Euclidean Distance Doesn't Apply to Transit
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- Опубліковано 29 тра 2024
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Usually, a straight line is the fastest route to get between two places, but that's not always true for public transit. Let's take a look at how these irrational geographies shape our cities.
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This is like the most logical sponsor ever. Best of luck!
Pronto Toronto
Unrelated, but my brain doesn't like the fact that the Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West lines isn't just a singular Lakeshore line
It is. It just changes name
@@Hogtownboy1 For what?
@@91djdj the lakeshore west just become the lakeshore east at Union
@@Hogtownboy1 Yeah but what's the benefit in that?
@@Hogtownboy1hold on, does that mean you can take the train from Hamilton to Oshawa without changing at Union?
Same reason that ring roads were built around cities. A longer drive but higher average speed with less congestion (at least at first) than driving through the centre of the city.
Also keeps those cars out of the city.
@@KaiHenningsen which i really wish we put more effort into applying for trains, it would be lovely to not have express trains scream through downtown when they skip our station, and freight trains are even worse as they generally come at night..
Plus, especially for express trains there's the added benefit of separation from slower traffic so there's less risk of having to wait for another train, and it can allow for higher speeds as you don't have to slow down through the city.
Grödingebanan south of Södertälje near Stockholm is a great example of this here in sweden, it's actually a bit of a detour when you look on the map but in turn it's WAY straighter and there's no urban area to worry about so trains can just go full chooch and not have to worry about the local commuter trains.
Yep, its always amusing that the road analogy often clicks more for people than the transit one!
All cities should have Ringbahnen for freight so that freight trains don't interfere with the regional rail network
To answer your last question, many transit maps that I have seen use line thickness to indicate speed, going from thin lines that represent regular buses to thicker/double lines for rapid transit
Another solution is to just post two separate maps, like (among many others) at stations that serve both light rail and S-Bahn in Hannover - one with a detailed view of the light rail network with de-emphasized thin gray S-Bahn lines and one with just the S-Bahn and regional train lines, which due to the smaller scale has much shorter distances between the stops within city limits.
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 san francisco's bus map does a good job with it
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710@Vienna for example. S-Bahn and U-Bahn lines are thick and in striking colours, whereas the bus and tram lines are thinner.
And yet other maps show frequency rather than speed using line thickness...
1 train an hour = thin line, 10 trams an hour =much thicker line even if the train is faster
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 The Metro maps in Paris show the RER lines, which have much fewer stops and higher speeds, with thicker lines.
It's not just transit. When traveling by car, there is often a choice between a shorter route with stoplights vs. a longer route along a freeway. Or, traveling by bike, there might be a choice between a shorter route that goes up and over a steep hill vs. a longer route that goes around the hill and is flat. For air travel, sometimes a route that is shorter in distance might have a long layover at a connecting airport, while a route that is longer in distance might have a better-timed connection and get you to the destination more quickly. Even walking, there are some situations, usually caused by extreme crowds, where a longer route can be faster, for example, in New York City, detouring a block around Times Square is often faster than trying to walk through it.
Oh no doubt, but the multiple "modes" of transit make the effect that much more extreme!
I'm surprised I haven't seen more model train ads throughout urbanism/transit youtube. It seems like such a natural fit.
And I've met model train people, they've got money to spend on more trains.
Haha, the funny thing is I sadly do not have really any model trains or a layout, both because I do not have the space or the money! Its a hard hobby for younger generations!
Nothing makes me appreciate the Ringbahn in Berlin more than when they have to do maintenance on it and replace it with a bus. The distance for an urban environment is enormous, and is easily twice as fast as driving.
Its one of the great transit lines that are truly indispensable and city shaping!
Never clicked so fast on a thumbnail--ever since I was a little kid, I've always felt that TRANSIT = PORTALS, and it is what made me interested in physics and relativity as I grew up. Never thought I'd hear another transit enthusiast mention "time-space compression" but I'm so, so here for it
I'm an avid scifi/fantasy reader and i've many times thought about how nuts it is that actual real portals wouldn't necessarily outcompete public transport.
