The ideal distance between bus stops

d51984 · 10-06-2023 1:51am #1

Creating another thread from the Fairview one folks, in your opinion, what would be the ideal distance between bus stops? Personally, I think there are far too many bus stops in Dublin. The N6 for example, I could walk between certain stops in 2 minutes.

Now I know im going to get. the elderly and less mobile etc but 'in my opinion' we could easily get rid of about 20% of bus stops in Dublin and speed up the service.

Uproar if Joe soap has to walk 5 mins to their nearest stop. Are we that lazy?

10-06-2023 7:34am

As a regular bus passenger, the shorter the better

Longer distance is just an inconvenience for the sake of inconvenience.

The proliferation of bus stops is hugely welcome as it removes another barrier to PT usage

timmyntc · 10-06-2023 8:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120697077#Comment_120697077

Not if it degrades the quality of the service

More stops means longer journeys, and longer journeys means buses are less attractive to use

There is a goldilocks zone where you have enough stops to cater for local popultion but not enough that the bus is pulled in every 30 seconds to pick up someone.

LXFlyer · 10-06-2023 8:59am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058300194/the-ideal-distance-between-bus-stops

The general rule of thumb from TfL guidance:

An ideal spacing for bus stops is approximately 400m, although a closer spacing in town centres and residential areas may be necessary to meet passenger requirements.

You do also have to look at the number of side roads that people may be coming from, along with distances people may be walking to/from bus stops, especially in housing estates, where buses operate along main roads - people may walk quite a distance already and that might justify closer stop spacing.

It is fair comment to say that there are examples of stops that are much closer than that, and sometimes there are valid reasons for them that might not be immediately obvious. At the same time, there definitely are stops that could be culled, but I think that the recent examples of stops being removed along North Strand and Amiens Street without any consultation isn't necessarily the best way to do that.

A good example of a stop that could be removed is southbound on Upper Rathmines Road. Stop 6042 was added between stops 1021 and 1022 to facilitate passengers discommoded when certain route 14a journeys were re-routed via Church Avenue, Palmerston Road and Cowper Road to replace route 13b (they missed stops 1022, 1023 and 1024). That routing is long gone, yet stop 6042 remains in existence on route 140 and is completely unnecessary.

As part of BusConnects they are installing stops closer to junctions where interchange may take place, but where there is a pre-existing route continuing to operate until a later phase of BusConnects, they haven't always removed the older stops just yet. Each of the infrastructure corridor plans do involve stops being relocated or removed and that is covered by the consultative process.

Ultimately it's a balancing act.

10-06-2023 9:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120697191#Comment_120697191

You do also have to look at the number of side roads that people may be coming from, along with distances people may be walking to/from bus stops, especially in housing estates, where buses operate along main roads - people may walk quite a distance already and that might justify closer stop spacing.

Exactly this

I know of some stops locally that would be considered "way too close" but there are huge residential areas served where for one stop in particular, it's an 800m walk from the furthest part of the estate to the stop

Granted that's a stupid way to design an estate but that's a separate matter

TranslatorPS · 10-06-2023 10:34am

Some of the Kilbarron and Northside stops on the 17A/N6 have always made me wonder if they are truly necessary, or better yet, if they are necessary where they are and couldn't be shifted over about 50-80 m away from the previous/next one... Inter-stop distance of 120 m means that (bluntly put) there's less distance between two bus stops than between two ends of an 8-car 8500 Class DART consist – and miraculously enough, people don't mind walking up and down a railway platform that badly...

LXFlyer · 10-06-2023 11:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120697382#Comment_120697382

It's the same across many of the mid-20th century Corporation built estates in Dublin, where many of the stops were positioned much closer to one another than they would nowadays. You're absolutely right, there is certainly scope to merge some of them.

Citrus_8 · 11-06-2023 1:57pm

I'd get rid of nearly every second bus stop in the inner Dublin. It's painful to be on the bus stopping every half a minute.

AngryLips · 11-06-2023 2:08pm

Nobody would be having this argument if Dublin was well served by a metro network. People complaining about bus stop spacing are probably those living on the outskirts of the city who, in any other normal city, would get the metro into town instead of the bus. I don't think there's anything wrong with bus stop spacing, what's wrong is the lack of rail-based alternatives in the outer suburbs.

Mrs OBumble · 11-06-2023 2:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120697077#Comment_120697077

Taking that to it's logical conclusion, the bus should stop at each and every front-door along the route. To totally remove the barrier of walking to the bus-stop.

11-06-2023 2:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701476#Comment_120701476

I missed the reductio ad absurdum fallacies

Been a while

magicbastarder · 11-06-2023 3:56pm

take the 400m guidance - if you added 100m to that, it'd add an average of 50m to the distance people would have to walk to a stop, while reducing the number of stops by 20%.; surely that's reasonable? that'd be 30s walking for a healthy and fit person, maybe double that for someone who has reasons to be slow?

12-06-2023 12:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701854#Comment_120701854

It depends on the objective?

More stops, at shorter intervals, makes the service more convenient going to and fro from a stop.

As for the increased stopping points on a journey, well, it's a bus, that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

Removing stops only serves as a disincentive to using the service

LXFlyer · 12-06-2023 6:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120701854#Comment_120701854

It's a bit more complicated than that.

You have to look at the individual circumstances of each bus stop.

What are the numbers of people using it, could passengers already have had to walk a significant distance to get to it (especially relevant in suburban housing estates), whether people are interchanging with other bus routes/transport modes close by, whether it is serving local shops/amenities.

But I would say that your approach is rather novel, be presented with a best practice guideline distance, and then say right lets add 100m to that. If the latter were reasonable and ideal, wouldn't the guidelines say so in the first place?

Ultimately as I said, it's a balancing act, and you have to look at each stop's circumstances individually.

magicbastarder · 12-06-2023 8:47am

would the number of routes serving a stop influence the spacing, typically?

e.g. if you had half a dozen routes using a road, there might be an argument to space them more tightly, as you'd expect each stop to be proportionally busier?

e.g. i live near DCU - on a 2.5km stretch of ballymun road, there are ten stops, so a distance of 250m between stops - but some of them are served by 5 or more bus routes. in one instance, according to google maps, there's a pair of stops with 160m between them, and three stops with 400m between them, so it's hard to see the need for the stop in the middle?

brianc89 · 12-06-2023 9:17am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058300194/the-ideal-distance-between-bus-stops

Just FYI, I previously used the 16 route as an example and calculated an average spacing of 300m on that route. This is likely a good estimate for the wider city.

In the North Strand example, the walk is now 3-4 minutes longer to a bus stop, for some streets. Given the proximity of North Strand to the city centre, this has increased commute time by 20% on a 20minute journey.

That's an appalling downgrade in service by any measure.

Shedite27 · 13-06-2023 1:26pm

I used to work in the Transport body in Vancouver, they had a series of Express busses that only stopped at about every 3/4th stops, the main interchange really. Busier routes only obviously. So if you're less mobile, there's a bus that wills top at every corner. If you're willing to walk a few blocks, you get a bus that skips 3 out of every 4 stops

The ideal distance between bus stops

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