Interesting, how many passengers do you carry in a typical 8 hour midweek shift?
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Demand Responsive Transport
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Demand-responsive seems to suffer from some fundamental problems.
- Commonly uses about 15-passenger vehicles. Because they are required to make accessibility provision for wheelchair passengers etc that means they have ended up with quite large vehicles, tipping up to the size of the 29-seat Bedford OB coach that was my school bus in childhood. I became aware of this ever since I saw examples of the two standing side-by-side at a show. And yet the typical load seems to be maybe two or three passengers.
- If the service becomes in any way attractive to a load that in any way justifies this capacity, the door-to-door service becomes so convoluted that people get dissuaded from using it. Anyone who has experienced say an ambulance returning 10 outpatients from the local hospital (a real demand-responsive operation, with a dispatcher "optimising" the routing), and ending up taking 2 to 3 hours before the last one is dropped off just a few miles away, will understand this. So it can't be too successful. That would be say starting from a node like a rail station. In the reverse direction, picking up, it becomes impossible to give accurate pick-up times at remote locations.
- A perception by those both organising and observing the operation that two or three passengers is "good". This number of passengers would suit just being in a taxi for a fraction of the cost.
- The old bus service "justification" approach of only measuring loads at the key point, such as leaving the station, and not the considerable mileage run out in the remote area, with one or zero passengers. TfL has always done this on the macro scale for how many people commute by bus into inner London, drawing a wiggly cordon deliberately to catch the various routes just at their point of maximum load, ignoring the majority of mileage with nothing like that number on board.
Meanwhile, that PRT system I described above a while ago in Morgantown, USA, with individual 4-person automated cars on an infrastructure through the quite small town (ever heard of it?) which would suit the TGV, built and maintained at huge cost, had some system outages a while ago for maintenance. Whereupon they seemed to have no difficulty sourcing replacement buses to run a substitute operation, and nobody really found that an issue.
- Commonly uses about 15-passenger vehicles. Because they are required to make accessibility provision for wheelchair passengers etc that means they have ended up with quite large vehicles, tipping up to the size of the 29-seat Bedford OB coach that was my school bus in childhood. I became aware of this ever since I saw examples of the two standing side-by-side at a show. And yet the typical load seems to be maybe two or three passengers.
- If the service becomes in any way attractive to a load that in any way justifies this capacity, the door-to-door service becomes so convoluted that people get dissuaded from using it. Anyone who has experienced say an ambulance returning 10 outpatients from the local hospital (a real demand-responsive operation, with a dispatcher "optimising" the routing), and ending up taking 2 to 3 hours before the last one is dropped off just a few miles away, will understand this. So it can't be too successful. That would be say starting from a node like a rail station. In the reverse direction, picking up, it becomes impossible to give accurate pick-up times at remote locations.
- A perception by those both organising and observing the operation that two or three passengers is "good". This number of passengers would suit just being in a taxi for a fraction of the cost.
- The old bus service "justification" approach of only measuring loads at the key point, such as leaving the station, and not the considerable mileage run out in the remote area, with one or zero passengers. TfL has always done this on the macro scale for how many people commute by bus into inner London, drawing a wiggly cordon deliberately to catch the various routes just at their point of maximum load, ignoring the majority of mileage with nothing like that number on board.
Meanwhile, that PRT system I described above a while ago in Morgantown, USA, with individual 4-person automated cars on an infrastructure through the quite small town (ever heard of it?) which would suit the TGV, built and maintained at huge cost, had some system outages a while ago for maintenance. Whereupon they seemed to have no difficulty sourcing replacement buses to run a substitute operation, and nobody really found that an issue.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I genuinely think it has a niche of "local services for local people" in rural areas for providing a social-inclusion type service, where instead of running your shopping buses once a week from each of village A, B, C, D etc you offer DRT every day of the week so people can choose and book their preferred day and the bus does whatever route is necessary on that day. But no car owner will ever be attracted to that sort of service, it's purely for social inclusion, i.e. providing for otherwise-isolated rural non-drivers to go to the nearest town for a couple of hours for a supermarket shop and perhaps lunch out.
In German cities you do get the Anruf-Sammel-Taxi (Telephone group taxi, pretty much) concept, in which the last couple of runs of a timetabled bus service are operated using a taxi that you have to prebook because most days nobody uses those journeys, but they're useful to have "just in case" because without them as "insurance" people might not use the bus. The reason that works is that you just have a contract with a taxi firm to do it if necessary, so if it doesn't run it costs £0, very different to if you need dedicated drivers and vehicles for bus-based DRT. That also works.
