12-02-2020, 01:39 PM
(12-01-2020, 10:26 PM)ac3r Wrote: It is definitely able to handle the demand. The thing is empty half of the time, even before SARS-CoV-2 disrupted everything. According to Keolis the LRT only carries 25'000 people per day on average.
Except it wasn't "empty half the time". It couldn't have been carrying 25,000 riders a day—20% more than what the 7+200 carried together before—if it were empty.
Did you think that ION was going to jump to 100% capacity right away? That's just ridiculous, because if it did that means we waited far too long to put it in place. Of course it's going to start off on the lower end and grow from there, like if you had promoted a busPlus route to a full route and switched the short bus of 20 passengers to a regular bus of 80 passengers.
Even with only 30 people aboard, 1/8th capacity, ION is probably still going to be cheaper to operate per ride than a bus route carrying 20,000 people a day. In fact, I bet you that an analysis of IONs operational cost carrying 25,000 per day on average will show that it costs less per ride to operate than the old iXpress 200 cost at 7,000 riders per day.
(12-01-2020, 10:26 PM)ac3r Wrote: In terms of a rapid transit system (and specifically one that is serving a region of over 600'000+ people! - Nürnberg, Germany for example, is roughly the same size as us even even denser yet it has 3 subway lines, 5 streetcar/LRT lines, 4 S-bahn lines and a million bus routes) it's so far an absolute failure in terms of ridership. Even that number is quite ambiguous since they only announced that in a recent press release in regards to the ION winning a national award. Will ridership go up? I have no doubt, but it's reaching veeeeeeerrryyy far to paint the ION as an astounding success.
It is an astounding success. GRT boardings all across the system were up 17%. Central Transit Corridor boardings were up 40%. The IO, if it has 25,000/day, carries more than three times as many people per day, on average, as the iXpress 200 did.