Abstract
When we think about transportation, no concept seems more fundamental than speed. We just want to get there, and speed sounds like the most direct measure of how soon we will. Indeed, if you divide the distance you travel by how long it took, you have something that you can fairly call the average speed of your trip.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
There’s one exception to the principle that speed improvements are usually reliability improvements. One way to improve reliability is to write a slower schedule, so that services that were running late can now be declared on time. This can sometimes be the only option, but it also amounts to a lowering of expectations. Transit agencies that value quality should never do this without raising an alarm and having some public discussion, which could lead to support for more active interventions to improve both reliability and speed.
- 2.
The five parallel streets are also designed for heavy traffic movement, so traffic can move readily from one to another to find the fastest way For this reason, the band of streets needs to be thought of together when apportioning street space.
- 3.
To be precise, this would involve shifting the local buses on the adjacent and parallel Polk Street to a Van Ness transit lane, because they (and Polk Street car traffic) are part of the volumes counted here.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Jarrett Walker
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Walker, J. (2012). The Obstacle Course: Speed, Delay, and Reliability. In: Human Transit. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-174-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-174-0_8
Publisher Name: Island Press, Washington, DC
Online ISBN: 978-1-61091-174-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)
