Chapter 3: The bus system and the city

As discussed in Chapter 2, the functionality of the bus system includes the process of reaching the system in the first place. This is because the access points – bus stops – are defining points of the interface between the buses and the rest of the city. How the bus system relates to the rest of the city is therefore defined by the bus stops. The bus services simply link the bus stops together on one side of the interface and the pedestrian network links them together on the other. Ultimately, the fundamental requirement comes from the locations of the activities around the city. The bus stops form the fulcrum of the whole system – the balancing points of the city which enable it to deliver these activities to the population. As a result, ensuring that these interfaces are equitable – in terms of where they are, when and how they work – is crucial if the city is to deliver a socially just and fair society which is able to improve its wellbeing and that of its individual members in space and over time. So we need to think about how a person can use the whole system: how they can reach the buses, and the barriers that must be overcome in doing so, so that we can start to define how the buses can make the activities genuinely available to everyone. This is the precursor to specifying the bus service, including its network, routes, access points and schedules.