I was thinking about how I haven’t taken any form of public transportation in my current location, Brevard County. Then I thought about how I’ve only used at most two modes of public transportation in any one city, except New York City, where I’ve used them all (including the Staten Island Ferry). But then I realized that that stat depends on if you count city buses as being a different mode than intercity buses, and if you count school buses as being a mode of transportation at all.
The definition of public transportation I’m using is any regularly-scheduled transportation open to the public that transports multiple parties simultaneously, whether or not it is owned by the government. So taxis do not count since the ride sharing is informal, and neither do hotel shuttles because they are in theory not open to the public although I doubt many of them check.
My only firm feeling is that school buses don’t count. If rail counts separately from the subway then I’ve taken at least two modes in London, the Tube as well as rail (perhaps three if you count flying into Gatwick but that is slightly too far away from London to count as flying into it for me.)
If monorails count separately from other rail then I haven’t used all modes in New York City since the only public monorail I’ve been on is the one in Las Vegas (and that counts as a two-mode city for me since McCarran is definitely close enough to the Strip to count as flying in.)
My town has abolished dedicated school buses, and instead, gives free city bus passes to K-12 students. In places where they are two distinct services, I count them as separate.
I wouldn’t consider school buses to be public transit since those are just to get students to a central point.
Trains and subways are the same and they are the main arteries of a public transit system. The bus system is like the arterioles of public transit. They are for when the train system doesn’t have enough options to take you where you need to go.
I’ve never ridden a monorail, how is that separate from a train?
I automatically classify things along two different axis, although I’ll admit I’m only really thinking about it in order to answer your poll
I see public transport as predominantly a mechanism to get from A to B in your city. Something locals typically use for commuting and tourists can use to see the sights (but isn’t necessarily the attraction in itself). So in Seattle the light rail, buses, ferries, etc all count. I wouldn’t count the monorail. Not because it is a monorail, but because I don’t feel it serves much of a transit role and is just a tourist attraction in itself. I’m not sure how to classify the San Francisco cable cars. They certainly started out as transit but these days I’m not sure how many people actually use them for commuting. I wouldn’t count school buses as this. Neither intercity buses, trains or airplanes.
The other axis would be “mode”, which separates buses from trains from ferries, etc. I’m not sure monorail fits outside of the “train” category, although that in my mind breaks up into heavy rail, light rail, monorail, etc.
School buses don’t count. Yes they are public transportation in the sense of being paid for by the public but they aren’t open for anyone to ride.
Everything else I consider different because they are most likely operated and maintained separately. Maybe I’m out of date because I have rarely taken public transportation in the past 40 years but my recollections are different ticketing systems and sometimes completely different operators for subways and surface rail systems. The surface rail systems are using the same tracks as statewide and interstate transport while the subways are very local. Monorails aren’t that common but seem to be the same in that respect. If things have changed so the same kind of tickets or passes or tokens are used interchangeably in these systems then much of the difference is lost but there is still a difference between traveling underground where there is nothing to see outside of the subway car and above ground where there is. Monorails are somewhat closer to els I suppose in terms of moving above ground but being suspended in the air if the thing just stops you can’t get off and climb down. I don’t know if they still run anywhere but there were Trackless Trolleys in Philadelphia that were electric buses running on the streets powered from overhead lines and I’d consider these different from buses because they were stuck running on specific streets in specific lanes unlike ordinary buses. Perhaps railed systems powered from overhead lines are not sufficiently different from third rail trains, and neither from self powered trains, but then they may still be operated and maintained completely differently.
We (like other areas of Pennsylvania) have a slightly mixed bag. We have school buses and we have some students who use the standard Port Authority buses and mostly normal routes with regular commuters mixed in.
We have a sort of subway/light rail that is mostly above ground. We also used to have a train operated by PAT but that has been gone for ages. They often talk about bringing it back but ------ I have hopes of our monorail/SkyBus actually happening first and that isn’t much of a hope.
We don’t have much in bus service that is exclusive to the city; most routes begin/end in one of the suburbs. Again, our transit is set up as a “county” service more than a city one.
We public transport nerds, like any nerds, can and do argue about edge cases, but I think most observers would recognize and agree to these categories:
Where it becomes tricky is classifying systems that have characteristics of two adjacent categories. Is BART suburban rail or metro? What about Washington Metro, or various Tokyo suburban lines with through-running in the subway system? When does a streetcar/tram have sufficient space between stops, and sufficiently separated right-of-way to be considered light rail? Which light rail lines—Cologne, Brussels, Dallas—can be considered rapid transit? What about suburban linehaul buses from outlying counties carrying passengers from one central city stop to one only a mile away? Bus rapid transit is particularly tricky, since one of the appealing characteristics is that vehicles can do local circulation in mixed traffic in outlying areas, then use dedicated lanes through the center city.
Several of the above categories are sometimes aggregated in planning discussions as “fixed-guideway transit,” a term that connotes a certain level of commitment even if it doesn’t specify a particular technology.
Regional rail (Acela) is for travelling distances between cities that is too long to travel by commuter rail but short enough to make it competitive with air travel.
Regional bus (Grayhound, private Chinatown buses) is a cheaper and inferior alternative to rail travel
Commuter rail (Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit Rail) is for inter-city travel to/from suburbs and major transportation hubs (Grand Central, Penn, Secaucus Junction)
Inter city bus is a combination of an inferior alternative to rail, or augments rail by providing additional coverage (i.e. it’s often better to take the 126 bus from Hoboken to PABT than take the PATH subway to 33rd).
Intra city transportation includes city buses, subway, light rail, monorail, street cars all provide local transportation around town, within and between neighborhoods.
I indicated that subway/monorail/train are all the same, but that was mostly because I see the distinction somewhat differently. There’s a distinction between local rail (usually subways, sometimes elevated monorail) and commuter rail, and intercity trains. But local rail can switch from subway to ground level or even elevated within the same rail line, so I don’t really see that as a meaningful distinction.
Being on one rail which thus has to be heavy to support the entire train, it is more difficult to switch tracks, leading to systems of just one line (although Wikipedia says that it’s not always the case that track switching is difficult.)
By that measure, I’ve been in local, regional, and intercity trains in London. But have not done intercity trains nor regional/intercity buses in NYC. I’ve taken the rails from near Middletown NJ which I count as regional since you can see NYC from across the bay but still have quite a drive to NYC with a fair amount of space between stops.
Most monorails have switches at both ends (to turn trains back on the other track) and will have several in the storage yard/maintenance base. Japan has several true monorails, nearly all of which function as actual urban rapid transit (not just amusements, or airport circulators).
