What about a combination of big busses and these baby busses? Use the big busses on the frequency corridor and then baby busses in the surrounding areas off the long frequency route as a way to shuttle people to and from the frequency route.
I think this solves the "low density suburbia" problem. Have a mini bus going around a low density neighborhood that operates on a schedule that aligns with dropping off passengers onto higher density bus or train routes.
I think baby busses could be used for low density suburban areas, I would say below 4000 people per square mile. And then use big buses in the city where it is more dense. But just because we could be using the baby buses for low density suburban areas, I personally think we should work towards upcoming suburban areas so that they can be more dense, part of that would be illegalizing cul de sacs, making apartments legal to build in more places and allowing for smaller lots. also when they do allow for apartments, don’t just say “oh you can have a triplex, but it will have to be the same size as a single family home” allow for those apartments, condos, duplexes triplexes and other forms of housing to be bigger than single family homes, especially be much bigger when it comes to apartments or condos. And also make the suburbs more walkable, with more amenities, sidewalks and every street and grocery store, restaurants and other amenities shouldn’t be separated from housing. Also I would like these baby busses to run on schedules, just like regular buses do and have direct routes. I don’t want it to be like ride share, where you call for a ride and wait and the bus and it goes out of its way to serve people.
@@tissuepaper9962 Yea, sadly companies were forced to get rid of them all, when consumers started becoming so much more budget conscious than they used to be. Every time you bought a hotel room at a hotel without a door man because it was 5 dollars cheaper, you were voting for no more door man. If everyone were to have paid that 5 dollars more to stay at a hotel room at a hotel with door men, they would never have gone away.
@@chickennoodle6620 places don't allow you to do that; which I mean, it's not exactly safe if there are cars so I kind of understand it, but it would be nice to not be required to have a car to use. Hopefully with a wider adoption of things like this, alternatives will start to become more prominent
@@TS_Mind_Swept yeah I’ve only had it work exactly once. Every other time they were like “sorry, policy” even in the middle of the night with no cars around. Though now online ordering is a thing, I did find a workaround where you did the remote order and declared you’d pick it up in the drive thru 😅 then their policy apparently let it through, because I wasn’t placing an order at the window.
Services like these are very popular in rural regions in Germany, where normal bus service runs only once an hour or even less. The only problem is the cost, you usualy need additional funding as these never replace bus lines.
😂 Gee! The last time I used the bus system here in the US, the buses only ran every hour in a small city! I can't imagine having a service that would compete with Germany's!
Yep. Here in Manila, buses that can accommodate up to 70-80 people only travel among major transit routes. Jeepneys can accommodate only up to 20-25, but since they are smaller, they can navigate through narrower streets and usually arrive every 5-10 minutes. Also, most of the buses and jeepneys here are owned by private companies or cooperatives. They have to apply for a government franchise to be able to operate them.
No they are not. There are no busses in Germany that would be considered “micro mobility” or that provide door to door service. As we already know from the video, multiple countries in Europe use it as a lower capacity fixed route bus
I work as a bus driver, and I remember how challenging it was for me to get my CDL. It was about two months after I hired before I actually started driving for my agency. I understand that’s a steep learning curve for new employees, and it’s also costly for agencies as well. The problem I see with having non-CDL drivers is that a lot of them are really unsafe drivers. It’s one thing for people to be driving unsafe and crazy in their own car, it’s another when they have passengers on board that the driver and the agency are now responsible for. I would sincerely hope that any agency that plans to implement this solution at the very least gives every driver coming in driver training and refresher courses, even if it’s not to the level of a full CDL class.
They could do what a lot of companies do for non cdl drivers. GPS tracking for speed, acceleration, and deceleration. And then maybe other things like cameras in the bus, so they can force their drivers to drive safely or fire them if they don't.
I guess the physical aspect of the bus wouldn't be much different than an amazon van. Both vehicles appear to be similar in size. But you do have a point, the bus drivers would being transporting people and not just packages.
Over here in britain freight and passenger vehicles are separate, being able to drive a 7.5 ton van doesn't allow you to drive a 16 seat bus with passengers despite them being well the same chassis.
In Hong Kong we have minibuses that runs fixed routes but can skip stops/ take a shorter path when there's few/ full passengers on board. It also travels much faster than a bus (100kmph vs 80kmph) and can drive through village roads!
Moreover, minibuses in HK, unlike regular buses, can stop anywhere as long as there are no stopping restrictions on the route (but you need to notify the driver ahead)
A couple points 1. Frequency and speed are not actually tradeoffs, but complimentary. Raising the average speed of a bus means the bus can get to the end of its route and turn around faster. If you have 2 buses and it takes half an hour to drive the route, you can run a bus every half hour. If you can cut that time in half and make the route take 15 minutes, then you end up with twice as many trips and your stops get served every 15 minutes. 2. You mentioned that you think demand response transit would get more efficient as it gets used more, but unfortunately that's not true. Demand makes the efficiency of demand response transit fall by increasing either travel times or wait times, because you either have to drive back and forth a lot or use an inefficient route to go pick people up. Demand response is useful for obtaining 100% coverage with a network or for times when you have very low patronage, but it can't substitute fixed-route transit during busy times or in big dense cities.
What he means is getting from one end to another may take two hours, but if you get rid of half the stops it could be done in 1 hour. You are completely right with your second point. Uber is a great example, wait times go up as demand increases, and now your city is full of empty ubers, and the price skyrockets.
"Demand makes the efficiency of demand response transit fall" Whereas for trains or well done BRT, high demand is nearly free until really extreme cases (like squeezing people onto old Tokyo trains.) The train/bus is stopping anyway, and pre-paid passengers exchange quickly at all doors. Conventional bus suffers more (make more stops, wait for people to pay their fares) but can still cope a lot better than a demand-bus that has to run around increasingly frantically.
These have been common in Korea for a very long time now, they're called "maeul buses" and generally run rural and suburban routes, connecting them to train stations. A typical bus make and model would be a Hyundai County. Super convenient. I always wondered why America insists on giant buses or no buses at all.
It'd be useful if the developments are more TOD oriented, as it is, it's way too car-centric to be much good use. It would be more useful if the suburb's development is a mini nucleus of the larger town, at least it would be more sensible to implement this on a larger scale.
I'm assuming probably because of road worthiness or certain crash guarantees. But I agree. Growing up in Russia you'd have small buses or vans that would connect you from the local bus/metro/light rail hub to your apartment block or neighborhood. Routes could be as short as a couple miles and frequency would be very high all run with small passenger vans or 15-20 person capacity cab overs.
"why America insists on giant buses or no buses at all." We don't entirely. I've seen many fixed-route buses that are at least smaller than the typical ones, though still bigger than these. There's like the 'standard' bus that could have 50 seats and has maybe 40, smaller 25-30 seat buses, articulated buses with 50% more length. But given labor costs, I'd guess that buying really small buses just doesn't save that much overall, while the bigger bus gives you reserve capacity for expansion, and also peak periods. A transit agency has to plan for rush hour, not average ridership. And there are probably standardization savings from having all the same kind of bus, rather than a mix of big and small.
OMG now I know why the SMRT is so familiar. It's the Homer Simpson gag when he burned his high school diploma. "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T I mean S-M-A-R-T!"
I am an American living in Moldova currently. They have a similar system called rutieras. They drive through towns and connect towns together. There is a central hub in the capital, and it spiders out from there. It has it's quirks, but with decent roads I can see this being a good idea.
Unfortunately those also stop services pretty early so it's not practical to celebrate ziua Vinului then take rutiera home. But have you noticed how much better the street lights work? Rob should do a segment about that!
There are Sprinter-based buses used on low-volume bus routes everywhere in the Netherlands. Some carry only 8 passengers and can be driven with a regular licence. Some carry 12-15 people and need a CDL. They are used in the evenings and on sundays, or on rural routes that never see a busload worth of passengers even at peak hours. Unlike the big city buses, I haven't yet seen electric mini buses here.
@@erkinalp you get those with low floors too and swing-out doors too. And a central path running front to back. These are the bigger kind of mini bus that require a bus drivers license.
Our small farm town had 3 of these that you would just call and ask for a ride (couldn't justify full busses for 14,000 people (yes shut up that's small by California standards)). During peek times you might be waiting 30-45 minutes so most kids just rode bikes, but for those who couldn't it was an amazing resource.
