PAT Sucks.

[rmitz]

I forgot how freaking bad the busses are when the students come back

Comments

[jcreed]

For people who just go out and wait for the next bus (which I am normally) having more buses in peak times seasonally as well as just daily would make a lot of sense.

But can you imagine them printing new schedules every semester, or having complicated schedules that put them on special university-holiday schedule time every time one or more major universities go on holiday? Or less complicated schedules that put them on the usual sunday/holiday schedules during university holidays (and, again, whose holiday, CMU's? Pitt's?) despite the fact that other people still need to get to and from work?

[rmitz]

Printing? Don't bother. No one is going to complain if there are some extra busses, and keep the regular times the same. Not that they're actually ever reliable anyway.

[kdavoli]

Yeah, they know about the student increase. They don't change the busses / schedules on purpose.

Because by 3 weeks into the semester (i.e. next Monday the 19th) the slacker students stop going to morning classes. They know enough to just wait them out.

[qiika]

No classes next Monday! MLK day!

[rmitz]

Maybe they stop going because PAT is such a pain in the ass?

[tame_eep]

hell, just adding an oakland-forbes&murray shuttle would make everyone's life better.

[rmitz]

The problem is one of incentive. They have none to offer better service, because the universities pay them blocks of cash anyway, and that's most of the affected population.

[bhudson]

I recall learning that PAT scheduled extra 28X buses as-needed. So if one bus was full, the driver would call, PAT would find some other driver, get them into a bus, ..., several hours later, an extra bus would show up.

And no, they didn't try to *predict* that maybe, just maybe, the day before Thanksgiving they might want to beef up their service.