On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 20:52:25 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Ever heard of traffic jams?

Yes, which are generally either...
1) Caused by a "special event", roadworks etc, and so can be predicted
and planned for if they are known about.
2) Predictable as they happen every day, in the same place, at the
same time.
3) Caused by an unpredictable event such as an accident (which
admittedly I missed out...).

In cases (1) and (2), fixing the timetable (either temporarily by
adding extras/reliefs or permanently) is the answer. IMO, bunching
caused by option (2) is the most common.

In case (3), it depends on the disruption and the alternatives.
Diverting buses may be sensible, as may (if any are available)
dropping in an extra bus running to time further down the route. I'm
not sure that delaying passengers who have passed the obstruction and
would not otherwise be delayed is the answer.

Bunching can, of course, also be caused by demand - if there is
particularly heavy demand for a given journey, it may be sensible to
operate two buses which can be "pre-bunched" and leapfrog each other
at each stop in order to share passengers. Off-bus ticketing also
helps, as the delay at each stop is smaller.

The idea of having radio communication between drivers is an
interesting one - it'd be very useful for a driver to be able to ask a
driver in front to move up a bit so he could get out, or if full (and
there's another bus directly behind as a relief, for example) to
request that bus to stop instead.

Neil

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