Why don’t we take the bus?

When we think about Public Transportation, usually the first thing that comes to our minds is subway lines crossing all over the city, but trains can’t solve all the problems of public transportation alone. Cities need comprehensive Transportation Systems, where each part complements the other.

The bus system is an important part of that equation. MTA recorded more than 1.8 million ridership’s per workday[1] in buses in its system in 2018 and this number is falling (15% drop from 2012[2]). There are many reasons that could explain this drop while the population grew[3], such as the advent of car sharing, bike rental services, electric bikes, and scooters.

However, the bus itself is also to blame: NYC buses are the slowest of any big city in the country[4] and wait time is unpredictable. Still, a lot of people can’t access the subway, either because it is too expensive or not accessible (only 25 percent of the stations are designated wheelchair accessible[5]), and these people rely on buses to move around.

Perhaps technology could play an important role in the redesigning of routes, as cities are a living organism, therefore old routes could be replaced to fit the needs of the commuters by analyzing the daily movement of people. The city could try out special buses running based on ad-hoc requests made on smartphones or one of the 1,600 NYC Link kiosks[6] spread throughout the city, like a public Uber Pool. The solution is unknown, the variables are infinite and complex. The perfect problem for Data Science.

References:

[1][2]https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-subway-bus-ridership-decline-20190222-story.html
[3]https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-population/current-future-populations.page
[4]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/opinion/nyc-buses-mta.html
[5]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-new-york-city-subway-accessibility-problem-60-minutes/#targetTextWith2047220stations20in20totaltransit20systems20in20the20world
[6]https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/29/linknycs-gigabit-kiosks-hit-1-billion-sessions-and-5-million-users/