Comments on: Waiting for a bus that isn’t coming

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:48:55 +0000

Best point on here is that this kind of “situation normal all f-ed up” service from the MTA has embittered its passengers and made them unbelieving and unsupportive.

Remember that Mike Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan included more buses, more frequencies, and new routes all over the city, but heavy on the underserved outer boros. Nobody believed it. Nobody.

They might have believed Mayor Bloomberg. Recently when he and Commish Sadik-Khan said they were going to close Times Square and reform traffic on Broadway, the public seemed ready to let them try it.

But on the promised far-flung benefits from the funds raised by the congestion pricing plan, well no, the MTA, its employees, and its unions were involved, and so all credibility was gone.

Now we have a dog-and-pony show going around to promote BRT-type enhanced bus service. Let the City handle it and the plan will get a fair hearing. Put the MTA in front of the proposals and get a 9 million ‘no confidence’ vote.

By: MichaelB

MichaelB — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:24:35 +0000

The tracking system is only really useful if the scheduled service is unreliable to begin with. Make adjustments so that the buses run according to the schedule, and its superfluous. It’s fundamentally a management problem, not a technology problem.

By: Benjamin Kabak

Benjamin Kabak — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:29:30 +0000

Last time I ran the MetroCard Challenge, I swiped 73 times in 30 days. That’s less than 2.5 rides per day for a cost of $1.11 per ride. Under the new fare, that would cost me $1.20.

$1.62 would be 54 rides or less than two per day. Without looking at usage patterns, that seems low to me.

Anyway, forget London. It’s low in comparison to the $1.70 it costs to ride the T.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:25:00 +0000

The per-ride fare of a person who uses an unlimited monthly the average number of times will be $1.62. A moderate to heavy user, who swipes twice per day, will pay $1.48. This is still low by the standards of London, but high by those of most other cities, including Paris, Madrid, Seoul, and for short trips even Tokyo.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:24:18 +0000

P.S.

After living in San Francisco for 2 years, I can second the above sentiment that the GPS based tracking system (at least in SF) is worthless.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:23:30 +0000

The drivers with the highest ratings should get the bigger salary raises and bonuses at the end of their terms and the drivers with the worst ratings should be fired and replaced.

^ You might not see the service gains you’d expect. With incentives this strong for bus operators to provide on time service, what reason do they have not to blow by stops with people waiting that nobody on the bus had called a stop for? If it’s their job/money on the line, I think many people would do a lot to improve their performance..

By: Ariel

Ariel — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:26:52 +0000

Let me start off by saying that Ben, this is one of the best posts you’ve written so far. It nicely portrays the pain and frustration New Yorkers regularly go through because of the MTA and explains why they are so bitter when discussing topics like the MTA bailout plan.

Having GPA tracking devices and arrival boards would go along way in improving customer service. But, like theloosh and Jeffery W. Baker explained above, those devices cannot be fully trusted and do not guarantee better arrival times.

I think a good incentive to improve arrival times with new technology is to make bus driver salary raises and bonuses merit-based. Each bus should also display the anticipated arrival time to the bus driver. The better the bus driver is at consistently meeting the anticipated arrival time, the better his rating is.

The drivers with the highest ratings should get the bigger salary raises and bonuses at the end of their terms and the drivers with the worst ratings should be fired and replaced. Ratings system should also be applied to the bus dispatchers and anyone else involved with the bus arrival times.

With a system like this in place, I will guarantee you we would see much better service and arrival times than what we get now.

By: A-W

A-W — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:32:38 +0000

Sadly Ben, you are right about most riders not complaining because they accept these scheduling screw-ups (my point). I’d be shocked if anyone stranded on that day wrote to the MTA, or even called to complain. I know I’m guilty of that sometimes.And I agree with you about the fare. They should be higher, and I think people would object less if the MTA could deliver better service with that higher fare.

By: Scott E

Scott E — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:10:41 +0000

Remember not so long ago when these looming service cuts were on the table? MTA said that the personnel downsizing would happen through “attrition” – so if a bus driver left his or her job, no new driver would be hired as a replacement. Rather, drivers from cancelled routes would get shuffled to fill those slots. This led to a shortage of drivers. Now that the threatened routes were not cut, they’ve got a backlog of positions to fill – undoubtedly a long, administrative process.

So you can blame the dispatchers, blame traffic, blame lack of technology, or whoever/whatever else, and you’d be partially right. But I think, in this case, the politicians in Albany deserve some of that responsibility as well.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:03:22 +0000

Even if all those people knew the bus would take 50 minutes to show up, isn’t the real problem that the bus took 50 minutes? No amount of double parked cars or emergency detours could create that kind of delay. There had to have been a mechanical or bus driver problem.