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Comment by telesilla | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for letting me relive nightmare memories of Grand Ave in Chicago! I always wondered, why couldn't the bus drivers be in communication and have the front bus just skip a couple of stops (where people are waiting) when they bunched, which was often even 3 buses!

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If nobody signals to get off, buses sometimes will skip if they're bunched. I've seen it in at least three cities before. I have no idea if it's policy or if the drivers on those routes juts took matters into their own hands.

I see bunched buses on the stop right outside my work basically every day. Sometimes four from one route and another three from another parallel route all within a ~5 minute span.

Mercer in Seattle is... not great for traffic.

Mercer traffic is pretty good outside of the times of day when it’s closed and used for parking.

Not stopping when nobody signals is the point of the signal right:).

edit: Well, I guess the bus could then ignore passengers on the tarmac wanting to get on.

That's another thing.

Right I mean not stopping when there's no signal and there are people at the stop waiting to get on.

Buses have to let people off, as well as on, no?

Buses don't stop at unoccupied bus-stops, unless someone dings the bell.

The faster bus skipping stops where people are waiting, so they can be picked up by the next bus does work; I've seen it in action.

Bunching happens most often with crowded buses and results in the front bus in a cluster becoming crowded. Crowded buses are most likely to have people getting off at every stop. The ones I take often have people ringing for every stop even when nearly empty.

Depends where. Suppose it's the evening rush hour, and the bus route is along a business district, headed toward a train station. The bus is basically picking people up at multiple locations and then everyone gets off at the station.

Which, as a patron who doesn't want to sit for an hour in the sun, is really not acceptable. The bus is not supposed to be in a race, they are supposed to make predictable stops along a predetermined route.

Most bus stops I have used in the US dont have covered shelters or enough space for passengers to wait outside of the elements. Usually this means sitting under the overhang of a nearby business. If the bus doesn't want to stop for whatever reason and blows by, it sucks.

Maybe a better future would be a public bus app or button at the stop that I can press to say I am waiting, but until that day, they should stop.

A better future is getting a car or hopping on a bike.

We're talking about bus bunching here. The bus is skipping your stop because there's an empty one right behind it.

This is great in theory, but not in practice. A bus in back sees the bus in front stop so it passes. However the bus in front might be full and only drops off one pasenger while more than one pasenger is waiting to board and are thus denied. Again, simple dismissal of the problem is ignorant of reality.

This is why I mentioned communication: surely there is a system that drivers could implement themselves with a code or something.

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