They count in Autonotion that the first bus appeared in the 17th century and that it was in Paris, in 1662, when it was used for the first time as a means of transportation within the city. Although it was not a success, they claim that between 1662 and 1677 five lines remained in operation that, evidently, used horse-drawn vehicles.
On the website of the Madrid Municipal Transport Company (EMT) they point out that the starting signal was given in Nantes, in 1826. It was then when “the businessman Stanislas Baudry launched the first regular urban passenger transport line using collective vehicles for more than nine passengers”.
The project was born out of the need to take clients to the public thermal baths, his other business, which was located on the outskirts of the city. That is to say, the idea was simple: the customer got into a specific location for pickup, the vehicle made a previously determined number of stops and reached its destination some time later.
Almost 200 years later, the formula has not changed. It doesn’t matter if we talk about the Parisian city bus of the 17th century, the routes to reach the Baudry thermal baths or the Madrid of 1871 when the first regular public transport trips began in horse-drawn carriages between Puerta del Sol and Calle Serrano. , or 1922 when the first bus as we know it finally arrived in the capital.
Is there room to revolutionize the concept?
Just over a hundred years later since the first bus arrived in the city of Madrid, the city council has announced that it will launch its first “on-demand bus” starting on Thursday, December 19.
The service will be provided in the Fuencarral-El Pardo district, for the neighborhoods of Pilar, Arroyo del Fresno, Mirasierra, Montecarmelo and Tres Olivos and wants to check if there is space to make the bus a dynamic and flexible type of public transport.
As explained on the EMT’s own website, the user will be able to make a trip reservation through a mobile phone application, available in the App Store and Google Play from the Wednesday December 18. It indicates the desired departure time or arrival time at the destination. This reservation can be defined from 24 hours in advance.
The application will show the nearest collection station on a map. In it, the user will wait for the bus at its estimated arrival time between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., when this service will operate.
According to the Madrid City Council, the application uses algorithms to “match travelers interested in traveling to the same destination or address on the same bus, creating fast and efficient journeys totally flexible and compatible with the service provided by EMT Madrid through its network of conventional lines in that northwest area”.
This on-demand service has the rest to prove if it is more efficient than the traditional bus, as we have known until now. The inflexibility of the service is, without a doubt, one of the big problems and, at the same time, one of the great advantages of the bus as a means of public transport.
When a citizen waits for a bus, he knows exactly the route he is going to take and has an estimate of how long he will have to wait for the arrival of the next vehicle or the time it will take to reach his destination. In addition, the system is highly profitable for the city since knowing the route in advance maximizes the number of passengers who may be interested.
On the contrary, with the on-demand serviceMadrid can investigate whether there is room to make the bus network or part of it more flexible. The application will have the challenge of offering an estimated arrival time consistent with what the user expects when making the reservation. If he makes a reservation 24 hours before his journey begins, there is a lot of room for numerous users to join his requests and increase the initial journey time.
In addition, it is also to be confirmed whether the costs compensate for the supposed improvement in service booking. A fixed line allows a very high volume of people to be transported and, therefore, reduce costs per trip. If the journey is dynamic, it is likely that the number of passengers will decrease on each trip and, therefore, costs will rise.
Although the Madrid city council has published that it is the first “on-demand bus”, we are dealing with a project that already began in the city itself in 2020. Then it had its origin and destination at the 12 de Octubre and Infanta Leonor hospitals. , with departures every 60 minutes but a dynamic route.
Photo | EMT
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