Waiting for a bus at Sydney Central

24 04/10
14:21

Waiting for a bus at Sydney Central

When buses in Sydney have reached their sitting and standing capacity, the driver puts up his hand, tells you to wait for the next bus, closes the door and drives off. That happened to me that night. I only realized this when visiting Sydney after living for a while in Japan. Sydneysiders squeeze and push to get on first. You seldom see an orderly line waiting for the bus.

But the situation in Japan is rather different. There are visible queues at the bus stop. And these queues are extremely orderly. During rush hour, people squeeze and push to get on. And since you’re already in a line, getting on first isn’t really an issue. And you know, the driver will literately take as many passengers until the remaining passengers decide for themselves to wait for the next bus.

The interesting thing is, in Japan, you always always know where the bus will stop. There’s a drawn rectangle just the size of the bus on the road and buses always, and I mean always, stop within that rectangle. In Sydney, you could be standing and waiting for a bus and the driver might stop 2-4 meters within your vicinity. Maybe that’s why no one queues – you never know where the bus will be stopping.

So, while waiting 30 minutes for the next bus, I decided to take a photo for central station.

Optimizing bus timetables must be a very hard thing to do.

Comments (11)

http://twitter.com/laniemon laniemon

As weird as this might sound, I’ll miss the bus that I used to take while living in Sydney. Here in Malaysia it is much worse, I’m afraid, with rude bus driver, ruder passenger and whatnot.
.-= laniemon´s last blog ..laniemon: @japantwo http://twitpic.com/1hwdsk – Never get tired looking at Sakura in full bloom. Thanks for the pic ^^. =-.

Reply
k Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I agree. Buses in Malaysia are horrendous.

Reply
http://www.protocolsnow.com Protocol Snow

I don’t think I can live in a city where public transportation is required. I’ve lived too long in Los Angeles. A car is a must! =)
.-= Protocol Snow´s last blog ..How I went from Apple store newbie to lifetime ban in one week =-.

Reply
k Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
That’s interesting, because the younger generation Japanese (especially those in Tokyo) prefer public transport to owning a car!

Reply
sammi

that’s one thing i love about japan and the uk – the queuing culture.

it’s fair, orderly and you get a good estimate of how long you will be waiting. without queues, it’s the strongest, rudest and loudest people who will always be the winners, which isn’t fair on children, the elderly and the passive.

Reply
http://kamlau.com Kam

There is not much queuing in Vancouver as well. It is more like the faster to squeeze yourself to the door, the faster you can get on. There are bus stop signs and usually that means the starting point of a queue… well, even if you are already standing there, others will come alone and stand in front of you and the bus stop sign so that they don’t have to go to the end of the crowd. Does it have something to do with the education and parenting?
.-= Kam´s last blog ..Amiami shipment =-.

Reply
k Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I guess it’s just common courtesy and manners.

Reply
http://bk201.wordpress.com bk201

Public Transport in Sydney isn’t the best but it is getting better…i hope
.-= bk201´s last blog ..MaiFail? =-.

Reply
http://lhyeung.net LHY

That’s interesting about the “bus culture”…

In Scotland here, no one really queues either. There can be lots of buses coming at once so you don’t know where it will stop and maybe that’s why, as you say, no one queues. But interestingly enough, when the bus does arrive, people generally have the manners to let whoever was waiting at the bus stop longest to go on first. Unless there’s kids or other selfish people about. The bus driver will let as many people as he can on during rush hours.

It can be pretty funny sometimes when you have more than one person offering to let each other on first… I guess it’s the slower pace of life here where most people aren’t in a rush to get things done ^^;

On the other hand in Hong Kong, there are either rails or marked lines on the ground for people to queue in and during rush hours, the bus driver will stop people getting on after it’s over capacity. It is the same with the subway – Queues happen but there’s platform assistants to help squeeze as many people on as possible…

The other difference I found is public transport in HK is a lot cleaner with little vandalism or litter and few people skip the queue. Probably because you’ll have the whole crowd after you if you tried anything, lol. Here, you will catch people smoking and littering despite the signs that they maybe fined.
.-= LHY´s last blog ..A New Layout for 2010 =-.

Reply
Pingback: Public Transport Culture
Leon

im pretty sure its just australia thats terrible at it (optimising bus time tables) even down here in Adelaide the buses and their drivers arnt spectacular =\

Reply

kenleewrites in 日本

Waiting for a bus at Sydney Central