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"Follow the Leader"


BZGuy

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If they're spaced out evenly, then they won't get hit with a ton of people anyway. Even spacing should equal even crowding.

 

And by being passed by, I don't mean flagged. I mean that the driver thinks that everybody's destination is along Madison Avenue and skips the stop, when there's somebody who needs his bus specifically.

 

Either way it doesn't matter because I have yet to see it happen.

 

And why are you going on and on about the spacing when you don't ride the routes?? I mean go out and ride the routes and then complain. :tdown::tdown:

 

 

The M2 and M3 both start at the same terminal in Washington Heights.

 

Uhh..... No. The M2 goes to 168th street and the M3 goes up to Fort Washington.

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1) And why are you going on and on about the spacing when you don't ride the routes?? I mean go out and ride the routes and then complain. :tdown::tdown:

 

2) Uhh..... No. The M2 goes to 168th street and the M3 goes up to Fort Washington.

 

1) I've rode them a few times, and that spacing was very annoying.

 

2) Alright. Now that I think about it, the M2 ends at 168th Street and the M3 ends at 193rd Street. But the M2 does take a bit more of an indirect routing in Upper Manhattan.

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How so and where? That's the key question.

 

Well, there was the time when you said that it would be reasonably fast to take the M1/2/3 from 8th Street to the MTA headquarters (I should've taken the train), and there were a couple of times when I took them within Midtown with my mother and/or brother.

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Well, there was the time when you said that it would be reasonably fast to take the M1/2/3 from 8th Street to the MTA headquarters (I should've taken the train), and there were a couple of times when I took them within Midtown with my mother and/or brother.

 

Well yeah it could be. From 8th street would you have to walk over to the (N)(R) take that to 14th street and then take the (4) or (5) express and then walk from Grand Central. By the time you do all of that walking and transferring you could just time an M2, catch it and walk up the two or so blocks on Madison to the (MTA) headquarters. The time would be about the same, but the difference is less waiting, walking and transferring with the subway.

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Well yeah it could be. From 8th street would you have to walk over to the (N)(R) take that to 14th street and then take the (4) or (5) express and then walk from Grand Central. By the time you do all of that walking and transferring you could just time an M2, catch it and walk up the two or so blocks on Madison to the (MTA) headquarters. The time would be about the same, but the difference is less waiting, walking and transferring with the subway.

 

No, I'd just be able to take the (6) straight up. Why bother with all the steps and passages when I don't have to (and if I happen to see a (4) or (5) across the platform I can just transfer). I'd have to walk, but I walk pretty fast.

 

And that M2 was just as slow as the locals. I let an M3 pass by and thought "The M2 is supposed to be coming in a few minutes and it's a limited, so I'll just wait for it". There were a lot of people at the limited stops, and that canceled out the savings of being a limited (then again, it could've just been a slow driver).

 

I had to do it another time and took the (6). So much better. :tup:

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No, I'd just be able to take the (6) straight up. Why bother with all the steps and passages when I don't have to (and if I happen to see a (4) or (5) across the platform I can just transfer). I'd have to walk, but I walk pretty fast.

 

And that M2 was just as slow as the locals. I let an M3 pass by and thought "The M2 is supposed to be coming in a few minutes and it's a limited, so I'll just wait for it". There were a lot of people at the limited stops, and that canceled out the savings of being a limited (then again, it could've just been a slow driver).

 

I had to do it another time and took the (6). So much better. :tup:

 

Well you'll have next time then.

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Well you'll have next time then.

 

One, I don't go to Manhattan too often and two, I really don't feel like going up to Madison Avenue and dealing with those idiots again. :mad:

 

Plus, the only reason I even considered taking the M1/2/3 was because I was at Cooper Union, which was by 8th Street. If I ever went up there again, I'd probably be coming from SI and I'd just take the (4)/(5) from Bowling Green.

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Leader/Follower is just what it is called. You are the leader and the bus that leaves behind you is your follower. The bus in front of you is your leader. As Fresh pond said, it is very common to have your follower pass his/her leader either because he/she is late or have a full bus. You are NOT allowed to pas your leader if you ae running ahead of schedule, aka early. I have done it plenty of times for my leader if he is down but I WILL NOT pass him/her if I am for any reason running early or going to run early as a result of it. There are other cases to where you might not have a leader, which will result in a what we call a double headway. That can simply be that the run was not covered, or that bus broke down, or winded up missing for whatever reason (yes some guys plays games like that on the road). It all is based on what time buses are supposed to leave.