1) You want a mix of sizes; minivans up to buses; 2) A cutaway that lasts 7 years is a better plan that some wierd one-off thing that is more expensive and no one can work on. 3) The issue with finding bus drivers is the lack of accident free drivers 4) If you have an uber-like app why not run it anyway and use the app to figure out the most efficient method for transit for each rider based on their need? 5) Just run the busses down the main corrode and just use the uber-like app for non-dense routes. 6) If you're using that app why not run it like uber-share?
it's just the beginning. it has things cutaways don't. smoother ride and more convenient entry. if it can get people use public transport again. i think it would be worth the extra effort. too many idiots behind the wheel these days
YOU'RE IN MY CITY!!! I work at Allan Hancock College and we've been told that these buses will help out with a route from the depot to AHC (even though it's down the street from the depot / 5 min walk) but I could see this helping many students who take night classes. Thanks for another great video Rob and hope Santa Maria treated you well! :)
Generally found in UK with smaller buses costs (inc cheaper drivers) up 130percent, mileage up 200percent , passengers up 150percent , profits up about 17percent. (back in the 1980s) they didnt really take passengers away from most big buses as it was more additional passengers to the existing services that wouldnt have travelled/gone by car.
Seems like it might even be good for smaller areas which dont really have a need for the larger buses but still want to get started in public transit with a good solution.
A similar bus has been running in my town for quite some time. The only difference is that it uses natural gas as fuel instead of batteries. It serves areas in the middle of the city where normal buses don't go (mostly denser housing with narrow streets).
Here in the UK where I lived twenty years ago they already had these. They were basically a Ford Transit in bus form, except not specifically a Ford Transit, but rather a purpose built and had, well, less then ten seats and so was covered by normal car licence. They'rre called... mini-busses.
Yeah these have actually been around for like a hundred years (it's no different than a large van). In typical California fashion, they think they've invented it.
They're called a mini-bus in Hong Kong as well and rather ubiquitous. If you're going to the far side of the island it might actually be your only public transport option.
Though they aren't necessarily covered by normal car licences, you still need to get a PSV/PCV licence on top of your car licence if you are driving it "for hire or reward" i.e. you're being paid to do it. To be fair, the UK licencing system is probably a bit bloated and inefficient compared to some other countries, there are quite a lot of different licences and it can be rather confusing to work out exactly what you need as there are detailed restrictions, some of which depend on *when* you got your licence (generally the later you got it the more restrictions you have).
@@steemlenn8797 Some minibuses do have wheelchair lifts using the rear doors, but you do have to fold some of the seats away (or remove them) to get a wheelchair on. They are much slower than a ramp though, so tend to only be used for charter services.
tiny busses like these is pretty much how the relatively small town of 12k close to where I grew up (Switzerland) started out their bus network to the neighbouring villages and towns. in the meantime, the small busses don't provide enough capacity anymore and have been upgraded. I wish they would have used the small busses to establish new lines though. one of them is still in operation a bit further east that i know of.
I want these everywhere!! honestly, seeing them want to make them available for on-call afterhours trips is SO heartening as someone who hates driving and never wants to own a car, yet is also a night owl. I’ve even missed out on cool jobs before due to the hours not being public transit-friendly :/
Not being accessible to the large pool of car less applicants is why those "cool jobs" pay more. This on call bus will have similar dynamics to paratransit: long wait times, limited service area, and very expensive subsidies. Maybe fine if all the coworkers are also unreliable, but if it pays well enough for people to own cars then management might have higher standards for attendance. The solution for car less commuting in off-hours and low density areas is safe bike lanes.
In Germany it's pretty common that Sprinter Van type of vehicles are used as mini busses. While you can drive a sprinter van with only a B-Class license, to transport passengers you still need a license for that (Personenbeförderungsschein). I like the bike racks these in the video have though. We don't have that, unfortunately. And it's not a bad design either...
We used to have a “dial-a-bus” where you’d call and they’d pick you up, similar to a taxi, but the bus would be picking up others so you wouldn’t be taken directly to your destination. Also often used getting off the train after rush hour, just heading home.
@@ayoutubechannelname Not necessarily a legitimate complaint. Buses could be full at rush hour, and "empty" at other times, but it wouldn't make sense to be buying additional small buses just to avoid the mid-day "emptiness". Also, the people complaining about 'empty' buses rarely complain about empty parking lots, or cars being driven 'empty', or roads being 'empty' in the evening.
@@mindstalk The bus route nearest me is mostly empty in the suburbs and gets full the closer it is to downtown. This is byproduct of what that route mostly serves. Other nearby bus routes that don't connect to downtown are near empty at all times of the day.
@@mindstalk "Also, the people complaining about 'empty' buses rarely complain about empty parking lots, or cars being driven 'empty', or roads being 'empty' in the evening." lol, people complain about that all the time. there are several youtube videos dedicated to those problems.
6:10 The high floor is probably less to do with needing a space for exhaust and drivetrain (we have a bus at work with a lower floor), and more to do with not wanting wheel wells. That bus has its lift in back, as most of ours do, and the high floor means you can fit more wheelchairs (the bus shown can probably hold four, depending on how many seats can be folded up). We have cutaway vehicles in at least three sizes: the Econolines shown here, some F-550s (which are horrible), and some Freightliners. The van/truck chassis bits usually work fine (except the F-series buses...hoo boy), and the bus body bits are, well, plywood and plastic, so you can imagine how those age. I could talk about these buses (and rural transit, which is what I do) for much longer, but I'm getting tired of typing
This is a great idea. I used to have a Class B Commercial license and could drive buses. This licensing requirement is a barrier. I also know of other organizations who have abandoned full size buses in favor of these 10 passenger vans/mini buses (like churches or non-profits) for the same reasons.
When I saw "SMRT" I immediately thought of Homer Simpson! I saw the thumbnail, and thought this was a minibus commonly used in Asia and the Middle East, like Toyota's Coaster or Mitsubishi's Rosa. Obviously this is a newer technology, it's harder to gauge how efficient these vehicles are, what their battery capacities are, and whether or not they will last as long as their diesel powered big brothers. The struggle to find operators for transit isn't just the lack of people wanting to drive, very few people want the potential bodily harm that results from operating these vehicles. It took Portland's Trimet about a year to install plexiglass barriers after several operators were attacked by non-paying passengers. That's why I'm working in manufacturing rather than driving a bus!
It's an interesting concept. I'm not sure how well it will work as public transit though for a couple reasons. For starters, drivers don't need a CDL to operate it. While that's a great cost saving measure, now you'll have potentially underqualified and undertrained operators entrusted to safely get a dozen passengers to their destinations safely. Hopefully they're still offering extra training before starting service to account for this. Second, and more importantly, the model of "pickup and drop off anywhere" goes against the principles of good public transit. What makes public transit valuable isn't just it's ability to get you to your destination. What makes it valuable is also it's ability to get you there at a predictable time. When every passenger has their own custom start and stop point, you lose any ability to predict when you'll reach your destination. For late night service, that may not be a huge deal, but I suspect many will opt for a taxi/Uber after one or two bouts of waiting for a bus that never arrives on time. On an unrelated note, I'm not sure I agree with the notion of determining public transit service based on ridership data. Ridership is a function of the quality of transit service, not the other way around. Of course ridership will taper off towards the evening if you aren't already providing late night bus service, because how else will those riders get home? When deciding on where to increase service, we need to shift to a new metric. One which looks at where people need to go and asks what would take the largest chunk of cars off the road.
A CDL is required because of the added difficulty of driving a longer bus, so it's a wash. The benefit of reducing the difficulty of the job comes with the benefits of a larger and cheaper labor pool. "the principles of good public transit" are based on a antiquated system that existed before the invention of internet and smartphones. Connecting more locations and people to traditional public transportation is never a bad idea unless you're a NIMBY who doesn't want the bus in their neighborhood.
@@annoyedok321 No, LimitedWard is correct. The problems of good transit service are fundamental ones of geometry, not solvable by tech. We had similar service well before the Internet: "Dial-A-Ride" and paratransit and variations on flexible transit. A fixed route bus is inherently more predictable and efficient in time and labor than something flexible. Microtransit is great when it comes to your door to pick you up, but every pickup and dropoff between that and your destination is significantly slowing you down, to an unpredictable level.
