Is the Bus Still Running?
How wait times at the station impact how we think about transit
So I’m back in the United States. And that means I’m back on American transit infrastructure.
I’ve been in Boston and New York and I’ve been riding the buses and trains to get around (as one does) and I’ve noticed one major difference between the systems in these cities and Paris: the wait for trains in Paris is much shorter. In Paris, no matter the time of day that I was riding, there was less than a 10 minute wait for a train. And usually the wait for the train was less than 3 minutes. (If you are someone that does not usually use transit… this is like SO SHORT).
While of course there isn’t really that much of a difference between a 5 minute wait and a 15 minute wait in the grand scheme of things, they feel wildly different when you’re waiting on the platform (and drastically affect your emotional state). When I get to the train or bus stop and see how long I need to wait, I usually think about the wait times in these terms:
Less than 5 minutes: perfect timing, I’m a god
5 - 10 minutes: we’re vibing
10 - 15 minutes: annoyed, but just roll my eyes and pull out my phone
15+ minutes: meltdown status 🤯
And this makes sense in context: if you’re getting on the subway or the bus, then you’re trying to get somewhere. And most of us try and get places on time. So the time you spend waiting for the train on the platform is one of the variables that determines how long that trip will take. When you have to wait for 5 minutes on the platform, it’s really not a big deal. Even if you were planning your trip so you would arrive exactly on time, then you would be at most 5 minutes late. And there are very few things in this life that you can’t be 5 minutes late for. But when you have to wait more than 15 minutes, that’s a different story. Now we’re in missed dinner reservation/missed flight/late for work territory. And this kind of lateness can really screw up people’s lives.
When you’re at risk of spending a long time at the platform, it means that you have to start planning your trips (and life) around when the train is going to show up, rather than just expecting it to be there when you get to the station. In this way, wait time expectations also impact how we interact with transit services. And different models work better in different places. For example, subways are usually “just show up” services and regional rail lines are “plan ahead” services. (Buses can go either way depending on where you are…)
At the end of the day, “just show up” services enable a mobile urban lifestyle that is competitive with more independent transportation methods (like cars). You can just leave whenever you want, you can expect to get where you’re going with limited variability, and you can add transfers to your trip without drastically increasing the trip time. This is why many people who live in urban centers without cars still have lots of independence and flexibility for local trips.
Unfortunately, we can’t expect short wait times for all transportation services.
When we are talking about wait times for transit services, what we are really talking about is how close together we run buses and trains. Do they run every 3 minutes? Every 10 minutes? Every 30 minutes? This concept is called frequency, and it’s something that transit agencies think about a lot. But the problem with improving frequency is that it can be really expensive. To go from 20 minutes to 10 minutes effectively means doubling the number of trains (and the number of train operators!) on a line. And to go to 5 minutes means doubling them again. Are riders (and taxpayers) willing to pay for that?
Furthermore, frequency is important, but it’s only one of many variables that affect trip times. It’s great if service is frequent, but there are many other things that riders consider when planning their trips:
Consistency (does the train come when it says it’s gonna come?)
Network Coverage (how far can the train take you?)
Number of Transfers
Comfort
To be clear, the high frequency of trains at peak and off-peak hours in Paris was one of the things that impressed me most about their system, and made the system significantly easier to use than the metros in New York and Boston. I think it’s symbolic of the investment and prioritization of transit in the Paris region, and I think that urban subway and bus networks should be prioritizing frequency in order to improve rider experience and compete against private transportation options. However, agencies have many demands on their resources, and frequency is just one of many priorities.
In any case, frequency is interesting to consider, and I encourage you to think about the transit services in your area: what kind of frequency do they have? Is that easy information to find out? Do you think it could be improved? For which services and at which times? If frequency is not very high, what are the competing priorities in your system?
City Speak #13
Bennett Capozzi
Side note: It’s not something that regular folks think about too often with regards to transit, but frequency is an essential measure of a system’s level of service. In my opinion, one of the reasons that we don’t think about frequency very often is because it is a very difficult concept to represent graphically. Usually transit maps don’t show frequency, and don’t get me started on timetables… There are some interesting ways to map frequency out there, and I think phone app trip planners (Google Maps, Transit, CityMapper) are the pretty good at showing this concept to riders. A dream project for me is to design a transit map that can show frequency effectively. If anyone has an ideas about this (especially designer friends), please reply with your thoughts!
Here are some bus maps for reference… can anyone figure out what the heck is going on here?