Portals would effectively just replace direct services, as they can only connect two specific locations. So for each pair of locations you want to link you need another portal. Since each portal would need to be at least the size of a human and probably significantly larger so there's some margin for freakishly tall people, that very quickly starts taking up a ton of space and you'll probably have to move to a hub and spoke model, and to say the least this turns into a bit of a logistical circus, and that's not even mentioning the security issues of instant transportation between two places..
So in the end i really see portals basically just replacing airplanes and express trains, with mundane public transport remaining the best option for more local journeys and corridors of high population. To make it more intuitive, compare it to how silly it would be for everyone in a household to have a portal from their bedroom to the bathroom.. Not only would you need a wall of portals, they'd all need to be outside the bathroom anyways so you can lock the door!
Time space compression is surprisingly not as well known as I thought!
@@swedneck I've had these thoughts when looking at giant Nether Portal hubs in Minecraft 😅
I had similar thoughts, even about elevators tbh. It's just so wild how differently it changes your experience of your city or building. If I'm pushing around my wheelchair, I basically never leave my region of my city; but on the train (that comes every 5-10 minutes) I can get to another suburb within just 5-10 minutes and have a totally different selection of indie bookshops, cafes, parks, etc.
I’m surprised that shorter =/= faster is confusing. Every satnav system I’ve used gives a choice of shorter or faster route.
Thats fair, but also not how people traditionally navigate transit!
Here's a memory from ~20 years ago when I was learning my way around the local bus network in high school. I regularly went to a mall about 5 miles away. There was a bus route that terminated there, so that's what I took - about a 30 minute ride. Had my mind blown when I learned that a different route, bound for another town about 20 miles away, made the same trip in half the time, thanks to fewer stops on a more direct routing. Felt like a major life hack.
This stuff's obvious to me now, and these days it's trivial to find the quickest options. (I admit my gut reaction to the video was "thanks captain obvious".) But I'm also a transit nerd now. I'm not sure the average transit rider, let alone the general public, realizes Google Maps has a transit option or that the Transit app even exists.
Fun fact: It's actually faster to crawl from Mount Dennis to Kennedy than it is to take the Crosstown across town.
You can probably crawl it within 24 hours, taking line 5 might take you years!
Yeah… in its current testing state that is 😂
I nearly choked on my coffee!
Indeed!
Crosstown? Might as well discuss how fast it would be if you rode a unicorn.
I think the Crosstown being slower is not that much of an issue because many people probably want to leave the train along the trip. There are cases like this in many large cities if i am not mistaken. But the fact that Crosstown is more tramlike is the biggest issue i think.
If it was not a tram through Scarborough it would likely be faster. Regarding end to end rides, it is absolutely just one type of trip, but there is a lot of crosstown travel from Scarborough into Peel for employment, so it matters more than you might think!
@@RMTransit Yeah you definitely know more about Toronto's geographies than me. Some transit is better than no transit but the planners are definitely lacking foresight (and money) if they're not paying enough attention to the transit-driving forces in the region 👍🏾
Sort of off topic but when a transit agency decides to build a tram subway they should seriously consider a light metro or a regular subway instead. This from one who is familiar with the American fiasco known as the MBTA Green Line in Boston, Massachusetts. It's so slow it's often faster to take the somewhat parallel Orange Line subway a block or two away or simply walk.
When I lived in Switzerland, there were multiple routes to the same destination. When there was a delay, I knew the network and clock-face timetable well enough to know which connections I would make and beat the arrival time of the route suggestion on the app as I used the system over 60,000 trip km. Sometimes, the app redirects passengers to avoid overcrowding. It's possible to have a main line rail map showing the time between destinations on map as long as trains have roughly the same frequency as in Switzerland (I have created one), but an urban system will be harder to do since the stops are very close together. The GO and TTC subway operate on different frequencies, for example, distorting true travel time.