Most transit systems in the USA just don't know what they're doing. Where I live the buses only come once an hour, and depending on the changes required it can take 2-3 hours to replace 20-30 minutes of driving.
@@mindstalk No routes available, no times available, walking 10 blocks to a stop, can slow you down a lot more. Dial-A-Ride systems for paratransit is just a taxi system with buses. It's not integrated into a more complex software algorithm that can do more. I'm not suggesting a one size fits all, but rather adaptive logistics. I live in a city with 200k and our downtown bus can often be seen driving around empty. These short buses can run set routes at peak hours and than transition to taxi service or expanded bus stop models during off peak with park and wait being a possibility to save fuel and wear. Pre-paying for trips the day or week before allows for way better logistical information than trying to guess the amount of people who will show up at a location. Adaptive pricing can account for the improved service or to increase usage when it's needed. The airline industry is changing from the hub and spoke model because they found smaller planes flying direct was actually more profitable. People like trains for the reasons you suggest, but they don't like buses for the same reason. Operating a bus like a train is crippling the potential.
No Predecessor? Nothing like this before? Twaddle. It's literally just an electric minibus with low floors for disabled access and minibuses have been around since the 1920s. This Turkish company isn't the only one making low floor minibuses, check out Tribus for example and Everyone is going electric these days despite its massive drawbacks. And you know what also can take 8-10 people home after hours? A Maxi Taxi, been around since 1978.
What are some massive drawbacks for this as an electric vehicle? I would think that a small catchment area, usually less maintenance, and less noise, especially if it is going into residential areas are pretty good advantages here.
Maxi Taxi? Never heard of it. Being "around" since '78 would mean that its _around._ It's not around where I am. Haven't seen it in any pop culture, either.
@@bugs3483 Yeah IDK what they mean either with drawbacks. Electric vehicles may be more expensive upfront but theyre much cheaper to operate, especially if you have affordable electricity, and if you have solid amounts of renewable power in the area then thats both good for the planet and the wallet.
This is exactly what other countries have, along with trains and buses. Since they're smaller, they can navigate through narrow roads as well as park faster. Great solution to that perpetual last-mile problem.
They had something like this at a college I visited once. Basically they just got students to drive a van around campus providing a simple and dynamic bus-like service to other students. The van would travel around certain high traffic spots and pick people up along the way, stopping whenever someone flags them down. It would then drop people off as close to their destination as it could without slowing down the ride too much. The less people were in the van, the closer it would take you to your destination. It was mostly for ferrying drunk students around to cut down on drinking and driving. I'm told it was quite effective, and felt like a safe service students could rely on. I found the dynamic nature of it very interesting. Sort of like it had a bus schedule, but also it was very human
When I lived in Russia for a couple years about 20 years ago almost all the busses were 7-10 passenger vans. Each route ran several busses so you never had to wait long for a bus
This is weird. In Ottawa, we've got a relatively small population compared to cities in the US and we've got service to approximately midnight. They've got service to 8:30. Most people who work nights work till 9:00 (stores close at 9:00). How can you stop at 8:30? It needs to go to at least 10:00 so people can get home from work and from the early movie.
I could be wrong, but I think a big reason Americans don't ride the bus even if it is available is the mindset that it is there for people who don't have another option. I can say first-hand moving from the US to the UK, it was a learning curve for me to consider public transit as a viable option.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. The transit has its service hours and people work their schedules around that. If the transit offers extended hours it takes time for riders to adjust to it. In Boston, they've done limited late night tests, but takeup is poor because a six month test means that people don't try it because it's temporary. If there is a commitment to later service and the city/transit gives it time to grow, it can work.
Canada simply invests more in transit, especially off-peak frequency and service (which then gives people the confidence to not have a car). Canadian cities have higher ridership than similar US cities. There's a vicious circle: bad service means low ridership which 'justifies' bad service.
Oh nice, we have these little buses on the road here in Oakville, Ontario (suburb of Toronto). Funny enough, they’re also starting to offer a similar door-to-door service option, however it does not seem to run after the end of the regular service day for our buses other than a service to pick up from our local GO Train station to take transit users home later in the night.
We've had these in Gdańsk, Poland since 2022 on a route that serves the city centre for these who cannot walk there (narrow streets, not many passengers since everyone else just walks there) and they seem to work okay for that purpose.
I can see this being very useful for smaller cities or bigger towns looking to dip their feet into public transit. Mine invested in bus lines but most of them are very empty. A few of these would have been better if they were available 10 years ago. EDIT: The only issue being that they are electric. I like electric vehicles, but I live in a temperate state with very cold winters. These vehicles really need heated garages to reside in, something I learned from my local university that uses electric vehicles for their utility workers.
We have similar buses in my (german) neigborhood, they only operate on a small bus route through the neigborhood and connect to other bus stops where normal buses (also some electric) stop. They are also electric and even less wide, but a little bit longer. They are the Sigma 7 from Mellor. My city with 250k people also has service throughout the night, with less bus routes than during the day, instead the night routes take circuitous routes and try to capture most areas. While our bus system isn't bad, especially not compared to the US, I prefer to just bike everywhere instead, which is also much safer than in the US because of better bike paths.
What I liked was the "Bemo" system in Bali. Although served by anything from vans to pick up trucks, and mostly unregulated, you just had to stand on a corner for a few minutes and a Bemo would come by. Usually there was a conductor who leaned out and shouted where they were going. It was painless, fast, and affordable. You could get basically anywhere on the island.
The idea of microtransit after regular hours is great. These would also be fantastic for short haul coverage of fixed routes within busy areas. I'm thinking of the bus I used to ride to college that went through a dense residential neighborhood but came from the other side of town. By the last few stops before campus it was often full, and frequently skipping stops. Having one of these run just those last few stops back and forth would've been great.
First, I have to say I love your content... Gonna head of to Patreon to make a donation! Second, the only autonomous vehicles we may have in the near future are those on 100% predictable and controlled routes. And the minute there is construction or a problem they are hosed. It's so disappointing we've been autonomous self driving vehicles for a decade and all we really have is glorified cruise control.
I could see these being very useful and complementary where I live. We have a regional bus transit service, but it's still pretty rural so it's almost a necessity to own a car here. These would be nice to allow people to request a pickup and shuttle them to the actual main bus stops
There are similar busses (though not electric or made by this company) that run in my city for years. They are essentially converted Mercedes Sprinters with 10-12 seats, room for another 2-3 to stand or a wheelchair. They are used on low capacity routes or ones that go in areas with very narrow streets that a normal city bus wouldn't be able to get through.
5:09 I wouldn't say that this kind of bus has never existed. Over here in Germany, there are companies that turn Mercedes Sprinters into mini buses. The platform is apparently called Sprinter City 75. Good to see that there are more companies jumping onto that bandwagon and providing more options.
Reminds me of the little buses that run up and down Owen Valley from Reno down to Lancaster. There’s zero alternative other than hitching and it’s a critical route for a small group of people.
We have something like this in the Seattle area! We have little mini-buses called “Dial-A-Ride Transit” (DART) which are small buses that do run a route normally, but they also have a designated service area where you can have them just come pick you up on the way! They’re a great accessibility feature and a good way to cover a wide area with low demand.
It is interesting to me that this is a "new" concept. When I lived in Central America a decade ago, they had rapiditos (9-15 passenger vans, usually packed 12-20) that would run the same routes as the normal bus but much more frequently. Once they were full, they would run to the next stop someone had requested without stopping along the way, and then drop people off. It was extremely convenient. These could fill a similar niche. These could also be used to prototype routes. If you are hearing that you might have demand for a route, send out some flyers and commit to running a route serving the area for 6 months. Survey people and adjust where the route runs to try to get some better ridership. If capacity grows enough, add an extra mini-bus or convert to a full size route.
When you combine the baby busses with the scheduling and routing systems of an uber or lyft type operation, you can get on-demand busses thru your phone, that you can subscribe to for everyday work and school commutes, or call in for a one-off trip. The software network systems figure the most efficient routes for the rides requested, and custom dispatch the routes to within one block of your door.