Uber Pool might also have a role because it only seeks to match up two journeys. Another one that might would be, at a taxi rank, putting people together for similar destinations from that single point - that is (or was) done at Paddington in the morning rush.
Beyond that, if you've got the demand, put on a timetabled fixed-route bus service - it has proven itself over many years to be the most effective option, tech or no.
In German cities you do get the Anruf-Sammel-Taxi (Telephone group taxi, pretty much) concept, in which the last couple of runs of a timetabled bus service are operated using a taxi that you have to prebook because most days nobody uses those journeys, but they're useful to have "just in case" because without them as "insurance" people might not use the bus. The reason that works is that you just have a contract with a taxi firm to do it if necessary, so if it doesn't run it costs £0, very different to if you need dedicated drivers and vehicles for bus-based DRT. That also works.
Uber Pool might also have a role because it only seeks to match up two journeys. Another one that might would be, at a taxi rank, putting people together for similar destinations from that single point - that is (or was) done at Paddington in the morning rush.
Beyond that, if you've got the demand, put on a timetabled fixed-route bus service - it has proven itself over many years to be the most effective option, tech or no.
I think I have mentioned before that one possible advantage of DRT is that it provides actual usage data of when and what journeys people require, which will be helpful in compiling a timetable for a fixed route service.
Fabulous post.
I quite often use DRT it’s called a taxi!
Seriously, wouldn’t it be better and more flexible and cost effective if people in rural areas could buy a Taxi Card (similar to a railcard) that gave discounts off taxi fares, with the discount offered, say 33% paid for by the local council and the revenue gained from the sales of the taxi card. Most large taxi companies now have a booking app.
I am pretty certain that 100s of thousands of discounted taxi fares could be offered for the cost of providing a network of DRT mini coaches.
I would think that the problem with this concept is that there would be a perverse incentive for taxi firms to charge the highest fares possible ( a bit like bus companies with the ENCTS scheme) in order to get maximum re-imbursement, and for local councils to try and cap fares (or re-imbursement) to the lowest possible, resulting in taxis being reluctant to carry Taxi card holders if higher revenue traffic is on offer.
The law of unintended consequences would soon apply.
The taxi firm I use has an app which indicates the fare before you get in the cab and no cash changes hands, unless you decide to tip the driver.
Most taxi firms have similar systems for NHS contracts etc so I don’t think it would be too difficult to implement for residents in rural areas.
Surely cheaper and more flexible than a fleet of dedicated mini coaches and hourly paid drivers, and could be offered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
I should imagine that there may be some issue with offering 24 hours per day, 7 days per week subsidised taxi fares to certain rural areas covered by this scheme, and not elsewhere in the local council area which may not have similar hours of public transport coverage?
It would certainly be more flexible, and initially cheaper, than dedicated mini coaches and hourly paid drivers, provided that it does not result in too much additional use, and the rate setting does not encourage perverse actions on the part of taxi firms. Whether it is desirable to encourage the gig economy in this way is another matter.
Maybe 24 hours is stretching it a bit, perhaps 0600-2359 though.
Which will help people (especially the young) in rural areas have better access to employment opportunities.
Wether we like or agree with the gig economy it is here to stay with Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo etc. But it could save the rate/tax payer thousands and provide a better service for the end user.
If all journeys are booked via an app or on line then there is a chance the transport providers may actually pay some tax! They will of course, be paying fuel duty.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
They would have to be fully accessible taxis, for inclusivity reasons as well as because a lot of people who use them can't use other forms of transport. But most operators in rural areas run normal cars because they are so much cheaper to buy and operate.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The thing is they wouldn't. There would need to be enough fully accessible taxis to ensure that someone needing one got one. But not everyone would need one.
GusB
Established Member
There are some councils which won't now issue a new hackney licence unless the vehicle is accessible. Aberdeen City was one such local authority; drivers on existing plates could continue to use standard saloon cars. This was a while back, so that policy may have changed since. A lot of drivers were switching over to Euro7 cabs anyway because of their ability to take more passengers - they're effectively a mini-minibus.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
For Hackney carriages yes, but I don't think the same applies to private hire, which is closer to what DRT is? Indeed, isn't this part of the great London taxi/Uber controversy?
