{"items": [{"author": "Becky", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=420093116212", "anchor": "fb-420093116212", "service": "fb", "text": "This is an interesting idea. The voting system has the advantage, for very frequent buses, of being responsive to which routes are the most crowded. When you get to increased service gaps, though, the voting system loses a lot in terms of predictability.
So I guess I'd like to see some sort of \"at-minimum\" condition built in for each bus (ie the 75 runs \"at minimum every 20 minutes\") to ensure that everyone can get their bus within a reasonable amount of time. This would make the system responsive and not reliant on schedules, while still allowing people to plan their trips reasonably well.", "timestamp": "1282257546"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=420093481212", "anchor": "fb-420093481212", "service": "fb", "text": "Potential solution to the starvation problem: you can swipe as many times as you want, as often as you want. Each swipe tells the system \"I'm still here\". The 20min timeout becomes an assumption that someone is not still there if they've not swiped in the past 20min. The longer someone waits, the more likely they get their way. Make this exponential, where even one person waiting for 45 minutes beats a busfull waiting for 10min on the grounds that waiting a long time is unpleasant.", "timestamp": "1282257658"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=420094981212", "anchor": "fb-420094981212", "service": "fb", "text": "Also, strict at-minimums are problematic if there are heavy delays and traffic. What if the 78 runs every half hour at minimum and the 74 runs every 40min at minimum, but there's so many broken buses that new ones arrive only every 50min? You wouldn't want all the buses to end up being 78s and no 74s. Messing about with a simulation to get good rules might help some.", "timestamp": "1282258142"}, {"author": "Becky", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=420097031212", "anchor": "fb-420097031212", "service": "fb", "text": "True, the at-minimums would need adjustment rules in case of delays.
Re: the starvation problem, your solution would improve the system considerably, though it would essentially require people on less popular routes to wait a long time every time to get a bus (as opposed to being able to look at a schedule and arrive at roughly the right time). If I were a commuter on a route like that, it would annoy me quite a bit to wait a half-hour for my bus every day.", "timestamp": "1282258626"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=420160391212", "anchor": "fb-420160391212", "service": "fb", "text": "hmm; I think this might only work for buses where people tend to just show up and wait. Especially with once an hour buses, schedules are probably to valuable to lose.
Unless you could vote in advance by cell phone, which was then linked to your charlie card so that the votes of people who tended to vote and then not show up for the requested bus would be discounted?", "timestamp": "1282274190"}, {"author": "BDan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=450217666212", "anchor": "fb-450217666212", "service": "fb", "text": "I recall my uncle telling me about a study which found that \"every 12 minutes\" was the cutoff for most people to just show up and wait; longer than that and they are more likely to check the schedule first.", "timestamp": "1289369016"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/thursday-august-19-2010-dispatch-buses-by-voting/420064301212/?comment_id=450364371212", "anchor": "fb-450364371212", "service": "fb", "text": "@BDan: with real time bus info I suspect that number has decreased.", "timestamp": "1289393107"}]}