Missed Edit window: It’s only when I’m in another city without that system that I see how much of a pain in the ass it is when everybody has to buy their ticket from the bus driver. The buses become very late and it makes you very nervous when you spend 5 minutes at one stop waiting for 10 people to dig out their purses.
True of much of mainland Europe, not true of the UK. Here, we still have to present our passes/touch in/pay the fair to the driver at the front (although some busy routes insist that you buy your pass/ticket in advance). It would be faster if we didn’t, but perhaps Transport for London doesn’t trust us.
Transport for London incentives people to carry a prepaid/top up card called an Oyster. If you carry this card, then you simply touch in when you get on the bus, and the fair is a full half price of the ticket you can buy on the spot. So very few people pay in cash.
And you can use the English Region senior-citizen passes on London Buses.
You are ill informed. The double deckers that London no longer uses ( except for tourists ) are the old models which you got on at the back. They required a conductor, and the new ones enter at the front, and give money to the driver.
In a country where one is likely to be mugged on a bus, like, presumably, the US, I’d prefer a single level where the driver can see what is going on.
Had a few incidents on the upper deck of a London bus.
The Docklands light rail has the random inspector system.
But it also has touch-in, touch-out machines and physical barriers at some of the stations.
The whole transport network has random inspector checks. But we still need to touch in by the driver of the bus, or go through ticket barriers at tube stations.
Having to pay the driver, or show a pass if you’ve got one, is the biggest hold-up to rapid bus transit when it stops frequently. I much preferred conductors.
Chicago got rid of all the conductors on CTA trains a decade ago. Now the train driver has to make the announcements and open and close the doors as well, making sure everyone is safe. The presumed cost savings in labor allowed them to increase the frequency of trains.
St. Louis has a check ticket system on their light rail system like LA does. I realize it is fast, but I always found it creepy and vaguely “Papers please!”
I believe all of the North American light rail systems—though not the surviving streetcar systems such as Boston, New Orleans, and San Francisco—use “self-service” fare collection with roving inspectors.
Portland tried it on buses for a while but it didn’t work out. LA also tried it on heavy-rail Metro trains but has since installed barrier turnstiles.
If you pooped in the water tank of the toilet in the top floor of a Megabus, that’d be an upper decker-upper decker.
Lucky for us, there is only a toilet on the lower floor.
Didn’t work out how?
From Wagner, Daniel W, Wesley Harper, and Oliver Schueftan. Self-service Fare Collection on Buses in Portland, Ore. U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Urban Mass Transportation Administration, 1986. NTIS Report Number: PB87-146726
Problems encountered with SSFC on buses in Portland included increased fare evasion, high enforcement costs, no productivity improvements, low surcharge/fine collections, overburdened courts, and increased vandalism.
Metrolink and Coaster commuter trains in the L.A. and San Diego areas all use double decked Bombardier coaches, IIRC.
I doubt if double decked buses could work in L.A, because there are too many low freeway underpasses.
I think freeway underpasses is probably the main answer in the United States. All the big cities I’m familiar with are full of them.
Don’t electric lines running across streets cause problems? Or does the city rewire when they plan to use double decker buses?
That’s why we can’t have nice things.
Isn’t it because of the difficulty in finding drivers for the top?
Well, if you’re going to Kansas City on August 22 or coming back to Chicago on August 25, you won’t be going for $1.
I just got the round trip for 1 each way plus .50 handling.
$2.50 for over 1,000 miles of travel.