 

For Limited Routes, you might hear drivers say "my Limited leader/Follower is......." or "My Local Leader/Follower is......". That pretty much is what time you may leave in front of whoever. Same concept though. Hope this sums it all up.

 

Fresh pond pretty much said it all for you but you won't believe him, so maybe I can clarify that for you.

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Here's another question for you. What do you call buses that are scheduled within a few minutes of each other that clearly to do the same thing that the leader/follower set up does on one line?

 

It seems like there is something similar on the Madison/5th Avenue lines with the M1 and M3 coming almost right behind each other and then the M2 comes and picks up at the big stops. I've noticed this set up and it works out pretty well going up from via Madison. The M1 and M3 if things run right switch off of each other (even though they sometimes have different stops, but they're both locals) and they usually keep up with the M2 up until a certain point anyway, so is there any name for this? It's clearly done purposely from what I've seen anyway. It allows for even loading and allows the locals and the limited to move quickly, though not always the case.

 

When busezs are scheeduled a few minutes apart, that really has nothing to do with anything. Its just the time they are scheduled. You have 4-6 different routes at some points in the 5/Mad area, so naturally you may see 4-6 buses all coming at the same time. However, they all serve different purposes.

 

Leader/Follower is just what it is called. You are the leader and the bus that leaves behind you is your follower. The bus in front of you is your leader. As Fresh pond said, it is very common to have your follower pass his/her leader either because he/she is late or have a full bus. You are NOT allowed to pas your leader if you ae running ahead of schedule, aka early. I have done it plenty of times for my leader if he is down but I WILL NOT pass him/her if I am for any reason running early or going to run early as a result of it. There are other cases to where you might not have a leader, which will result in a what we call a double headway. That can simply be that the run was not covered, or that bus broke down, or winded up missing for whatever reason (yes some guys plays games like that on the road). It all is based on what time buses are supposed to leave.

 

For Limited Routes, you might hear drivers say "my Limited leader/Follower is......." or "My Local Leader/Follower is......". That pretty much is what time you may leave in front of whoever. Same concept though. Hope this sums it all up.

 

Fresh pond pretty much said it all for you but you won't believe him, so maybe I can clarify that for you.

 

No one said they didnt believe him, or he was wrong. I just said he was slightly off in left field with the way he explained it. If you are not a B/O, or in ops, you may not know what he was talking about. My point was that you CAN pass your leader if he/she is behind schedule, and that all routes/runs do not have leaders/followers. His explanation of the scheduling didn't really explain anything to someone who doesn't know whats going on. It's pretty self explanitory that a leader is first out and a follower is next out. BZ Guy wanted to know how it actually worked.

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When busezs are scheeduled a few minutes apart, that really has nothing to do with anything. Its just the time they are scheduled. You have 4-6 different routes at some points in the 5/Mad area, so naturally you may see 4-6 buses all coming at the same time. However, they all serve different purposes.

 

Normally I would go along with that idea, but seeing how the schedules are set up and how the buses operate I would have to disagree in this instance.

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On the Q10 as I type this. Just left Union Tpk, and was chatting with an operator. Both of our buses were scheduled to pull of at the exact same time, and the next Leader/Follower set would soon follow. The concept is a great thing, which occurs at TA's all over the country. This way you have a minimal (if any) amount of people getting flagged. There were about 80 people waiting at the stop.

 

Normally I would go along with that idea, but seeing how the schedules are set up and how the buses operate I would have to disagree in this instance.

 

What exactly do you disagree with?

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What exactly do you disagree with?

 

I disagree with the idea of them just happening to be scheduled that way. I think it was done with a purpose at least coming from 8th street anyway going up Madison. If you look at the loading on those lines and how the buses move the set up seems to allow the M1, M2 and M3 to all move rather quickly rather than one bus being hit with others coming empty.