GusB
Established Member
In some places they're more or less the same thing to all intents and purposes. Some cab firms have a mix of both. The only real difference is the ability for hackney drivers to pick up on the street and at ranks.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
So, relevantly to this thread, it seems Milton Keynes Council have gone forward with their plan, as reported on the Oxford-Chiltern Bus Page this week:
This is a much more swingeing set of cuts than I expected - most notably the loss of the 7 will result in a significant swathe of west MK having no fixed-route bus service at all, and also Woburn Sands I think going from 2 buses per hour to nothing at all to CMK (this was a planning gain service, to be fair, but still).
With the £3.50 fare (£7 return for a commuter and no season tickets, so a £5 increase on the cost of daily journeys for commuters) I think this is going to be a disaster and result in far more car and taxi journeys and indeed car purchases. It also isn't much use for commuting anyway, as...
ridewithvia.com
No way are people going to accept non-specific variance in journey time of that extent for a local journey which by car/taxi takes well under 10 minutes. I certainly won't. The local taxi firms allow a time to be booked - it is a bit woolly but they mostly deliver it - and indeed this (and price) were reasons Uber is not very well established here.
Don't try to get it to school, either, because:
So again kids in a fairly large area of MK previously served by routes 7 and 9 plus Woburn Sands lose a big chunk of their mobility. (The partial replacement the 4 provides to the 7 is just a short diversion via Shenley Church End, presumably to avoid the adverse publicity ceasing to serve Denbigh School entirely would bring - but not providing journeys any use to most of that school's catchment!)
I think this will be an abject failure, and do wonder if Via (nee ViaVan, I guess they realised that "van" is not a selling point in the UK!) have funded it to get an "in" on a particular town, which has allowed cash-strapped MK Council to withdraw most/all bus subsidies - but then it'll be quietly dropped when nobody uses it.
I must admit I was astonished to see it going this far - withdrawal of the routes noted for March is something I overall support as they were near-unused, but the removal of a half-hourly "mainstream" route (the 7) is quite something.
On the other hand - this is the first "big" experiment to prove or disprove its viability in a major town setting, rather than the rural "to market" type services where I feel it does have a niche.
This is a much more swingeing set of cuts than I expected - most notably the loss of the 7 will result in a significant swathe of west MK having no fixed-route bus service at all, and also Woburn Sands I think going from 2 buses per hour to nothing at all to CMK (this was a planning gain service, to be fair, but still).
With the £3.50 fare (£7 return for a commuter and no season tickets, so a £5 increase on the cost of daily journeys for commuters) I think this is going to be a disaster and result in far more car and taxi journeys and indeed car purchases. It also isn't much use for commuting anyway, as...
MK Connect: Demand-responsive transport in Milton Keynes.
Via develops innovative solutions for on-demand and pre-scheduled transit, powered by the world’s most advanced technology.
ridewithvia.com
No way are people going to accept non-specific variance in journey time of that extent for a local journey which by car/taxi takes well under 10 minutes. I certainly won't. The local taxi firms allow a time to be booked - it is a bit woolly but they mostly deliver it - and indeed this (and price) were reasons Uber is not very well established here.
Don't try to get it to school, either, because:
So again kids in a fairly large area of MK previously served by routes 7 and 9 plus Woburn Sands lose a big chunk of their mobility. (The partial replacement the 4 provides to the 7 is just a short diversion via Shenley Church End, presumably to avoid the adverse publicity ceasing to serve Denbigh School entirely would bring - but not providing journeys any use to most of that school's catchment!)
I think this will be an abject failure, and do wonder if Via (nee ViaVan, I guess they realised that "van" is not a selling point in the UK!) have funded it to get an "in" on a particular town, which has allowed cash-strapped MK Council to withdraw most/all bus subsidies - but then it'll be quietly dropped when nobody uses it.
I must admit I was astonished to see it going this far - withdrawal of the routes noted for March is something I overall support as they were near-unused, but the removal of a half-hourly "mainstream" route (the 7) is quite something.
On the other hand - this is the first "big" experiment to prove or disprove its viability in a major town setting, rather than the rural "to market" type services where I feel it does have a niche.
py_megapixel
Established Member
Do they really want a small-town North American style culture where kids travelling on their own is considered dangerous and scary, simply because there is no sensible way for them to do it? Because that's what they're heading for...
