Talk:Bus bunching

Bus Bears
I was always under the impression that busses travelled in packs to avoid being eaten by busbears. mkehrt 15:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Torn Curtain
Alfred Hitchcock used bus bunching for suspense in the escape sequences of Torn Curtain. --84.20.17.84 (talk) 16:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Chaos Theory
The classical bus bunching theory is an example of chaos theory.

It is? It doesn't sound like it to me. Chaos theory is about deterministic systems that may appear random. 68.239.78.86 (talk) 04:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Reading the article text at this time, it seems that bus bunching is characterised as a phenomenon in a system that appears random, but is in fact deterministic. So it seems to qualify.

This is not chaos theory but familiar dynamics: the system is, in theory, drawn to a fixed point, which is complete collapse into a train of buses. Chaos theory focuses on behavior that has more complex geometry.

Suggested Citations
Here are some suggested citations for this article. Note that some citations assert bus bunching does occur and that it is a serious problem ( underlined = online papers from my own access and may be large PDFs) in order of year published:
 * 1) On Controlling Randomness in Transit Operations by Arnold Barnett, TRANSPORTATION SCIENCE, Vol. 8, No. 2, May 1974
 * 2) Control of Pairing of Vehicles on a Public Transportation Route, Two Vehicles, One Control Point by G. F. Newell, TRANSPORTATION SCIENCE, Vol. 8, No. 3, August 1974
 * 3) A model for investigating the effects of service frequency and reliability on bus passenger waiting times by M. A. Turnquist, 1978, Transportation Research Record Volume 663 pps 70–73.
 * 4) Service Reliability Impacts of Computer-Aided Dispatching and Automatic Vehicle Location Technology: A Tri-Met Case Study by James G. Strathman et al, December 1999, Center for Urban Studies, College of Urban and Public Affairs, Portland State University
 * 5) The effects of network structure on reliability of transit service by M. A. Turnquist and L. A. Bowman, 1980, Transportation Research, 14B
 * 6) Bibliography of literature on transit system reliability by Balbir S. Dhillon, 1981, Engineering Management Program, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * 7) Methods for maintaining transit service  regularity by M. D. Abkowitz  and I. Engelstein, 1984, Transportation Research Record 961
 * 8) TIME POINT-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF TRANSIT SERVICE RELIABILITY AND PASSENGER DEMAND (RTF File) by T.J. Kimpel, 2001, PhD dissertation, Portland State University
 * 9) Evaluation of transit operations: data applications of Tri-Met’s automated Bus Dispatching System by JAMES G. STRATHMAN et al, Transportation 29: 321–345, 2002
 * 10) Headway Deviation Effects on Bus Passenger Loads: Analysis of Tri-Met’s Archived AVL-APC Data by James G. Strathman and Thomas J. Kimpel, January 2003, Center for Urban Studies, College of Urban and Public Affairs, Portland State University
 * 11) Optimal Slack Time for Schedule-Based Transit Operations by Jiamin Zhao et al, TRANSPORTATION SCIENCE, Vol. 40, No. 4, November 2006
 * 12) An Investigation of Bus Headway Regularity and Service Performance in Chicago Bus Transit System by Minyan Ruan and Jie Lin, paper to the 2008 Transport Chicago Conference, Chicago, USA
 * 13) An Approach to Reducing Bus Bunching by J.M. Pilachowski, 2009, UCTC Dissertation No. 165, University of California Transportation Center, University of California, Berkeley
 * 14) A headway-based approach to eliminate bus bunching: Systematic analysis  and comparisons by Carlos F. Daganzo, Transportation Research Part B 43 (2009) 913–921
 * 15) Reducing bunching with bus-to-bus cooperation by Carlos F. Daganzo and Josh Pilachowski, December 2009, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

Can intersted editors review a comment on which of these has merit for inclusion ? Bigglesjames (talk) 01:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Some comments:

There is a large literature on reducing bus bunching but unfortunately almost no actual implementations (only one that I know of). To some extent this is understandable: transit managers are risk-averse.

The early papers, such as the one by Barnett, were written before GPS was available and so their suggestions for reducing bunching require gathering lots of data and using that to decide how long a bus should pause at a stop.

The last several papers in the list (those out of UC Berkeley) suggest how to prevent bunching by signaling to the driver to speed up or slow down to achieve a target headway. The best presentation of this idea is probably the paper by Daganzo and Pilachowsky.

The recently-added paper by Bartholdi and Eisenstein also focuses on headways but works by asking drivers to pause briefly at a designated stop(s). It differs from Daganzo and Pilachowsky in that it does not chase a pre-specified headway but rather lets the resultant headway evolve. This idea has the distinction of being in daily use now in a bus system.

Requested move 28 March 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Primefac (talk) 15:01, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Bus bunching → Bunching (public transport) – The phenomenon is not limited to buses, and can occur with any public transport mode (trains, etc). – Train2104 (t • c) 03:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose The current article is overwhelmingly about buses. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The article is mainly about buses. In principle the phenomenon can happen to trains as well but they are less prone to it. With trains, passengers purchase tickets before boarding and not upon boarding, so additional passengers don't delay a train as much as they would on a bus. Track signalling also tends to keep trains apart. Sjakkalle (Check!)  15:02, 3 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Corrective measures
When I was in London years ago (in the 70's), there was a very simple corrective measure: the second bus would just (briskly) pass before the first.

In fact it's in repeatedly observing these overtakings that I became aware of the bunching phenomenon itself (i. e. understood that, and why, a late bus tends to get later and later, while the next tends to get earlier and earlier, as explained in the section "Theory").

It's strange that overtaking is not mentioned among the corrective measures. I can't belieeve it's no longer allowed or possible.

Of course, it's only possible with buses, not with trolleybuses or metro and train.

I don't dare to edit the Wikipedia text myself, because I don't live in London or a similar city and because I don't speak English natively.

--Virda (talk) 13:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)