That model train by rapido in the sponsee would’ve been a wet dream for even 10 year old me 9 years ago, especially if it was the mark 1 in Vancouver. You guys should make them blender models so I could get ideas to make my own subway car
0:16 not sure how many flights there are from Tokyo to pyongyang tbh
Probably like 5 a month. 80 years ago.
Train to Dangdong, train to Shenyang, some sort of airport link to Shenyang Airport, plane to Narita, train to Tokyo.
There's a few. There is tourism there.
Air Koryo used to fly to two other cities in Japan only a couple of years ago
Air Koryo used to have flights to Niigata and Nagoya, but now just Chongryon members fly from Japan to the DPRK
Another good thing to note is that the point of public transport especially outside of cities is about serving most people as possible than most direct route possible.
You showed Thameslink and Elizabeth Line in your video.
The experience there, and also with the CrossCountry network is that people prefer a single train that takes them to their destination without changes to taking two trains that have a combined faster journey time. That is part of the reason why passenger numbers on those lines is so much higher than expected.
I certainly do that myself, I could save about 15 minutes on my journey if I took a faster train to an Elizabeth line station closer to my destination, but I just prefer to get on the Elizabeth line, and not have to deal with the hassle getting off the train mid-journey and going downstairs to the Elizabeth line platforms.
If it is off-peak, and I find my self having to wait about 29 minutes for a slower direct Elizabeth line train, then I will consider the alternative option.
Roughly 80-85% of the population in Western countries (54% globally) has a smart phone, so providing free wifi or cell coverage on transit systems is obviously a great way to help people find the fastest route. Paper maps/posters are obviously a cheap solution for those that don't have a phone, but if you wanted to smarter about it, you could implement touch-screens at stations that effectively have a version of Google Maps on it, where you enter your destination and then it shows you on the map which route to take.
Shortest & quickest isn't always best from an operator perspective. Even if a direct route could be built between A & B if few people would ride it in may make no sense to operate it. If the same two destination can be served by going via C,D & E say, picking up & dropping off far more passengers as they go, then at least there is a service between A & B. This can be best seen on bus routes throughout the world, where they leave the main road to pass local schools, hospitals, shops etc..
I live allong Eglinton and the crosstown style frequent stops is what need, not the go. I go to loots of places along Eglinton. The go train would never work for me along Eglinton
A very important consideration! Fast transit is intercity in nature and has to be paired with another last mile intra neighborhood solution. People like trams and buses because of the frequent stops. Personally I think micromobility is the better last mile solution, but it would require big changes in legacy transit+walking cities.
We need both. Its important to have that faster GO connection for when you might need it, but while a trip from Mt Dennis to Kennedy may be faster, a trip from Mt Dennis to even Birchmount definitely will not be.
Great video!
It's so true... My friend's neighbourhood seems much closer if I take the longer route that has fewer stops, since the journey takes less time.
Interesting that I just saw today that Go Transit is going back to 15 minute service on Lakeshore between Oakville and Durham College Oshawa. That is fantastic news
Additionally, planes sometimes take a longer route to save time by abusing/evading the Jet stream. For example from mid-Europe to North America they fly far more north than the optimal straight line whereas planes in the other direction fly more south to use it in order to reach the destination faster and also more comfortable as on the edge of such a Jet stream flying can be unpleasant.
That's really cool. I'd also like to see any hypothetical solutions you come up with for those final questions.
I'm a software developer. Many years ago I worked on a system for a job placement company that matches job postings with potential candidates. For the Japanese version of the system, the algorithm took into account transit time information between candidates and jobs instead of just their physical distance from each other. It was quite cool; unfortunately for various external reasons our contract with the project got canceled before we could implement all the planned features.
it’s the same story in Munich from my home to school, and also it’s faster to travel via the city center than orbital (the opposite with the car)
I love maps and schedule diagrams, don't get me wrong, they do have their place as visualizations. But conputers are just soo helpful for figuring out transit trips, I think its unreasonable to expect normal transit users to figure it out without their help.
