Transit design has two distances to consider: how far passengers walk between stops and how long they wait between vehicles. Closely spaced stops improve access but can slow a route, while frequent buses reduce waiting but require more service. A design that looks convenient in one dimension may be poor in another.
The introduction identifies stop spacing, vehicle headway, and the width of the area served. Three subsequent layouts compare dense stops with infrequent buses, sparse stops with frequent buses, and a more balanced arrangement. In each, passengers walk through the local street grid, wait at stops, ride, and continue toward their destinations. Running averages separate walking, waiting, and in-vehicle time. The insight is a trade-off across the entire trip. The best-looking line on a map is not necessarily the best passenger experience; access and frequency must be judged together, using the demand and operating resources available.
Bus bunching can begin with a very small delay. A bus that reaches a stop late finds more passengers waiting, spends longer boarding them, and falls farther behind. The following bus encounters fewer waiting passengers and catches up. The original even spacing can collapse into a pair of buses followed by a long gap.
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Widening a road may shorten car trips at first. But if some bus passengers respond by driving, bus ridership falls. A transit agency trying to balance its budget may then run fewer buses, making transit less attractive and sending still more travelers to cars.
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A longer urban train could carry more passengers, but extending every platform is costly. The front-and-rear operating idea uses a train longer than its platforms while controlling where it stops and which doors open, so travelers can still reach the correct station safely.
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