Great video. My area just has passenger vans. None are electric though. The board in our area determined the big busses slowed down traffic and went for the big vans which can accelerate faster and split off routes.
For low density suburban areas, I personally think we should work towards upcoming suburban areas so that they can be more dense, part of that would be illegalizing cul de sacs, making apartments legal to build in more places and allowing for smaller lots. also when they do allow for apartments, don’t just say “oh you can have a triplex, but it will have to be the same size as a single family home” allow for those apartments, condos, duplexes triplexes and other forms of housing to be bigger than single family homes, especially be much bigger when it comes to apartments or condos. And also make the suburbs more walkable, with more amenities, sidewalks and every street and grocery store, restaurants and other amenities shouldn’t be separated from housing. Also I would like these baby busses to run on schedules, just like regular buses do and have direct routes. I don’t want it to be like ride share, where you call for a ride and wait and the bus and it goes out of its way to serve people.
cul de scas are great so you dont have ppl taking shortcuts through housing areas, just need some passages so that pedestrians can go through the cul de sac
@@szymex22 yes that is a good idea, we could have cul de sacs to slow down cars so that they aren’t taking short cuts through neighborhoods, while still giving pedestrians access to other streets and roads so that they could get to the bus stop just as fast as if there wasn’t any cul de sacs. I think we could also do other kinds of traffic calming, like what they did in Fulton, Minneapolis. I don’t know what it’s called but there is an example of it on west 48th st and zenith Ave, and west 48th st and Ewing ave in Fulton Minneapolis. I would say that kind of street lay out would be better since it makes navigation easy for pedestrians since it is a still a simple grid, but connecting cul de sacs with walking and cycling paths is a good idea too
@@louisjohnson3755 "modal filtering" is a phrase you want to look up, if you don't know it. Can put filters in street grids so active transport can go through but cars can't; cars can access all areas but not go through residential areas. Though for efficient minibus routes, might need smart bollards or barriers that the public vehicles can command to let them through.
The autonomy is the key differentiating factor since driver costs are what motivate most of the big/empty/infrequent bus routes in North America. Remove the driver and you can run smaller vehicles at higher frequencies. And it doesn't have to be miraculous go-anywhere tech - if it can run fixed routes with the effectiveness Waymo has demonstrated today and get the job done roughly as well as light rail, we have a transit revolution.
Small low-floor busses like this are pretty common in Europe. The important thing is to make sure they’re used to right-size by capacity, not to replace bus routes with silly ride-hailing type services.
It's really weird to me how the buses there stop operating at 8:30 pm, here the public transport doesn't stop operating until midnight and even then the 86 bus still runs once every 2 hours. Here it is still considered to be sociable hours until 10 pm, the supermarkets don't even close until 10 pm and the 24 hour supermarkets are only closed between 2 am and 6 am on erm... well, sort of Sunday night but also sort of Monday morning, close at 4 pm on Christmas Eve until 9 am on Boxing Day and close at 10 pm on New Year's Eve and open at 6 am the day after New Year's Day, but in America some stores are open 24/7 even on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. So, the bus service stopping at 8:30 pm, long before even 10 pm, when it's still early evening, is incredibly strange...
Drove these on Martha's Vineyard over the summer. Worked great for narrow islands roads, and less "busy" routes. If they can increase the range, I could see these catching on elsewhere
Waymo has self driving cars in Chandler AZ. They are looking into self driving buses too but have just started "ride share" services in which just uber, u can opt to share your ride with other passengers.
We have microtransit in my smallish community. Many microtransit systems are designed to be feeders to traditional busses, rail, etc. We are a point-to-point system like shown here. And it's next level f***ing amazing.
The ability to call this like an Uber or Lyft is where I see the potential. Complicating the design by making it self driving or all electric introduces points of failure. One thing a service like this should do is implement transfers to optimize the filling of seats.
My city of under 100k has cutoff vans and "baby buses" that act as microtransit. As far as I have noticed and understand, the "baby buses" typically follow the main buses but on the off-half-hour when the normal bus wouldn't be there. They *seem* to primarily be used for paratransit and stuff like that, but I'm actually not sure, though, if just anyone can hop onto those. I think my city's "baby buses" are even smaller though, as these look like modern ford or chrysler vans but with similar features as those seen in this video. I'm gonna have to learn more about them...
"if just anyone can hop onto those." Look into it! That is a pattern of flexible transit some places use. "Route deviation" buses that follow a fixed route but can make detours, probably up to 3/4 mile. Faster service for the disabled than paratransit. Letting the general public use them means more passengers to pay for it, though also more potential delays.
What about a combination of big busses and these baby busses? Use the big busses on the frequency corridor and then baby busses in the surrounding areas off the long frequency route as a way to shuttle people to and from the frequency route.
yeah, like i dont see why these buses cant be part of the fixed route system
I think this solves the "low density suburbia" problem. Have a mini bus going around a low density neighborhood that operates on a schedule that aligns with dropping off passengers onto higher density bus or train routes.
This is LITERALLY what they did in Jakarta!!
I think baby busses could be used for low density suburban areas, I would say below 4000 people per square mile. And then use big buses in the city where it is more dense. But just because we could be using the baby buses for low density suburban areas, I personally think we should work towards upcoming suburban areas so that they can be more dense, part of that would be illegalizing cul de sacs, making apartments legal to build in more places and allowing for smaller lots. also when they do allow for apartments, don’t just say “oh you can have a triplex, but it will have to be the same size as a single family home” allow for those apartments, condos, duplexes triplexes and other forms of housing to be bigger than single family homes, especially be much bigger when it comes to apartments or condos. And also make the suburbs more walkable, with more amenities, sidewalks and every street and grocery store, restaurants and other amenities shouldn’t be separated from housing. Also I would like these baby busses to run on schedules, just like regular buses do and have direct routes. I don’t want it to be like ride share, where you call for a ride and wait and the bus and it goes out of its way to serve people.
In the high frequency areas I think they should have a bus lane.
People forget a bus driver does more than drive a bus, and a door man does more than open a door.
door man is one of those lost professions that really needs to make a comeback. talk about building a sense of community in an urban environment.
@@tissuepaper9962 Yea, sadly companies were forced to get rid of them all, when consumers started becoming so much more budget conscious than they used to be. Every time you bought a hotel room at a hotel without a door man because it was 5 dollars cheaper, you were voting for no more door man. If everyone were to have paid that 5 dollars more to stay at a hotel room at a hotel with door men, they would never have gone away.
The irony of the city providing transportation from 8:30-10:30 - only for Carls Jr to only be open to car-owners at that time is too much lol
I never did get my shake🥤
@@RoadGuyRobrip
Why can't you walk to the drive thru window and get served there?
@@chickennoodle6620 places don't allow you to do that; which I mean, it's not exactly safe if there are cars so I kind of understand it, but it would be nice to not be required to have a car to use. Hopefully with a wider adoption of things like this, alternatives will start to become more prominent
@@TS_Mind_Swept yeah I’ve only had it work exactly once. Every other time they were like “sorry, policy” even in the middle of the night with no cars around. Though now online ordering is a thing, I did find a workaround where you did the remote order and declared you’d pick it up in the drive thru 😅 then their policy apparently let it through, because I wasn’t placing an order at the window.
Services like these are very popular in rural regions in Germany, where normal bus service runs only once an hour or even less. The only problem is the cost, you usualy need additional funding as these never replace bus lines.
😂 Gee! The last time I used the bus system here in the US, the buses only ran every hour in a small city! I can't imagine having a service that would compete with Germany's!
@@creativecravingmy small town only has one bus line and it stops after 5pm, this bus would great
Very popular
Yep. Here in Manila, buses that can accommodate up to 70-80 people only travel among major transit routes. Jeepneys can accommodate only up to 20-25, but since they are smaller, they can navigate through narrower streets and usually arrive every 5-10 minutes.
Also, most of the buses and jeepneys here are owned by private companies or cooperatives. They have to apply for a government franchise to be able to operate them.
No they are not. There are no busses in Germany that would be considered “micro mobility” or that provide door to door service. As we already know from the video, multiple countries in Europe use it as a lower capacity fixed route bus
What a fun hosting style. This is a throwback to the 2000s and 90s local tv I watched growing up
Yeah, this is totally one of those "reporter out and about the town" vibes.