Imagine the outrage if Arriva Bus or Stagecoach decided to put on a blanket age limit of 14...
I think this is the plan, be seen to replace the normal buses ‘by something better’, which we all know isn’t, and then when it’s proven that virtually nobody uses the DRT they can quietly reduce it further, maybe to just 0900-1600 for OAPs and the disabled.So, relevantly to this thread, it seems Milton Keynes Council have gone forward with their plan, as reported on the Oxford-Chiltern Bus Page this week:
This is a much more swingeing set of cuts than I expected - most notably the loss of the 7 will result in a significant swathe of west MK having no fixed-route bus service at all, and also Woburn Sands I think going from 2 buses per hour to nothing at all to CMK (this was a planning gain service, to be fair, but still).
With the £3.50 fare (£7 return for a commuter and no season tickets, so a £5 increase on the cost of daily journeys for commuters) I think this is going to be a disaster and result in far more car and taxi journeys and indeed car purchases. It also isn't much use for commuting anyway, as...
MK Connect: Demand-responsive transport in Milton Keynes.
Via develops innovative solutions for on-demand and pre-scheduled transit, powered by the world’s most advanced technology.
No way are people going to accept non-specific variance in journey time of that extent for a local journey which by car/taxi takes well under 10 minutes. I certainly won't. The local taxi firms allow a time to be booked - it is a bit woolly but they mostly deliver it - and indeed this (and price) were reasons Uber is not very well established here.
Don't try to get it to school, either, because:
So again kids in a fairly large area of MK previously served by routes 7 and 9 plus Woburn Sands lose a big chunk of their mobility. (The partial replacement the 4 provides to the 7 is just a short diversion via Shenley Church End, presumably to avoid the adverse publicity ceasing to serve Denbigh School entirely would bring - but not providing journeys any use to most of that school's catchment!)
I think this will be an abject failure, and do wonder if Via (nee ViaVan, I guess they realised that "van" is not a selling point in the UK!) have funded it to get an "in" on a particular town, which has allowed cash-strapped MK Council to withdraw most/all bus subsidies - but then it'll be quietly dropped when nobody uses it.
I must admit I was astonished to see it going this far - withdrawal of the routes noted for March is something I overall support as they were near-unused, but the removal of a half-hourly "mainstream" route (the 7) is quite something.
On the other hand - this is the first "big" experiment to prove or disprove its viability in a major town setting, rather than the rural "to market" type services where I feel it does have a niche.
£Millions saved eventually!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It'll be interesting to see if route 7 returns commercially once COVID is done with, though. I do get the idea of DRT replacing the tertiary subsidised routes that barely anyone was using - those were a bit like the classic rural shopper's bus (though hourly). But the removal of a well-used and long-established (like, over 20 years in some form - it existed when I moved to MK in 2001, albeit with a slightly different route in places) half hourly "mainstream" route, albeit probably the quietest one (and I think part subsidised) was quite a surprise - and one that I think is going to get the Council and Arriva a lot of very bad publicity.
The 7 is my local route...I'll just walk a bit further and use the 4, not prat about with DRT. Though I will probably give it a go once and report back.
Edit: to clarify MK has a dedicated "classic dial a ride" type DRT service for those who can't use the mainstream bus service - MKCT, which was operated by ECT a while ago but is now operated in-house by the Council using vehicles hired from London Hire and booked by phone only, no app booking. So far as I know this is remaining separate.
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edwin_m
Veteran Member
This statement is totally meaningless, as an average of a range can't itself be a range. And as it doesn't define the maximum waiting time or indeed the transit time, I totally agree it's useless for anyone who has to be at a particular place at a particular time.
TheManOnThe172
Member
- Joined
- 1 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 435
I really feel for anyone in MK who worries that their upcoming move to DRT will be bad news.
For a given level of subsidy, replacing timetabled services with DRT generally seems to promise a better quality of service for a smaller number of people.
In normal times, any serious capacity problems from the move to DRT would be obvious at once - the local paper or regional TV would be full of tales of woe and the local authority might feel obliged to respond with modifications or promises of future improvement.
But with ridership currently depressed, an inadequately-resourced service starting now won't show its shortcomings at once. Nor suddenly.
Instead, it may be many months into the new operation before demand starts to test the capacity in a serious way. And that will be a slow deterioration of service, which is difficult to turn into a news story at all, let alone one that might stir up any political will to solve.