In fact computerized trip planning and billing are changing how transit systems are used, planned and operated. (Similar for road vehicles.)
I definitely agree especially for bus routes in Vancouver. I go out of the way to commute to Joyce to catch the express R4 bus that b-lines across 41st Ave to UBC
ikr same for me but going through Expo then switch to either an R4 or the 99, really wished that broadway subway project went straight to UBC in one phase. At least the Jericho Lands project is i think finalized and have dedicated land for a station so hopefully it keeps going
@@TheRandCrews I think that’s part of a grander second phase of a sky train into UBC. But either way, this should alleviate the crowded 99. If only, there can be regular 9 and 41 buses into UBC. The waitlines for the R4 are ridiculous
Reimagining a trip according to the time it takes is a really good challenge. The “Legible London” walking maps created for the 2012 Olympics was a brilliant answer to that design question, but for pedestrians. The innovation has now spread to other cities including Toronto and works well. Before this design concept, people were using the Tube map to navigate London, which was encouraged people to use the Tube unnecessarily and discourage people from just walking the five minutes to their destination. We’ve all seen those spacial maps the distort countries into strange shapes to reflect population density, and I assume a transit map that indicated time might be similar. I wouldn’t rule out good old fashioned time tables either. Certainly the map wouldn’t have to be static, a very simple animated app, if well designed might do the job. The biggest issue I have right now is that many TTC vehicles show false arrival times on various apps. This may be a fault with vehicles dwelling in one spot waiting to be deployed or interference with their GPS signals from surrounding buildings.
When I was in NYC, I wanted to go from Bergen St. in Brooklyn to Woodside 61st Street in Queens. The quickest ride was NOT taking the G train that connects Brooklyn and Queens. It was the route via Manhattan and the 4 or 5 trains (which run express) and then connecting to the 7 train.
Sometimes, the fastest route from a lot of places in Surrey to a lot of places in Kent and Sussex is via Clapham Junction or Waterloo and Waterloo East. Of course, sometimes the North Downs line is a quicker route [with cheaper fares!] but usually involves more changes and is a slower line speed. Likewise, within London, it's often fastest to travel "in" and then out again (as the "orbital" route is often by bus!), although the fare structure once again disincentivises this. The problem is that this does create more pressure on capacity on those more central links [not to mention the interchange stations themselves - Clapham Junction is quite frankly woeful for the number of passengers changing there].
Thanks for the Hong Kong route info. Since I’m heading there next week and staying at mei foo. Now I don’t have to worry about transferring and just ride the longer route to diamond hill. Less people too.
I hit upon this principle while house hunting. One of the criteria was that "door to door commute from home to office in central London should be about an hour". When I started measuring journey times on Thameslink and other commuter routes, I realised that many towns had a shorter overall journey time than suburban London (I could also find much cheaper and larger houses which was nice). All because mainline trains are faster and have fewer stops than Tube trains.
Taking this principle further, there are some people who commute into London from the town of Kettering, 80 miles away, because the journey of 50 minutes isn't that onerous and compares well with commuting from Uxbridge. A lot more comfortable too (but also a lot more expensive!)
Had a drunk conversation about this at a party with a mate from Uni. I remember him being surprised at the fact that despite me living 7 miles from the centre of London and him living nearly 30 miles away the time it takes us to travel there by train were very similar, about 20 mins. I know it's because his local station has trains that reach 125mph where as mine only gets commuter trains that only reach 50-60mph during that journey and stop at more stations.
