The Night Bus

When the city replaced its night buses with an app that sends small vans on demand, many riders were angry. The old buses ran every hour on fixed routes, and people knew exactly where to wait. The new system has no timetable: passengers type their address into a phone, and a van arrives within twenty minutes. During the first month, the app crashed twice, drivers got lost, and elderly passengers without phones could not book rides. The transport company listened and made changes. They added a phone line for booking, printed simple guides in three languages, and trained drivers to help older riders. By the third month, most users preferred the vans. Average waiting time fell from forty minutes to fifteen, and the vans use less fuel because software plans routes with several passengers together. The drivers also earn more, because they work flexible hours instead of fixed night shifts. Some problems remain: on rainy nights demand is so high that vans arrive late, and a few neighborhoods still have poor phone signal. The company now shares its data with the city so planners can see where people actually travel at night. Other cities are watching the experiment to decide whether fixed night buses belong to the past.