> Roads are flat, not stacked, so you're just somewhat linearly increasing throughput.
Per-lane efficiency drops with additional lanes. It doesn't stay the same, and definitely does not increase.
> that being said, does having 50 more buses actually reduce anything, 100 more?
Yes. A typical city transit bus can hold 40 seated people, and a "crush" capacity of about 70. Coach numbers are relatively similar give or take. Typical rush-hour max capacity is probably around 60 which is fairly comfortable.
40-60 people taking up about the space of three cars, instead of (if we're being very gracious) 20 cars, to as many as seventy cars.
If we graciously figure that when stopped in traffic each car is 15 feet (length of a compact SUV) and there is one foot of spacing between them (also gracious), that means anywhere from 320ft to over one thousand feet of lane usage, compressed into about forty feet.
Now think about how much roadway space is used when those vehicles are traveling; those cars have to accordion out to have, say, about one car length between each of them (likely more, but we're being gracious.) Now you're looking at 600 to two thousand feet of lane.
This is why bus-only lanes (either during rush hour or all day) and traffic signal prioritization for busses is gaining popularity in municipalities. One full bus erases two thousand feet worth of cars on that road.
We should be looking at the status quo as "look at how much road capacity is being wasted by single occupant vehicles."
Per-lane efficiency drops with additional lanes. It doesn't stay the same, and definitely does not increase.
> that being said, does having 50 more buses actually reduce anything, 100 more?
Yes. A typical city transit bus can hold 40 seated people, and a "crush" capacity of about 70. Coach numbers are relatively similar give or take. Typical rush-hour max capacity is probably around 60 which is fairly comfortable.
40-60 people taking up about the space of three cars, instead of (if we're being very gracious) 20 cars, to as many as seventy cars.
If we graciously figure that when stopped in traffic each car is 15 feet (length of a compact SUV) and there is one foot of spacing between them (also gracious), that means anywhere from 320ft to over one thousand feet of lane usage, compressed into about forty feet.
Now think about how much roadway space is used when those vehicles are traveling; those cars have to accordion out to have, say, about one car length between each of them (likely more, but we're being gracious.) Now you're looking at 600 to two thousand feet of lane.
This is why bus-only lanes (either during rush hour or all day) and traffic signal prioritization for busses is gaining popularity in municipalities. One full bus erases two thousand feet worth of cars on that road.
We should be looking at the status quo as "look at how much road capacity is being wasted by single occupant vehicles."