An important factor that you touched on but didn't expand upon is the cost of travel. Getting across Toronto (and surrounding regions) on the GO Train may be faster, but the fare is more expensive than trying to cross Toronto using the TTC/local transit options. For many people, the decision isn't based on how fast can they get from A to B, but on how they can get from A to B with the lowest hit to their wallets, and that has to be considered as well.
charging more for express lanes/ express service is kind of an intuitive but economically backwards pricing model. The express infrastructure may cost more per user, but it is also generally more efficient for long distance travel, so we should be encouraging long distance users to use the express route by charging a higher per mile fee for local routes.
0:14 immediately proceeds to show an example of non-euclidean geometry on screen
This is why every sprawling metropolis needs a frequent express regional rail network. You're not just connecting the fringe suburbs and exurbs to your city, but offering more options and connectivity to central metropolitan residents. I like to think of frequent express rail networks as the true spine of a network, with metro and light rail being the skeleton. You'll have a far more functional transit network if you work out regional rail and buses first than going for an expensive metro or stadtbahn. By opting for regional rail first, your network can easily support BRT branch lines that could be upgraded to rail in the future as well as a downtown streetcar network, but without the regional rail network, these services are often inefficient and inconsistent.
I agree with this 100%
Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm a grammar Nazi. It's fewer stops, not less stops. Other than that silly nitpick of mine, I love the channel.
The American entomologist, E. O. Wilson, discovered that the paths that individuals ants took made no sense on an individual level, but collectively it was actually fairly efficient at meeting the colony’s goals.
Of Course there is also the well known example of slime mold in a scientific experiment being able to essentially replicate the Tokyo area train network when oatmeal flakes were arranged like cities in the Tokyo metro area.
I love the slime mold one! Every since I found it out, I've been keeping it in mind when I crayon transit networks!
@5:40 - Are you adding in the walking times between the subway stations and GO stations on either end? (For those outside of Toronto, neither station has a direct underground route. Bloor is to the East of Dundas West and has a residential tower with shopping mall in-between the two. While Danforth is to the south of Main Street, and has and underground parking lot for a residential high-rise building complex in the way.)
I’d imagine there is a rule 4: less grade separation, without grade prioritisation = slower.
In most (all?) situation trains will get priority at intersections, while trams won’t. I’d actually be curious to find out whether any cities prioritise traffic lights for trams?
Wow nice a Rapido sponsorship! Definitely a smart move!
It still faster to go from old orchard to Union on GO then Sheppard and Yonge to Union. One is 15 minutes compared to min 35
This is fascinating. If you think about it, the orange line branch from Berri toward Montmorency often forces riders to go further east to go back west again if going west in blue or green lines. In this case the REM presents a direct line through mont royal that solves the problem.
We also have level fares now so an a zone fare can get on the very infrequent Exo from Parc metro to Lucien l'allier - as you know it takes you through the yards and it is slightly faster than the metro, zero transfers. Prooves yr point.
Having radial lines for each station like you see on some walking maps is a good idea to overlay on transit maps
Had no idea (but not surprised) that Rapido is doing the First Toronto Subway. Thanks for the heads up. I just wish I was in a position to pre-order it right now. It WILL be a guaranteed order
It's not irrational, just non-euclidean 😉
In "my" city it's extreme, my 30km commute took just as long as a colleagues inner-city 8km commute, because I were able to take a regional train for 25 kilometres, while the colleague had a poor change after only 2 kilometres with average of 15 minutes waiting time.
One proxy to speed on transit maps could be the "wigglyness" of the line. Naturally there are always some curves on the line, but for slower lines they could be more emphasized. That would give the impression of climbing the mountains for slow routes while you are "zooming through the valleys" on the fast ones.
I noticed this recently with the Rodalies in Barcelona
I immediately thought about a distorted city map that reflects this. It can be created in theory by
1. selecting an origin point (your position)
2. constructing a grid with every transit stop as a node
3. mapping all those point to a new location, such that the angle from origin is kept and the distance is how far you would've walked for the transit travel time
4. redraw the whole grid with this new position of nodes
This seems very doable from IT standpoint. Don't know about a map where it doesn't depend on your initial position, though.