The voice inflections remind me of Huell Howser's California's Gold, or Ken Kramer's about San Diego.
4:16 props for the McLovin CA license
wasnt the one in the movie from hawaii? probably made it california cuz copyright :/
Don't forget Ralph Kramden ("The Honeymooners") in the other one!
I work as a bus driver, and I remember how challenging it was for me to get my CDL. It was about two months after I hired before I actually started driving for my agency. I understand that’s a steep learning curve for new employees, and it’s also costly for agencies as well. The problem I see with having non-CDL drivers is that a lot of them are really unsafe drivers. It’s one thing for people to be driving unsafe and crazy in their own car, it’s another when they have passengers on board that the driver and the agency are now responsible for. I would sincerely hope that any agency that plans to implement this solution at the very least gives every driver coming in driver training and refresher courses, even if it’s not to the level of a full CDL class.
Agree, lower driving standards is a big mistake. First few accidents will destroy any savings.
They could do what a lot of companies do for non cdl drivers. GPS tracking for speed, acceleration, and deceleration. And then maybe other things like cameras in the bus, so they can force their drivers to drive safely or fire them if they don't.
I guess the physical aspect of the bus wouldn't be much different than an amazon van. Both vehicles appear to be similar in size. But you do have a point, the bus drivers would being transporting people and not just packages.
My city has a 25 day course for new hires that includes the license upgrade, and there are about a million different ways to fail out over that time.
Over here in britain freight and passenger vehicles are separate, being able to drive a 7.5 ton van doesn't allow you to drive a 16 seat bus with passengers despite them being well the same chassis.
In Hong Kong we have minibuses that runs fixed routes but can skip stops/ take a shorter path when there's few/ full passengers on board. It also travels much faster than a bus (100kmph vs 80kmph) and can drive through village roads!
only red mini bus 🤣
Moreover, minibuses in HK, unlike regular buses, can stop anywhere as long as there are no stopping restrictions on the route (but you need to notify the driver ahead)
They have minibus in Turkiye too . Probably why they made the electric minibus
A couple points
1. Frequency and speed are not actually tradeoffs, but complimentary. Raising the average speed of a bus means the bus can get to the end of its route and turn around faster. If you have 2 buses and it takes half an hour to drive the route, you can run a bus every half hour. If you can cut that time in half and make the route take 15 minutes, then you end up with twice as many trips and your stops get served every 15 minutes.
2. You mentioned that you think demand response transit would get more efficient as it gets used more, but unfortunately that's not true. Demand makes the efficiency of demand response transit fall by increasing either travel times or wait times, because you either have to drive back and forth a lot or use an inefficient route to go pick people up. Demand response is useful for obtaining 100% coverage with a network or for times when you have very low patronage, but it can't substitute fixed-route transit during busy times or in big dense cities.
Yep, both points are good.
What he means is getting from one end to another may take two hours, but if you get rid of half the stops it could be done in 1 hour.
You are completely right with your second point. Uber is a great example, wait times go up as demand increases, and now your city is full of empty ubers, and the price skyrockets.
That's interesting to learn. Thanks!
"Demand makes the efficiency of demand response transit fall"
Whereas for trains or well done BRT, high demand is nearly free until really extreme cases (like squeezing people onto old Tokyo trains.) The train/bus is stopping anyway, and pre-paid passengers exchange quickly at all doors.
Conventional bus suffers more (make more stops, wait for people to pay their fares) but can still cope a lot better than a demand-bus that has to run around increasingly frantically.
These have been common in Korea for a very long time now, they're called "maeul buses" and generally run rural and suburban routes, connecting them to train stations. A typical bus make and model would be a Hyundai County. Super convenient. I always wondered why America insists on giant buses or no buses at all.
It'd be useful if the developments are more TOD oriented, as it is, it's way too car-centric to be much good use. It would be more useful if the suburb's development is a mini nucleus of the larger town, at least it would be more sensible to implement this on a larger scale.
I'm assuming probably because of road worthiness or certain crash guarantees. But I agree. Growing up in Russia you'd have small buses or vans that would connect you from the local bus/metro/light rail hub to your apartment block or neighborhood. Routes could be as short as a couple miles and frequency would be very high all run with small passenger vans or 15-20 person capacity cab overs.
"why America insists on giant buses or no buses at all."
We don't entirely. I've seen many fixed-route buses that are at least smaller than the typical ones, though still bigger than these. There's like the 'standard' bus that could have 50 seats and has maybe 40, smaller 25-30 seat buses, articulated buses with 50% more length.
But given labor costs, I'd guess that buying really small buses just doesn't save that much overall, while the bigger bus gives you reserve capacity for expansion, and also peak periods. A transit agency has to plan for rush hour, not average ridership. And there are probably standardization savings from having all the same kind of bus, rather than a mix of big and small.
OMG now I know why the SMRT is so familiar. It's the Homer Simpson gag when he burned his high school diploma. "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T I mean S-M-A-R-T!"
I was thinking of that and thinking it’s better than the South Lake Union Trolley in Seattle. I’ll let you figure out what the initials spell.
"I don't need my dipolma anymore!"
The funny part that in Serbian and Slovenian "smrt" means death. Imagine seeing this word on the bus.
@@ob_dowboosh SMRRRRRRT! It's only Maggie. SMRRRRRRRRRRRT! That's only the cat. SMRRRRRRRRRRRRT! That's Maggie again, Grampa.
@@ranger8901well. At least they caught that early and pivoted to South Lake Union Streetcar
I am an American living in Moldova currently. They have a similar system called rutieras. They drive through towns and connect towns together. There is a central hub in the capital, and it spiders out from there. It has it's quirks, but with decent roads I can see this being a good idea.
Unfortunately those also stop services pretty early so it's not practical to celebrate ziua Vinului then take rutiera home. But have you noticed how much better the street lights work? Rob should do a segment about that!
Similar to what? The video mentions 3-5 different ideas for how a bus system could be done.
Use the small busses to bring people to the main lines where big busses are. Using it as an uber service is very smart.
There are Sprinter-based buses used on low-volume bus routes everywhere in the Netherlands. Some carry only 8 passengers and can be driven with a regular licence. Some carry 12-15 people and need a CDL.
They are used in the evenings and on sundays, or on rural routes that never see a busload worth of passengers even at peak hours. Unlike the big city buses, I haven't yet seen electric mini buses here.
Here in MX, Sprinters are the _high volume_ routes with everyone squishing like sardines lmao
Theres a couple of similar 16 seat ish ones here in britain with bus doors though the licencing for busses is separate from trucks.
karsan jest is a purpose designed low floor minibus, unlike sprinter which is a van fitted with bus seats
@@erkinalp you get those with low floors too and swing-out doors too. And a central path running front to back. These are the bigger kind of mini bus that require a bus drivers license.
in the US a passenger endorsement on a CDL is required if you have more than 15 passengers
Our small farm town had 3 of these that you would just call and ask for a ride (couldn't justify full busses for 14,000 people (yes shut up that's small by California standards)). During peek times you might be waiting 30-45 minutes so most kids just rode bikes, but for those who couldn't it was an amazing resource.
Remember riding the short bus as a kid? Welcome back!
1) You want a mix of sizes; minivans up to buses; 2) A cutaway that lasts 7 years is a better plan that some wierd one-off thing that is more expensive and no one can work on. 3) The issue with finding bus drivers is the lack of accident free drivers 4) If you have an uber-like app why not run it anyway and use the app to figure out the most efficient method for transit for each rider based on their need? 5) Just run the busses down the main corrode and just use the uber-like app for non-dense routes. 6) If you're using that app why not run it like uber-share?
it's just the beginning. it has things cutaways don't. smoother ride and more convenient entry. if it can get people use public transport again. i think it would be worth the extra effort. too many idiots behind the wheel these days
YOU'RE IN MY CITY!!! I work at Allan Hancock College and we've been told that these buses will help out with a route from the depot to AHC (even though it's down the street from the depot / 5 min walk) but I could see this helping many students who take night classes. Thanks for another great video Rob and hope Santa Maria treated you well! :)
Generally found in UK with smaller buses costs (inc cheaper drivers) up 130percent, mileage up 200percent , passengers up 150percent , profits up about 17percent. (back in the 1980s) they didnt really take passengers away from most big buses as it was more additional passengers to the existing services that wouldnt have travelled/gone by car.
