Only the very poor remained excluded. A new division in urban society now came to the fore, dividing those who kept carriages from those who did not. The idea of the "carriage trade", the folk who never set foot in the streets, who had goods brought out from the shops for their appraisal, has its origins in the omnibus crush.
Motorbus
John D. Hertz founded the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company in 1923 and then sold a majority of shares to General Motors in 1925.
From the 1920s,
The arrest of
Types of services
The names of different types of bus services vary according to local tradition or marketing, although services can be classified into basic types based on route length, frequency, the purpose of use and type of bus used.
Urban transport
- Transit bus is the most common type of public transport bus service and is used to transport large numbers of people in urban areas, or to and from the suburbs to population centres. These buses normally run on fixed routes within an urban area.
- Park and ride bus services are designed to provide an onward passenger journey from a parking lot. These may be branded as shuttle or express services, or part of the standard bus network.
- public light busesin Hong Kong where the red topped ones act as a share taxi as opposed to green topped ones which are on fixed routes.
- Feeder bus services are designed to pick up passengers in a certain locality and take them to a transfer point where they make an onward journey on a trunk service. This can be another bus, or a rail-based service such as a tram, rapid transit or train. Feeder buses may act as part of a wider local network, or a regional coach network.
- Bus rapid transit (BRT) is the application of a range of infrastructure and marketing measures to produce public transport bus services that approach the operating characteristics and capacity of rapid transit systems.
Express bus service
An express bus service (also known as express commuter service, commuter bus service, or suburban bus service)[
Express buses operate on a faster schedule by not making as many stops as normal bus services and often taking quicker routes, such as along
In many cases, an express bus service is identified by a letter before or after the regular route number. For example, in
Long distance transport
Long-distance coach services (US: Intercity bus line) are bus services operated over long distances between cities. These services can form the mainstay of the travel network in countries with poor
Specialist services
- charter buses, in some areas school bus services are implemented as special journeys on the normal public timetable, specially timed and routed to arrive and depart in coordination with the school bell. Only the latter is commonly referred to as "public transport".
- Shuttle buses are any type of bus service intended primarily to shuttle passengers between two fixed points. These can be bus or coach operated, but are usually short or medium distance journeys taking less than an hour. Shuttle buses will usually link with other transport hubs, such as airport shuttle buses. A common use of a shuttle bus is in towns or cities with multiple terminal train stations or bus stations, for passenger interconnections. "Shuttle" as a brand name is applied variously across several types of service.
- ruralroutes.
- Rail replacement bus services are often track maintenance or other planned closures, or to cover for unplanned closures such as derailments.
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A IC Bus CE with International 3300 chassis school bus in America
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A shuttle bus service in Sydney
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A postbus in St. Moritz
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VinBus electric bus at VOP
Operation
Scheduling
Many public bus services are run to a specific
There is a common cliché that people "wait all day, and then three come along at once", in relation to a phenomenon where evenly timetabled bus services can develop a gap in service followed by buses turning up almost simultaneously. This occurs when the rush hour begins and numbers of passengers at a stop increases, increasing the loading time, and thus delay scheduled service. The following bus then catches up because it begins to be delayed less at stops due to fewer passengers waiting. This is called bus bunching. This is prevented in some cities such as Berlin by assigning every stop arrival times where scheduled buses should arrive no earlier than specified.
Some services may have no specific departure times, the timetable giving the
Services may be strictly regulated in terms of
Urban land-use planning policies are essential for the success of bus transit systems, particularly as mass transit is not feasible in low-density communities. Transportation planners estimate that to support local bus service every thirty minutes, there must be a residential housing density of seven dwelling units per acre.[11]
Fixed infrastructure
Bus services have led to the implementation of various types of infrastructure now common in many urban and suburban settings. The most prevalent example is the ubiquitous bus stop. Large interchanges have required the building of bus stations. In roads and streets, infrastructure for buses has resulted in modifications to the kerb line such as protrusions and indentations, and even special kerb stones. Entire lanes or roads have been reserved for buses in bus lanes or busways. Bus fleets require large storage premises often located in urban areas, and may also make use of central works facilities.
Management
The level and reliability of bus services are often dependent on the quality of the local road network and levels of traffic congestion, and the population density. Services may be organised on tightly regulated networks with restrictions on when and where services operate, while other services are operated on an ad hoc basis in the model of share taxis.
Increasingly, technology is being used to improve the information provided to bus users, with vehicle tracking technologies to assist with scheduling, and to achieve real-time integration with passenger information systems that display service information at stops, inside buses, and to waiting passengers through personal mobile devices or text messaging.
Fare models
Bus drivers may be required to conduct
In some competitive systems, an
Ownership
Public transport bus operation is differentiated from other bus operation by the fact the owner or driver of a bus is employed by or contracted to an organisation whose main public duty or commercial interest is to provide a public transport service for passengers to turn up and use, rather than fulfilling private contracts between the bus operator and user. Public transport buses are operated as a common carrier under a contract of carriage between the passenger and the operator.
The owners of public transport buses may be the
Larger operations may have fleets of thousands of vehicles. At its peak in the 1950s, the London Transport Executive owned a bus fleet of 8,000 buses, the largest in the world. Many small operators have only a few vehicles or a single bus owned by an owner-driver.
Regulation
In all cases in the
Bus services are being made
Some transit agencies have also started to install bike racks in the front of buses that usually holds two bicycles. Passengers would be able to place their bicycle on the racks when riding to avoid taking up space during rush hour.
Safety
The research conducted in
See also
- Straddling bus
- Trolley bus
- Express train
- Limited stop
- Destination sign
- Bus rapid transit
References
- ^ "Premiers omnibus à Nantes" (in French). 13 June 2008.
- ^ "Year 1662, The First Public Bus, The Omnibus". 3 December 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "When was the horse-drawn urban omnibus introduced in Paris?". 3 December 2010. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
- ^ "Greater Manchester's Museum of Transport: Public Transport in Greater Manchester". Archived from the original on 2011-04-26. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
- ^ "Les omnibus à traction hippomobile (archives of Musée départemental Dobrée)" (in French). Conseil général de la Loire-Atlantique, Nantes, France. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
- ^ "Streetcar Sunday - The Bowery". 10 October 2010.
- ^ "American Public Transportation Association".
- ^ General Motors and the Demise of Streetcars Archived 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine, Cliff Slater
- ^ "Express Bus Service" (PDF). Texas A&M University Mobility. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
- ^ Pratt, Richard H.; Copple, John N.; Barton-Aschman Associates, Inc., R.H. Pratt & Co. Division (July 1981). "Express Transit" (PDF). Traveler Response to Transportation System Changes (PDF) (Report) (Second ed.). U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. pp. 205–236.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Booth, Geoffrey; Leonard, Bruce; Pawlukiewicz, Michael (2002). "Ten Principles for Reinventing America's Suburban Business Districts" (PDF). ULI Americas. Urban Land Institute. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
- ^ "APSRTC Profile". APSRTC.
- PMID 29500736.
External links
Media related to Bus transport at Wikimedia Commons