The MK publicity seems to give no indication of how many vehicles they are deploying, which will make it difficult to spot, let alone campaign against, any future cut in the service.
With a scheduled bus service, comparing old and new timetables will instantly highlight service reductions. But the effect of cuts to DRT funding is different - there is no "smoking gun" of a 10.15 departure that has disappeared. With DRT, less funding means fewer vehicles - and this will reduce the odds that you get to make the journey you want. But spotting a reduction in unpublished odds is notoriously difficult (which is why the law intervenes in gambling, and either limits the odds or requires the publication of the odds).
I have long been concerned that moving to DRT is seldom just about improving bangs-per-buck. Often, I fear, it will be motivated by the chance to cut spending (now, and in future) with much less political fallout than would result from cuts to a timetabled service.
For a given level of subsidy, replacing timetabled services with DRT generally seems to promise a better quality of service for a smaller number of people.
In normal times, any serious capacity problems from the move to DRT would be obvious at once - the local paper or regional TV would be full of tales of woe and the local authority might feel obliged to respond with modifications or promises of future improvement.
But with ridership currently depressed, an inadequately-resourced service starting now won't show its shortcomings at once. Nor suddenly.
Instead, it may be many months into the new operation before demand starts to test the capacity in a serious way. And that will be a slow deterioration of service, which is difficult to turn into a news story at all, let alone one that might stir up any political will to solve.
The MK publicity seems to give no indication of how many vehicles they are deploying, which will make it difficult to spot, let alone campaign against, any future cut in the service.
With a scheduled bus service, comparing old and new timetables will instantly highlight service reductions. But the effect of cuts to DRT funding is different - there is no "smoking gun" of a 10.15 departure that has disappeared. With DRT, less funding means fewer vehicles - and this will reduce the odds that you get to make the journey you want. But spotting a reduction in unpublished odds is notoriously difficult (which is why the law intervenes in gambling, and either limits the odds or requires the publication of the odds).
I have long been concerned that moving to DRT is seldom just about improving bangs-per-buck. Often, I fear, it will be motivated by the chance to cut spending (now, and in future) with much less political fallout than would result from cuts to a timetabled service.
gordonthemoron
Established Member
I've seen an Arriva liveried minbus about in MK recently, is that DRT or is it for ferrying Arriva drivers around? I think I've mainly seen it on V6
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's a staff bus (I think came from the failed Hemel Hempstead minibus idea), the DRT is Via(Van), not Arriva.
Spot on!
Of course the politicians can spin it that it is an improvement for elderly and disabled people as presumably you can get on nearer to your front door and be dropped off closer to your destination, and for those groups most journeys will still be free.
The reality is, of course, that journeys will have to be planned in advance and availability may be limited for a few hours after 0930 with all the free travellers, most of which wouldn’t dream of paying to travel before 0930!
TheManOnThe172
Member
- Joined
- 1 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 435
News today of another DRT scheme - this time as part of a "Future Mobility Showcase" research project at the University Of Warwick. It looks to be a Via "Bus on Demand" system.
Academics are always supposed to define what their experiment is meant to prove/disprove - and they are meant to define in advance what would constitute success or failure. I can't find anything about this scheme. Has anyone seen any such information?
On the surface it would seem just like so many other DRT schemes. And so destined to fail (once it has burned through its initial funding) for the same reasons.
The DRT will not be the prime service for the University of Warwick: there will clearly still need to be scheduled high-capacity vehicles between the campus and the centre of Coventry.
By definition, for any journey where DRT is going to offer a useful improvement, then the failure to get a DRT booking will mean a big time penalty. Some DRT systems offer the option to book well ahead and get a promise of a trip. But not this one, as far as I can tell - other “Bus on Demand” implementations appear to to work only in “immediate” mode, and the publicity makes no mention of advance bookings. If this is indeed an immediate-mode system, then it will only be at the last minute when you discover that DRT can’t transport you.
The Warwick scheme has thought of this: “If an on-demand bus journey cannot be arranged, the app will provide details of an alternative method of public transport, including cost, to help the user make a journey.”
The first time anyone get the "computer says No" response to their booking attempt, they will realise how useless this "help" is. “Sorry we can’t take your booking to travel in the next 45 minutes to catch that train for which you have a fixed-itinerary ticket. You could have left home 20 minutes ago to catch a bus XX from YYY, or you could try your luck getting a taxi at no notice.”