Transport speed is more important than distance. I lived and still live in Maple Ridge, which is next to Langley where Reece grew up. The two cities had only a ferry where often the wait time was close to an hour as a connection or a 45 -75 minute drive round. There were few reasons to travel between the neighbouring cities even though you could see both cities across the river. Now there is a bridge and buses and soon to be a Rapid bus and connection between the two cities traffic between the two just keeps growing. The ferry was novel, but absolutely impractical.
This is a lesson in why having diversified transit options is important for good cities. Having the one token metro won't work real well if the metro takes an hour to get you to the same place that's 20 minutes away by car. Even if it involves transfers, (which we should definitely be working to improve) its important that cities have multiple transit service levels to ensure that people are able to take the most efficient route, even if its not the most direct.
basically the transit version of the southern california term “freeway close”
Related to your transit maps question, apps can be made to prioritize the fastest connection, instead of the most direct. It's not perfect, if for some reason your usual transit line doesn't work and it searches for an alternative it might try to give you a longer ride from your original stop instead of being like: "walk 5-10 minutes to the next stop and drive 30 minutes less". Usually it works fine for me though and this can be changed.
Of course having better maps is still good, especially if you want to avoid a crowded line and would take one that's a little slower, yet less crowded.
This would be a great argument for people here in LA since we measure things in terms of time instead of distance. I used to hate the idea of going into LA proper because of the traffic and how annoying it was to drive but taking transit there eliminates 90% of the stress (besides things like safety). It's also the reason why back tracking to a transit hub and transferring might get you where you need to go faster than taking a direct route. If only we could get our transfer times down and use our over abundance of freeways to open more express bus routes that would act as more of a radial route than going between spokes.
Hi . Your videos are fanastic ! Great job. Can you one day make a video about the Sofia city transit ?
Hello Reece I’m from Sydney and was just wondering if you’ll be visiting for the opening of the new metro line between Chatswood and Sydenham. It would be a pleasure for you to experience it on the opening day along with Sharath from Building Beautifully and Paul from Transport Vlog. Cheers
higher avg speed matters for more then just public transit for a few weeks i had to drive from Dixie and Derry to where i live at Lawrence and the DVP. on the 401 it took close to an hour and a half on the 407 it took 45 mins
People like me that often use Waze when driving in large cities are aware that it's faster to detour to the nearest freeway that goes in the direction you're going, instead of taking a direct route on arterial streets
Glasgow - Edinburgh via Falkirk High (often the only stop) is much the fastest route. The shortest, the stopper via Airdrie, is just about the longest journey of the four.
@5:53 "if we ad stops the travel time goes up" also isn't necessarily true. Usually the transit stop isn't the actual destination people want to reach; so adding a stop closer to a popular destination might actually reduce average travel times. Hence a "slow" tram isn't necessarily worse than a "fast" subway, if riding the tram means that the walking distance from the stop to your final destination gets shorter. Add to that the fact that more stops also usually mean more interconnections, which opens up even more route options that might end up getting you closer to your final destination.
That's the main reason why multi-tier transit networks usually offer shorter average door-to-door travel times, than trying to solve everything with just one or two modes of transit.
I guess Eglington Crosstown is a classic tangential line, used by a ton of passengers for shorter trips but by only a few taking it end-to-end. Often tangential lines have a high amount of ridership, but most of these do not see each other bc they use the line on a totally different stretch of route. That’s opposite of a downtown-going line, often with the ridership growing towards downtown with a lesser importance of riders using it between intermediate stops (related to the much bigger amount going in or out downtown).
This is pretty obvious since the same thing is done for driving. The problem is that it's typically difficult to show that on a transit map, especially when most transit maps are not to scale.