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I've read the first page of posts on this thread, and I have to say that many of you have a different idea of what the "follower/leader" term is used for, or how it is during the everyday life as a line operates.

 

And from what I've read, on that first page, Fresh Pond seems to have a close understanding as to what's what, as quoted below.

Simply put, your leader is the bus that's scheduled leave in front of you and you follower is the bus that's scheduled to leave behind you. Every bus has a leader and a follower unless you're the first bus of the day (no leader) or the last bus of the night (no follower).

 

IIRC, if you pass your leader/your follower passes you, it is against the rules since one of you guys aren't maintaining the schedule. If you see 2 or more buses going down the line at once, it usually means either one is late, one is early, or one is on time and the other is late/early. It is very common for drivers to pass their leader or to have their follower pass them since one of them picked up a full load and the next bus is empty. Some drivers pass their leaders to help the others out if they're empty and some won't pass their leader at all no matter how late his/her leader is/

A leader is basically whoever's scheduledin front of you (the follower).

 

To my knowledge, there's no rules against passing your leader as long as you're following YOUR paddle. That's how things should work on every line. Many ops get caught up in staying behind the leader even if s/he is late, they won't pass him because now they have to "work". If your schedule allows you to pass the leader because he's late, then you can do so. At that point, it's more so of helping each other.

 

Under no circumstance are we allowed to be earlier than the time specified on our paddles (aka run hot).

 

On the B46, I can never tell who's my leader or follower (nor do I care, really) because there's so many buses, especially during rush hour (looks like a train coming down). It's all about your schedule, no one else's. If anyone falls behind, etc., then you have specific SLDs along the route to make adjustments as needed to keep the line organized. That's their job.

 

Edit: just saw the post by NovaBUSRTS9145. Perfectly said, too.

 

Leader/Follower is just what it is called. You are the leader and the bus that leaves behind you is your follower. The bus in front of you is your leader. As Fresh pond said, it is very common to have your follower pass his/her leader either because he/she is late or have a full bus. You are NOT allowed to pas your leader if you ae running ahead of schedule, aka early. I have done it plenty of times for my leader if he is down but I WILL NOT pass him/her if I am for any reason running early or going to run early as a result of it. There are other cases to where you might not have a leader, which will result in a what we call a double headway. That can simply be that the run was not covered, or that bus broke down, or winded up missing for whatever reason (yes some guys plays games like that on the road). It all is based on what time buses are supposed to leave.

 

For Limited Routes, you might hear drivers say "my Limited leader/Follower is......." or "My Local Leader/Follower is......". That pretty much is what time you may leave in front of whoever. Same concept though. Hope this sums it all up.

 

Fresh pond pretty much said it all for you but you won't believe him, so maybe I can clarify that for you.

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And BTW, anybody who is worried about what their leader or follower is doing, chances are they are playing games. I worry about my bus and my schedule. That's how other buses should do it too!!!!

 

I drive 1 bus I could care less about Leader/Follower I just follow the time on my paddle and dont get hot :)

*clicks like button* Acela Express likes these posts.

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When busezs are scheeduled a few minutes apart, that really has nothing to do with anything. Its just the time they are scheduled. You have 4-6 different routes at some points in the 5/Mad area, so naturally you may see 4-6 buses all coming at the same time. However, they all serve different purposes.

 

 

 

No one said they didnt believe him, or he was wrong. I just said he was slightly off in left field with the way he explained it. If you are not a B/O, or in ops, you may not know what he was talking about. My point was that you CAN pass your leader if he/she is behind schedule, and that all routes/runs do not have leaders/followers. His explanation of the scheduling didn't really explain anything to someone who doesn't know whats going on. It's pretty self explanitory that a leader is first out and a follower is next out. BZ Guy wanted to know how it actually worked.

 

 

And what me, Fresh pond, and Acela Express said was how it works. For Fresh Pond not to be a B/O, he hit it right on spot.

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And what me, Fresh pond, and Acela Express said was how it works. For Fresh Pond not to be a B/O, he hit it right on spot.

 

I wasnt disagreeing with that either, its just that the way he was explaining it was not self explanitory for a couple of people who asked me about the topic in a discussion. They arent bus ops, so they needed some things cleared up.

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