Seems like it might even be good for smaller areas which dont really have a need for the larger buses but still want to get started in public transit with a good solution.
12:05 casually evolves
1:38 Public Beatings? 😮
Bring them back!
Let's hope not!
A similar bus has been running in my town for quite some time. The only difference is that it uses natural gas as fuel instead of batteries.
It serves areas in the middle of the city where normal buses don't go (mostly denser housing with narrow streets).
Here in the UK where I lived twenty years ago they already had these. They were basically a Ford Transit in bus form, except not specifically a Ford Transit, but rather a purpose built and had, well, less then ten seats and so was covered by normal car licence. They'rre called... mini-busses.
Yeah these have actually been around for like a hundred years (it's no different than a large van). In typical California fashion, they think they've invented it.
They're called a mini-bus in Hong Kong as well and rather ubiquitous. If you're going to the far side of the island it might actually be your only public transport option.
Though they aren't necessarily covered by normal car licences, you still need to get a PSV/PCV licence on top of your car licence if you are driving it "for hire or reward" i.e. you're being paid to do it. To be fair, the UK licencing system is probably a bit bloated and inefficient compared to some other countries, there are quite a lot of different licences and it can be rather confusing to work out exactly what you need as there are detailed restrictions, some of which depend on *when* you got your licence (generally the later you got it the more restrictions you have).
Yes, those exist in many places, but contrary to this one they don't have e.g. the width of the door and the space for a wheelchair.
@@steemlenn8797 Some minibuses do have wheelchair lifts using the rear doors, but you do have to fold some of the seats away (or remove them) to get a wheelchair on. They are much slower than a ramp though, so tend to only be used for charter services.
tiny busses like these is pretty much how the relatively small town of 12k close to where I grew up (Switzerland) started out their bus network to the neighbouring villages and towns. in the meantime, the small busses don't provide enough capacity anymore and have been upgraded. I wish they would have used the small busses to establish new lines though. one of them is still in operation a bit further east that i know of.
I want these everywhere!! honestly, seeing them want to make them available for on-call afterhours trips is SO heartening as someone who hates driving and never wants to own a car, yet is also a night owl. I’ve even missed out on cool jobs before due to the hours not being public transit-friendly :/
Not being accessible to the large pool of car less applicants is why those "cool jobs" pay more.
This on call bus will have similar dynamics to paratransit: long wait times, limited service area, and very expensive subsidies. Maybe fine if all the coworkers are also unreliable, but if it pays well enough for people to own cars then management might have higher standards for attendance.
The solution for car less commuting in off-hours and low density areas is safe bike lanes.
In Germany it's pretty common that Sprinter Van type of vehicles are used as mini busses. While you can drive a sprinter van with only a B-Class license, to transport passengers you still need a license for that (Personenbeförderungsschein). I like the bike racks these in the video have though. We don't have that, unfortunately. And it's not a bad design either...
We used to have a “dial-a-bus” where you’d call and they’d pick you up, similar to a taxi, but the bus would be picking up others so you wouldn’t be taken directly to your destination. Also often used getting off the train after rush hour, just heading home.
The baby bus solves the "hurr durr too many empty busses" complaint imo
It's a legitimate complaint though, both economically AND environmentally.
@@ayoutubechannelname Not necessarily a legitimate complaint. Buses could be full at rush hour, and "empty" at other times, but it wouldn't make sense to be buying additional small buses just to avoid the mid-day "emptiness".
Also, the people complaining about 'empty' buses rarely complain about empty parking lots, or cars being driven 'empty', or roads being 'empty' in the evening.
@@mindstalk The bus route nearest me is mostly empty in the suburbs and gets full the closer it is to downtown. This is byproduct of what that route mostly serves. Other nearby bus routes that don't connect to downtown are near empty at all times of the day.
@@mindstalk "Also, the people complaining about 'empty' buses rarely complain about empty parking lots, or cars being driven 'empty', or roads being 'empty' in the evening."
lol, people complain about that all the time. there are several youtube videos dedicated to those problems.
@@s.n.9485 Different people making those complaints.
I am so smrt! 😅 I was hoping you'd make that joke haha
I'd love if Septa were to get these, because busses are sometimes just too large.
6:10 The high floor is probably less to do with needing a space for exhaust and drivetrain (we have a bus at work with a lower floor), and more to do with not wanting wheel wells. That bus has its lift in back, as most of ours do, and the high floor means you can fit more wheelchairs (the bus shown can probably hold four, depending on how many seats can be folded up).
We have cutaway vehicles in at least three sizes: the Econolines shown here, some F-550s (which are horrible), and some Freightliners. The van/truck chassis bits usually work fine (except the F-series buses...hoo boy), and the bus body bits are, well, plywood and plastic, so you can imagine how those age.
I could talk about these buses (and rural transit, which is what I do) for much longer, but I'm getting tired of typing
KARSAN!! TURKEY MENTIONED! These have been extremely common vehicles here for a long time and its very interesting to see them in America too.
🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷TURKİYE MENTIONED 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷 WHAT İS ECONOMY 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
This is a great idea. I used to have a Class B Commercial license and could drive buses. This licensing requirement is a barrier. I also know of other organizations who have abandoned full size buses in favor of these 10 passenger vans/mini buses (like churches or non-profits) for the same reasons.
This is a lovely story, and yes, some of us do speak "that language" hahahah
When I saw "SMRT" I immediately thought of Homer Simpson! I saw the thumbnail, and thought this was a minibus commonly used in Asia and the Middle East, like Toyota's Coaster or Mitsubishi's Rosa. Obviously this is a newer technology, it's harder to gauge how efficient these vehicles are, what their battery capacities are, and whether or not they will last as long as their diesel powered big brothers. The struggle to find operators for transit isn't just the lack of people wanting to drive, very few people want the potential bodily harm that results from operating these vehicles. It took Portland's Trimet about a year to install plexiglass barriers after several operators were attacked by non-paying passengers. That's why I'm working in manufacturing rather than driving a bus!
It's sad to hear that about Tri-Met. I always felt safe riding it when I lived in Portland 20 years ago.
It's an interesting concept. I'm not sure how well it will work as public transit though for a couple reasons.
For starters, drivers don't need a CDL to operate it. While that's a great cost saving measure, now you'll have potentially underqualified and undertrained operators entrusted to safely get a dozen passengers to their destinations safely. Hopefully they're still offering extra training before starting service to account for this.
Second, and more importantly, the model of "pickup and drop off anywhere" goes against the principles of good public transit. What makes public transit valuable isn't just it's ability to get you to your destination. What makes it valuable is also it's ability to get you there at a predictable time. When every passenger has their own custom start and stop point, you lose any ability to predict when you'll reach your destination. For late night service, that may not be a huge deal, but I suspect many will opt for a taxi/Uber after one or two bouts of waiting for a bus that never arrives on time.
On an unrelated note, I'm not sure I agree with the notion of determining public transit service based on ridership data. Ridership is a function of the quality of transit service, not the other way around. Of course ridership will taper off towards the evening if you aren't already providing late night bus service, because how else will those riders get home? When deciding on where to increase service, we need to shift to a new metric. One which looks at where people need to go and asks what would take the largest chunk of cars off the road.
A CDL is required because of the added difficulty of driving a longer bus, so it's a wash. The benefit of reducing the difficulty of the job comes with the benefits of a larger and cheaper labor pool.
"the principles of good public transit" are based on a antiquated system that existed before the invention of internet and smartphones. Connecting more locations and people to traditional public transportation is never a bad idea unless you're a NIMBY who doesn't want the bus in their neighborhood.
@@annoyedok321 No, LimitedWard is correct. The problems of good transit service are fundamental ones of geometry, not solvable by tech. We had similar service well before the Internet: "Dial-A-Ride" and paratransit and variations on flexible transit. A fixed route bus is inherently more predictable and efficient in time and labor than something flexible.
Microtransit is great when it comes to your door to pick you up, but every pickup and dropoff between that and your destination is significantly slowing you down, to an unpredictable level.
Most transit systems in the USA just don't know what they're doing. Where I live the buses only come once an hour, and depending on the changes required it can take 2-3 hours to replace 20-30 minutes of driving.