You should make a video about the south wales metro project / transport in the cardiff captial region
Also, re: the potral in the thumbnail, I sometimes try to imagine what the network structure would be if we had teleport/portal stations dotted around like bus stops (with economic constraints on how many we could have). Would we try and connect everything into a grand central station? Presumably that runs into problems with scalability (given we might be able to abolish all geography and connect the whole world...). We'd have to have some heirarchy of hubs, and amazing wayfinding...
The way I see it, a large number of trips between these two *line 5 stations are unlikely to be end to end. It is more likely that people will use it to go between the two line 1 routes, line 1 and the eventual return of line 3 (Ontario, but still Don Mills/DVP for sure), and inner-community travel like the 512 (if they could keep streetcars on those tracks for longer than a year at a time before another construction/renovation project).
I think the problem you have here is that (even if they are installed) departure boards show a passenger the time that the next train to their destination will depart. They do not show the time that passengers will arrive at their destination.
The best way to get around this issue is for the city to requisition digital advertising screens and replace the advertising with side-by-side route maps, that show the departure and arrival times for competing routes.
This is why it’s important to know your transit system to be able to take advantage! Many routes in LA are done quicker using “longer” routes!
There's an easy solution for how to reflect travel times on transit maps. Make the different tiers of transportation easily differentiable! For example around Munich it is very easy to see the difference between S-Bahn and U-Bahn Routes and everyone knows instinctively that the S-Bahn must be faster even if it's not as direct.
It's not though, at least on Munich's English maps. There the U-Bahn and S-Bahn use similar colours and the same line thickness, plus the faster Regional trains get really thin lines
Something worth considering is that from the perspective of Metrolinx, they might rather have riders spend 5 extra minutes to get to their destinations rather than create additional demand on packed Union-bound trains. This is partly reflected in the current fare structure.
Interestingly different modes of query (app/website/counter) give you different results in dense urban areas for the exact same query. Why? Because they are programmed differently what to favour: Less transfers? Faster routing? Less time waiting for your connection? (Which sometimes puts you on the slower service) Normally it doesn't matter but I always get excited by the edge cases ;)
A few years ago I photoshopped a picture of a Melbourne tram jumping through traffic using the blue & orang rings from Portal - this thumbnail shows something very similar!
Can you cover the Metro do Porto System, I can feel it’s a interesting case
Drivers also definitely think similarly, based on the detours they take to get onto highways.
I think you should have talked about the fact that a lot of slower routes are fundamentally feeder routes. Not all demand for the crosstown will come from the stations at the ends of the route, its purpose is really to pull passengers into the longer distance routes (or serve local journeys). The speed of a route isnt something intrinsic, it's something designed into the route in order to serve a certain purpose.
I would love to see a video on Trondheim
That's how the concept of Ring roads was opted for major cities in India
The point in this video is correct. However, if you have the opportunity to build a high speed line along the most direct route, you should do so, to get the best synergy of higher speed and shorter distance -- otherwise, the high speed line is partially shooting itself in the foot.
I’m not sure why this is a surprise. The same holds true with roads. If it takes 15 miles to travel crosstown via interstate vs 10 miles via Main Street, the interstate will win out because you will be doing 70 mph without any traffic lights, provided there isn’t any major traffic.
Whoa, do the Kitchener and Stouffville lines currently interline? (Or if they will, has it been confirmed?)
At least I know that I'm not the only one confused by google maps when it tells me to ride a train that diverts to some random place
I predict a future UA-camr race to test which way is faster, the crosstown or the GO.
Slightly odd one -- a lot of stuff about PT (e.g. the value of transfers rather than direct connections) is counter-intuitive to drivers, but this is something very evident and familiar to a driver (or cyclist), who will know that the orbital limited-access roads, or cycleways, are likely to be much faster than going straight through constrained central streets.
