Abstract
If you live in a large house in a low-density suburb and usually get around by car, you may not think much about transit until you confront the problem of congestion. And since congestion first becomes a problem during the peak commute period, also known as “rush hour,” you may start out caring only about transit that runs at that time. Perhaps you support transit in hopes that it will make other people leave their cars at home, so that there’s more space on the road for yours. Or, perhaps you want an alternative to the congested freeway for your own daily commute and have looked at whether your transit system provides one.
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Notes
- 1.
Regardless of where the trip starts, a driver must be paid for an out-of-service trip in the reverse peak direction to return to the shift’s starting point. This can be either before or after the in-service trip.
- 2.
Because operating cost (especially for buses) is mostly labor, a big bus carrying a few people isn’t much more expensive to run than a small bus, on which the same people would be a full load. Small buses use less fuel, but this is a small part of the cost, so it’s never worthwhile to switch out a large bus for a small one to avoid running a big bus when demand is low, given the labor cost of driving the bus back to the base to exchange it.
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© 2012 Jarrett Walker
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Walker, J. (2012). Peak or All Day?. In: Human Transit. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-174-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-174-0_6
Publisher Name: Island Press, Washington, DC
Online ISBN: 978-1-61091-174-0
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