@@bbgun061 Or they know what they're doing but have been given limited resources and a political mandate to maximize coverage.
@@mindstalk No routes available, no times available, walking 10 blocks to a stop, can slow you down a lot more. Dial-A-Ride systems for paratransit is just a taxi system with buses. It's not integrated into a more complex software algorithm that can do more.
I'm not suggesting a one size fits all, but rather adaptive logistics. I live in a city with 200k and our downtown bus can often be seen driving around empty. These short buses can run set routes at peak hours and than transition to taxi service or expanded bus stop models during off peak with park and wait being a possibility to save fuel and wear.
Pre-paying for trips the day or week before allows for way better logistical information than trying to guess the amount of people who will show up at a location. Adaptive pricing can account for the improved service or to increase usage when it's needed.
The airline industry is changing from the hub and spoke model because they found smaller planes flying direct was actually more profitable.
People like trains for the reasons you suggest, but they don't like buses for the same reason. Operating a bus like a train is crippling the potential.
No Predecessor? Nothing like this before? Twaddle.
It's literally just an electric minibus with low floors for disabled access and minibuses have been around since the 1920s.
This Turkish company isn't the only one making low floor minibuses, check out Tribus for example and Everyone is going electric these days despite its massive drawbacks.
And you know what also can take 8-10 people home after hours? A Maxi Taxi, been around since 1978.
What are some massive drawbacks for this as an electric vehicle? I would think that a small catchment area, usually less maintenance, and less noise, especially if it is going into residential areas are pretty good advantages here.
Maxi Taxi? Never heard of it. Being "around" since '78 would mean that its _around._ It's not around where I am. Haven't seen it in any pop culture, either.
@@bugs3483 Yeah IDK what they mean either with drawbacks. Electric vehicles may be more expensive upfront but theyre much cheaper to operate, especially if you have affordable electricity, and if you have solid amounts of renewable power in the area then thats both good for the planet and the wallet.
@@bugs3483 Range and Battery Lifespan.
@@bugs3483 didn't you hear? EV = BAD!!1!1!!
Looks perfect for conversion to an RV.
RV Guy Rob coming to a road near you soon...
This is exactly what other countries have, along with trains and buses. Since they're smaller, they can navigate through narrow roads as well as park faster. Great solution to that perpetual last-mile problem.
They should make RV versions of these.
They had something like this at a college I visited once. Basically they just got students to drive a van around campus providing a simple and dynamic bus-like service to other students. The van would travel around certain high traffic spots and pick people up along the way, stopping whenever someone flags them down. It would then drop people off as close to their destination as it could without slowing down the ride too much. The less people were in the van, the closer it would take you to your destination. It was mostly for ferrying drunk students around to cut down on drinking and driving. I'm told it was quite effective, and felt like a safe service students could rely on. I found the dynamic nature of it very interesting. Sort of like it had a bus schedule, but also it was very human
When I lived in Russia for a couple years about 20 years ago almost all the busses were 7-10 passenger vans. Each route ran several busses so you never had to wait long for a bus
This type of private mini bus is very common in Turkey so I can see how they took this idea and made it into an export.
soo no more fords and vws Eh
This is weird. In Ottawa, we've got a relatively small population compared to cities in the US and we've got service to approximately midnight. They've got service to 8:30. Most people who work nights work till 9:00 (stores close at 9:00). How can you stop at 8:30? It needs to go to at least 10:00 so people can get home from work and from the early movie.
I could be wrong, but I think a big reason Americans don't ride the bus even if it is available is the mindset that it is there for people who don't have another option. I can say first-hand moving from the US to the UK, it was a learning curve for me to consider public transit as a viable option.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. The transit has its service hours and people work their schedules around that. If the transit offers extended hours it takes time for riders to adjust to it. In Boston, they've done limited late night tests, but takeup is poor because a six month test means that people don't try it because it's temporary.
If there is a commitment to later service and the city/transit gives it time to grow, it can work.
Ottawa - 990k
Santa Maria - 110k
"Relatively" small.
Canada simply invests more in transit, especially off-peak frequency and service (which then gives people the confidence to not have a car). Canadian cities have higher ridership than similar US cities.
There's a vicious circle: bad service means low ridership which 'justifies' bad service.
Smrt means death in Slovenian. Reminds me of the Ford Kuga car back in the day, with "Kuga" meaning "plague".
I love this channel, don't ever stop uploading Rob!
Okay, I won't.
Oh nice, we have these little buses on the road here in Oakville, Ontario (suburb of Toronto). Funny enough, they’re also starting to offer a similar door-to-door service option, however it does not seem to run after the end of the regular service day for our buses other than a service to pick up from our local GO Train station to take transit users home later in the night.
This is great! I sincerely hope these micro busses succeed.
We've had these in Gdańsk, Poland since 2022 on a route that serves the city centre for these who cannot walk there (narrow streets, not many passengers since everyone else just walks there) and they seem to work okay for that purpose.
A livestream on Friday night and a new video on Monday. Rob’s spoiling us!
I can see this being very useful for smaller cities or bigger towns looking to dip their feet into public transit.
Mine invested in bus lines but most of them are very empty. A few of these would have been better if they were available 10 years ago.
EDIT: The only issue being that they are electric. I like electric vehicles, but I live in a temperate state with very cold winters. These vehicles really need heated garages to reside in, something I learned from my local university that uses electric vehicles for their utility workers.
YRT which is north of Toronto also uses this system in the more rural areas
freeze frame at 6:04 - this is why I come to your channel!
Very well-edited video! The format was entertaining, and the content was fresh. Thanks!
Alternate thumbnail: the baby bus with a speach bubble saying: "I'm just a baybee!"
I live in London, and these could be a great replacement for the tiny Optare Solos on routes H2 and H3. They look brilliant!
0:28 Matt Vasgersian approves of this transit agency’s name.
We have similar buses in my (german) neigborhood, they only operate on a small bus route through the neigborhood and connect to other bus stops where normal buses (also some electric) stop.
They are also electric and even less wide, but a little bit longer.
They are the Sigma 7 from Mellor.
My city with 250k people also has service throughout the night, with less bus routes than during the day, instead the night routes take circuitous routes and try to capture most areas.
While our bus system isn't bad, especially not compared to the US, I prefer to just bike everywhere instead, which is also much safer than in the US because of better bike paths.
KARSAN JEST! I saw them when i visited Istanbul and can't stop thinking about them!!!
that's just a 34 M 0000 abroad
Lol why do you have the most news-segment voice I've ever heard? I love it.
Cutting up a bus sounds like an episode of Red Green
What I liked was the "Bemo" system in Bali. Although served by anything from vans to pick up trucks, and mostly unregulated, you just had to stand on a corner for a few minutes and a Bemo would come by. Usually there was a conductor who leaned out and shouted where they were going. It was painless, fast, and affordable. You could get basically anywhere on the island.
The Philippines already have this for years, it’s called a Jeepney.
Those look like a party! Though, maybe not A.D.A. compliant (Americans with Disabilities Act)
@@RoadGuyRob karsan jest is actually bigger than those jeepneys (15 vs 6 pax)
The idea of microtransit after regular hours is great. These would also be fantastic for short haul coverage of fixed routes within busy areas. I'm thinking of the bus I used to ride to college that went through a dense residential neighborhood but came from the other side of town. By the last few stops before campus it was often full, and frequently skipping stops. Having one of these run just those last few stops back and forth would've been great.
First, I have to say I love your content... Gonna head of to Patreon to make a donation!
Second, the only autonomous vehicles we may have in the near future are those on 100% predictable and controlled routes. And the minute there is construction or a problem they are hosed. It's so disappointing we've been autonomous self driving vehicles for a decade and all we really have is glorified cruise control.
Waymo exists though
We have autonomous vehicles -- grade separated trains! Like Vancouver SkyTrain, among other automated metro services. Train every 3 minutes.
0:33 American drives a bus: "It's like a little car!".
Tell me your cars aren't oversized, without telling me your cars are oversized.
I could see these being very useful and complementary where I live. We have a regional bus transit service, but it's still pretty rural so it's almost a necessity to own a car here. These would be nice to allow people to request a pickup and shuttle them to the actual main bus stops
Interesting bus. It will be interesting once it gets put into service to see how well it works. Thank you and have a great day.
