One frequent problem is with lines that run between two places (e.g. the downtown core and a stadium during a game), where virtually everybody will get on at the first stop and ride until the last stop. This plays havoc on the needs of regular commuters who live between the two stops. Usually, express runs are created that only go between the two stops, to siphon off some of that traffic—but if the regular bus arrives before the express bus, people will get on it in order to go to the terminal stop nevertheless.
Really, almost all transit problems could be solved with etiquette about not (always) getting on the first bus to arrive at your stop.
> Really, almost all transit problems could be solved with etiquette about not (always) getting on the first bus to arrive at your stop.
I think that not etiquette but rules is the solution here. If I make up my own standards of politeness for which bus I should board, then it's likely that I will inadvertently conflict with the transit system's standards, making things worse for others or for myself than the greedy approach.
To be blunt, I'm not going nobly to sacrifice my bus based on my guess of what's efficient. If, however, the transit system clearly indicated what was appropriate—via its rules—then I would be much more motivated to obey them, based on the idea that the rules would have been set up to maximise throughput. (Live status monitors, which not all cities have, also help a lot here.)
Yea, maybe not even rules -- we can do better those days than giving out a set of rules for users and expecting them to follow.
The ideal I think would be a "global optimizer" for commuter traffic (with fairness included in the objective function, i.e. nobody is screwed too much in the name of the commons), and appropriate individual-level tracking and statistics. That way you could be told:
"You should hop-in in the bus X which will take only Y minutes.", updated in real time. If you don't follow the recommendation maybe you pay a more expensive fare and the system adjusts.
As discussed below, it's common that people want to get off at the same place, and so not all stops are used to disembark.
Also, disembarking is much quicker than embarking[1], so this won't make a big enough difference. The bus behind will be at least as fast than the bus in front.
[1]Your choice of reasons: baby carriages don't like to go up; people have to pay to get on; the location of the bus door is/isn't predictable in advance; etc.
