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Comment by bell-cot

4 days ago

Call me a fossil, but double-decker busses just seem so much cooler. Without all the added engineering complexity, costs, and footprint.

17 comments

bell-cot

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Aachen  4 days ago

Boarding times though? I agree of course about the cool factor and I was sure to ride one when visiting London, but afaik the slower (dis)embarking times are why double-decked trains are primarily used on intercity trains and not on commuter/local trains or light rail (metro etc.). Typical busses stopping every two minutes are probably similar

Edit: wait, I know one in Germany as well. It's expensive but between Frankfurt airport and another major city, there is a rail line but somehow the bus is significantly faster and they're using double deckers. The front row at the top was, n=3, always free for me (all four seats) so you get a quite unique experience, at least so far as my bus experiences in mainland western Europe go :)

  • bell-cot  4 days ago

    > Boarding times though?

    Often true. OTOH, the reduced footprint (vs. either 1 articulated or 2 normal busses) can speeds things up, especially on cramped and congested city streets. And if you're getting near gridlock-level congestion, the length of the articulated busses can be like dumping gravel into your system's gearbox.

    • TeMPOraL  4 days ago

      True. While I love our articulated buses in Kraków, if one of these stops mid-turn on an intersection, it blocks 3 out of 4 movement directions.

    • kergonath  4 days ago

      These issues are solved with dedicated bus lanes, which are desirable even for double deckers.

  • dominotw  4 days ago

    > Boarding times though?

    cant they just put another entry door?

kergonath  4 days ago

You have different footprint issues. And a lot of cities seem to have been doing ok with the engineering bit for what, 60 years now?

Double-deckers are cool, I’ll grant you that. And a very nice way to visit a city. But they are far, far less efficient in terms of capacity.

hagbard_c  4 days ago

How about articulated double-decker buses? The one does not need to exclude the other after all. It'd need a large harmonica to deal with hills and bumps or it could have separated top floors with sloping roofs.