Comment by osdiab
9 years ago
The max throughout is the number that we should care about - they provide fewer cars per minute not because they're physically incapable of doing it, just because there isn't demand. And it would be the same in a car-centric situation as well - lower throughput in off hours.
Having the ability to send 1 billion people from A to B is useless unless there is actual demand to send 1 billion people from A to B. Similarly, not all stations get anywhere close to the same demand, but you need to build a large network or the peak demand is less. Thus, measuring the network is what's important not the 'best case' subset of a few most heavily used stations.
Further, roads and bridges do get used from 2-4 AM when subway systems are generally not operating, so it's the use over the full day that's important not just peak usage.