I can’t look at it without thinking about Homer Simpson.
“I am so smart!
I am so smart!
S-M-R-T…
…I mean, s-m-a-r-t”😂
Fun fact: The agency used to be called Santa Maria Area Transit... "SMAT." I think SMRT is an improvement.
There are similar busses (though not electric or made by this company) that run in my city for years. They are essentially converted Mercedes Sprinters with 10-12 seats, room for another 2-3 to stand or a wheelchair. They are used on low capacity routes or ones that go in areas with very narrow streets that a normal city bus wouldn't be able to get through.
5:09 I wouldn't say that this kind of bus has never existed. Over here in Germany, there are companies that turn Mercedes Sprinters into mini buses. The platform is apparently called Sprinter City 75. Good to see that there are more companies jumping onto that bandwagon and providing more options.
Was gonna say we have a similar concept here in America. Only we take incomplete truck chassis and convert them to buses
Reminds me of the little buses that run up and down Owen Valley from Reno down to Lancaster. There’s zero alternative other than hitching and it’s a critical route for a small group of people.
We have something like this in the Seattle area! We have little mini-buses called “Dial-A-Ride Transit” (DART) which are small buses that do run a route normally, but they also have a designated service area where you can have them just come pick you up on the way! They’re a great accessibility feature and a good way to cover a wide area with low demand.
It is interesting to me that this is a "new" concept. When I lived in Central America a decade ago, they had rapiditos (9-15 passenger vans, usually packed 12-20) that would run the same routes as the normal bus but much more frequently. Once they were full, they would run to the next stop someone had requested without stopping along the way, and then drop people off. It was extremely convenient. These could fill a similar niche.
These could also be used to prototype routes. If you are hearing that you might have demand for a route, send out some flyers and commit to running a route serving the area for 6 months. Survey people and adjust where the route runs to try to get some better ridership. If capacity grows enough, add an extra mini-bus or convert to a full size route.
When you combine the baby busses with the scheduling and routing systems of an uber or lyft type operation, you can get on-demand busses thru your phone, that you can subscribe to for everyday work and school commutes, or call in for a one-off trip. The software network systems figure the most efficient routes for the rides requested, and custom dispatch the routes to within one block of your door.
Great video. My area just has passenger vans. None are electric though. The board in our area determined the big busses slowed down traffic and went for the big vans which can accelerate faster and split off routes.
For low density suburban areas, I personally think we should work towards upcoming suburban areas so that they can be more dense, part of that would be illegalizing cul de sacs, making apartments legal to build in more places and allowing for smaller lots. also when they do allow for apartments, don’t just say “oh you can have a triplex, but it will have to be the same size as a single family home” allow for those apartments, condos, duplexes triplexes and other forms of housing to be bigger than single family homes, especially be much bigger when it comes to apartments or condos. And also make the suburbs more walkable, with more amenities, sidewalks and every street and grocery store, restaurants and other amenities shouldn’t be separated from housing. Also I would like these baby busses to run on schedules, just like regular buses do and have direct routes. I don’t want it to be like ride share, where you call for a ride and wait and the bus and it goes out of its way to serve people.
cul de scas are great so you dont have ppl taking shortcuts through housing areas, just need some passages so that pedestrians can go through the cul de sac
@@szymex22 yes that is a good idea, we could have cul de sacs to slow down cars so that they aren’t taking short cuts through neighborhoods, while still giving pedestrians access to other streets and roads so that they could get to the bus stop just as fast as if there wasn’t any cul de sacs. I think we could also do other kinds of traffic calming, like what they did in Fulton, Minneapolis. I don’t know what it’s called but there is an example of it on west 48th st and zenith Ave, and west 48th st and Ewing ave in Fulton Minneapolis. I would say that kind of street lay out would be better since it makes navigation easy for pedestrians since it is a still a simple grid, but connecting cul de sacs with walking and cycling paths is a good idea too
@@louisjohnson3755 "modal filtering" is a phrase you want to look up, if you don't know it. Can put filters in street grids so active transport can go through but cars can't; cars can access all areas but not go through residential areas.
Though for efficient minibus routes, might need smart bollards or barriers that the public vehicles can command to let them through.
The autonomy is the key differentiating factor since driver costs are what motivate most of the big/empty/infrequent bus routes in North America. Remove the driver and you can run smaller vehicles at higher frequencies. And it doesn't have to be miraculous go-anywhere tech - if it can run fixed routes with the effectiveness Waymo has demonstrated today and get the job done roughly as well as light rail, we have a transit revolution.
As soon as I saw the mini bus I said to myself "that's a dolmuş". Somehow I wasn't surprised that it's a Turkish company making them.
Small low-floor busses like this are pretty common in Europe. The important thing is to make sure they’re used to right-size by capacity, not to replace bus routes with silly ride-hailing type services.
America is rediscovering van/minibus lol
they are discovering the formal transport form of the van/minibus, they've always been present as informal transport vehicles
NAWWW WE FINALLY OPENED a book Murcaaa
Run these on fixed route local service! Small first/last-mile connection loops for neighborhoods that connect to larger bus routes!
Love your videos. Thanks for making them. Just saw you on America Says! Didn’t know you were in that.
Nailed it again man!!! Absolutely love all of your content thank you for doing what you do!!!
Thanks, Dave!
"Not a replacement for any type of vehicle" 😆Rob immediately shows this the predecessor to this type of vehicle.
I know it's their sales pitch -- but the baby bus really felt like a "bus." (Where the cutaway still feels like a van)
@@RoadGuyRob 😀 Still impressive he could say with a straight face "I invented the minibus" 🙂
0:24 Buses have been mostly automatic since the 90s.
These should be buses you can rerquest a ride in
It's really weird to me how the buses there stop operating at 8:30 pm, here the public transport doesn't stop operating until midnight and even then the 86 bus still runs once every 2 hours. Here it is still considered to be sociable hours until 10 pm, the supermarkets don't even close until 10 pm and the 24 hour supermarkets are only closed between 2 am and 6 am on erm... well, sort of Sunday night but also sort of Monday morning, close at 4 pm on Christmas Eve until 9 am on Boxing Day and close at 10 pm on New Year's Eve and open at 6 am the day after New Year's Day, but in America some stores are open 24/7 even on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. So, the bus service stopping at 8:30 pm, long before even 10 pm, when it's still early evening, is incredibly strange...
6:04 OMG, This is why I love Road Guy Rob!
Glad you enjoy that! I spent an embarrassing amount of time on that!
I like the look of these buses
What if toy in real
Drove these on Martha's Vineyard over the summer. Worked great for narrow islands roads, and less "busy" routes. If they can increase the range, I could see these catching on elsewhere
Waymo has self driving cars in Chandler AZ. They are looking into self driving buses too but have just started "ride share" services in which just uber, u can opt to share your ride with other passengers.
sounds like it could be used in smaller towns that would be impractical to run the larger buses
We have microtransit in my smallish community. Many microtransit systems are designed to be feeders to traditional busses, rail, etc. We are a point-to-point system like shown here. And it's next level f***ing amazing.
Mr. Anguiano was a wonderful speaker, it seems like they really care about their jobs!
That bus is mass used in my city and county. They’re fully electric and they are really good, useful, and the make sense.
The ability to call this like an Uber or Lyft is where I see the potential. Complicating the design by making it self driving or all electric introduces points of failure. One thing a service like this should do is implement transfers to optimize the filling of seats.
Do you have an idea about jeepneys? This is already a baby bus.
My city of under 100k has cutoff vans and "baby buses" that act as microtransit. As far as I have noticed and understand, the "baby buses" typically follow the main buses but on the off-half-hour when the normal bus wouldn't be there. They *seem* to primarily be used for paratransit and stuff like that, but I'm actually not sure, though, if just anyone can hop onto those. I think my city's "baby buses" are even smaller though, as these look like modern ford or chrysler vans but with similar features as those seen in this video. I'm gonna have to learn more about them...
"if just anyone can hop onto those."
Look into it! That is a pattern of flexible transit some places use. "Route deviation" buses that follow a fixed route but can make detours, probably up to 3/4 mile. Faster service for the disabled than paratransit. Letting the general public use them means more passengers to pay for it, though also more potential delays.