A bigger topic might be valuation of time -- the perception that time spent waiting is worse than time spent moving, and also the valuation of certainty (even if the hourly mainline rail trip is faster than the end-to-end all-stops frequent metro trip after considering expected waiting time, the worst-case if we miss it could be a lot worse for the mainline).
commonly go from YYZ to Scarborough town center and yes there is a direct faster route by GO its hourly frequency means its commonly more worth it to just take the 2 change Bus Subway Bus route vs the GO bus much cheaper and unless you time it perfectly to the GO bus schedule its not faster waiting for the next hour's bus
How about a video about freight routes and passenger routes in and around a metro area?
It really doesn’t sound crazy!
It’s often the case in regards to car traffic as well!
If I take the longest route from the City I live in to the large town where my place of work is, it takes 50-60 minutes, the shorter route will take me somewhere from 70 to 80 minutes.
The long route is Highway and Freeway - there’s only short stretches where I have to go below 80km/h and on the Freeway there’s long stretches where I can drive 130km/h.
If I take the short route, I have to pass through a couple of villages where the speed limit is 60km/h and a couple of small towns where the speed limit is 50km/h - I also have to pass through more than double as many roundabouts, and pass on the outskirts of a small city where traffic can be a bit heavy.
The fact that it’s the main route between my city and the other city, and the other city, and the town I work in means more traffic, especially between the two cities, and the towns I have to pass through instead are also the reason why there’s more traffic on this route!
The same can be in effect if I take public transport to the much larger city I live nearby!
I can take a bus that stops several times, but the route is shorter, I can take a bus that takes a longer route, but because it uses the freeway most of the way, it’s just faster!
Or I can take the train, which is a longer distance, but because it doesn’t have to deal with getting through inner city traffic, I can be in the center of the city in around half the time it would take me if I used the bus taking the shortest distance!
I want a Rapido Reese!
It's a simple non-Euclidean geometry. You know, like space under the General Theory of Relativity. Where, for example, the shortest path to the opposite side of a planet might be a circular orbit.
RMTransit could you make a video about Prague Metro Explained please?
Finally, at least someone suggested Portals
Me trying to explain to my colleagues that it's faster to take 2-4 trains plus a tram including 2 full u-turns than it is to take a single direct train:
Hey, think you can do a video on the rail system that the city of Austin is developing?
'How might maps be redrawn to reflect travel time, not geographical layout?'
wearing the same hoodie rn
Please visit Switzerland at some time and travel around 😊
...but this is the case with everything, and just a simple fact. Direct highways are often crowded, so you'll be directed a different way- or there are geographical barriers. My bay area local analog for this is usually the 680 over the altamont- the ca4 is more direct to Stockton and gold country, but Google will route you over the 680 as the infrastructure is better (though I take the 4 anyway given that it is more scenic). Frankly, in cases like you mentioned with a crosstown link, this is probably more often true than not. I'd also like to say that the intro wasn't very good, you make it seem as if transit violates euclidean space, but location and time are two different things, time being evidently more fluid as time (taken to do something) is dependent on other factors that can be changed whereas location is absolute
Public transport is entirely complient with the shortest distance between two points being a straight line. That's just an imutable fact. Because the 'shortest' refers to Distance. If you're not traveling in a straight line you are litterally traveling a greater distance than you would if you did travel in a straight line.
Now, whether the straight line, which is the shortest distance, is also the fastest Route, or even traversable at all, is an entirely seperate matter.
Likewise, a straight line on a two dimensional Map is not the same thing as a straight line in three dimensional space where elevation is also a factor.
Why don't you make a video on informal modes of transit? Like share cabs/rickhaws. They help a great deal in cities where public transit is not well planned or maintained.
i'll take the extra 10 minutes if it means not having to use my brain to figure out a complex plan with time-sensitive connections. gridlike metros (like toronto has and is aiming for) are great because they require very little thought, you just pick the closest NS and EW lines.
A Hong konger here, for the example you gave on MTR, it's actually FASTER by taking a bus(*) :D
(*) if there's one coming very soon
even if it is slower, you should always take the bus. one seat door to door rides are just too nice.
@@FullLengthInterstates that's what I do in HK, most of the time haha