And after DRT has failed them once, anyone thinking of using DRT for anything where time really matters will have to aim to arrive 45-60 minutes early, so that they have time for a “Plan B” journey if DRT says “no”. The less mobile may have to put up with this if there is no viable alternative. For those able to walk a decent distance, the uncertainty will make DRT less attractive than making the best of the scheduled services available if arrival time is at all important.
Academics are always supposed to define what their experiment is meant to prove/disprove - and they are meant to define in advance what would constitute success or failure. I can't find anything about this scheme. Has anyone seen any such information?
On the surface it would seem just like so many other DRT schemes. And so destined to fail (once it has burned through its initial funding) for the same reasons.
The DRT will not be the prime service for the University of Warwick: there will clearly still need to be scheduled high-capacity vehicles between the campus and the centre of Coventry.
By definition, for any journey where DRT is going to offer a useful improvement, then the failure to get a DRT booking will mean a big time penalty. Some DRT systems offer the option to book well ahead and get a promise of a trip. But not this one, as far as I can tell - other “Bus on Demand” implementations appear to to work only in “immediate” mode, and the publicity makes no mention of advance bookings. If this is indeed an immediate-mode system, then it will only be at the last minute when you discover that DRT can’t transport you.
The Warwick scheme has thought of this: “If an on-demand bus journey cannot be arranged, the app will provide details of an alternative method of public transport, including cost, to help the user make a journey.”
The first time anyone get the "computer says No" response to their booking attempt, they will realise how useless this "help" is. “Sorry we can’t take your booking to travel in the next 45 minutes to catch that train for which you have a fixed-itinerary ticket. You could have left home 20 minutes ago to catch a bus XX from YYY, or you could try your luck getting a taxi at no notice.”
And after DRT has failed them once, anyone thinking of using DRT for anything where time really matters will have to aim to arrive 45-60 minutes early, so that they have time for a “Plan B” journey if DRT says “no”. The less mobile may have to put up with this if there is no viable alternative. For those able to walk a decent distance, the uncertainty will make DRT less attractive than making the best of the scheduled services available if arrival time is at all important.
I was as mystified as you as to why this was needed. UoWarwick is well served by buses (not like when I was there), however I did find this:
From this it seems that the intention is to cover less accessible parts of the area from the University (so not Coventry). Students from Warwick have traditionally looked to live in Warwickshire as well as Coventry and, although Leamington town centre has a decent bus service from the University, its outer housing estates haven't. If that is the aim, then it seems to be a decent idea, particularly if it is replacing a fixed (but infrequent) service where demand is unpredictable (a student going in for a 9 o'clock lecture on a Monday, may be staying in bed until after noon on a Tuesday). Hopefully, the Plan B is supposed to be Doomsday Scenario because otherwise the scheme will sink overnight (I wouldn't be depending on it to get to my Finals). I am no fan of DRT, but it does seem worth trying out with patrons who will be fine with the process.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think there is a role for something like it here - but I'm not sure "bus on demand" Uber-style is the way, as the fundamental problem with it is that most journeys are time-critical (i.e. you need to get to work, school, the station or whatever for a specific time), and simple "bus on demand" systems by definition cannot offer that.
I need to find the time to put it together, but I'm going to, at some point, put together a closer, more detailed analysis of the MK scheme and how it could actually be made to work, which I'll thrash out on here a bit then submit to MK Council for them to ignore, but there will also be challenges applying to those ideas. Will probably post it at the weekend.
I need to find the time to put it together, but I'm going to, at some point, put together a closer, more detailed analysis of the MK scheme and how it could actually be made to work, which I'll thrash out on here a bit then submit to MK Council for them to ignore, but there will also be challenges applying to those ideas. Will probably post it at the weekend.
TheManOnThe172
Member
- Joined
- 1 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 435
If DRT spreads as I fear, then we are looking at a world where if you don't have use of a car, the ability to travel will for many people become a lottery-style gamble - "it could be you" who gets a DRT ride. Does "Computer Say Yes" when you come to request an immediate ride, or are you one of the first to get through when a book-ahead service opens reservations?
Do any of the Bus-On-Demand apps offer documentation that would allow the user to prove a failed attempt to book a ride? Should this be required as part of the service specification?
And how far will organisations accept even a documented DRT failure as a reasonable excuse? Will a Job Centre accept a failed attempt to get a DRT ride as a reasonable excuse for being late for an appointment? Will a hospital accept DRT failure as a reason for failing to attend an outpatient appointment, or will you risk having your referral cancelleed? What if you missed the previous appointment because you were unlucky on DRT on that occasion too?
Do any of the Bus-On-Demand apps offer documentation that would allow the user to prove a failed attempt to book a ride? Should this be required as part of the service specification?
And how far will organisations accept even a documented DRT failure as a reasonable excuse? Will a Job Centre accept a failed attempt to get a DRT ride as a reasonable excuse for being late for an appointment? Will a hospital accept DRT failure as a reason for failing to attend an outpatient appointment, or will you risk having your referral cancelleed? What if you missed the previous appointment because you were unlucky on DRT on that occasion too?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I'm going to go into this in some detail in the analysis I've referred to above that I'm probably going to write at the weekend, but what you tend to find is that the flexibility on the vast majority of local journeys is on the departure time from home/arrival time back home, not on the arrival and departure time at the destination. OK, taxis don't really offer that either, but the thing about a taxi is that provided you don't live in the middle of nowhere you can tend to get one without too much difficulty, and private hire typically takes advance bookings, and you usually know how long the direct journey is likely to take.
Thus, while there's a role for "take me to X as soon as is feasible" - going to the supermarket is one example of a journey that's totally time-flexible - I think DRT works better with a fixed point and time. Classic rural "market town bus" DRT does that.
So what you're probably looking at is identifying the key destinations in the town - a business park, a hospital, the central bus station, whatever - and "centring" service on those, so you might plan that you're going to have a vehicle from West MK, for example, arrive at MK Hospital on the hour, each hour, but that what that vehicle does in terms of where it goes, picking up and dropping off along the way, is the thing that varies on demand. You thus know which one to book to get to your appointment (the flex being in what time you're picked up for it), and for going back it can be a little more "walk-up", with drivers able to take a booking if the computer says they have the space. Having space, of course, would not only be dictated by the number of seats, but also by the route being feasible to get back to the hospital again on time for appointments and for the next run.
For commuter services, where it's largely the same people every day, you might as well just have the vehicles do fixed routes - but they only need to do that about 7-9am, at other times demand-responsive may work better.
But the biggest question is probably this - given that DRT operates using smaller vehicles, typically no more than 16 passenger seats but often far fewer (the MK vehicles are I think 6 passengers) - is this, in an urban setting, actually going to save any money at all over a full-sized single decker doing a circuit around town once an hour? I strongly suspect it won't, because staff are a very significant part of the cost of transport operation, and that the only reason this is cheaper for MK Council is perhaps that Via and its investors want more successful case studies to shout about to help grow their business, and are taking a substantial loss leader on the chin to be able to do that.
Also, is DRT without a fixed point eligible for registration and therefore BSOG? I didn't think it was (i.e. it would have to operate under private hire "taxi" legislation), so your fuel is going to cost more too unless you go electric (the MK vehicles appear to be diesel).
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edwin_m
Veteran Member
That's entirely sensible. But with only immediate booking as proposed, the bus might actually have started picking up at the far end of its "route" when other requests come in from places it's about to pass. Making those pickups means arrival at destination later than planned. I think for it to work the minimum notice period for booking would have to be a bit more than the longest journey time including the maximum number of intermediate pickups.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think the absence of advance booking from the MK system is a major problem. If you know you're going to need to use the "bus" to get to your hospital appointment, there's no reason you'd not want to book it to ensure you get that time potentially as soon as you receive the appointment letter. Indeed, you could go further than that and have the DRT booked as part of arranging the appointment via the NHS Choose and Book system, if your local hospital offers that (MK doesn't).
And if you commute to work on it, why wouldn't you block book at least your morning times in one go, potentially as much as a month ahead?
Even Uber eventually acknowledged that advance booking is a key part of private hire "taxi" operation and added it, having crowed for years about not needing it.
(I actually suspect a lot of bus commuters in MK won't be using it at all - I'd be surprised if there weren't conversations at bus stops on the routes that will be ending and among colleagues about arranging prebooked taxi shares, which if you fill the taxi will actually be considerably cheaper in many cases - in essence arranging their own private timetabled bus service...)
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