There is a reason people complain about buses and prefer to drive in so many cases. Operators try to compromise on cheap and end up with service for those who after 5 DWIs can't get their friends to drive them anymore.
Forcing more people to change busses more often for their routes just to fit some 15 minute max route ideal is going to make more people hate the busses.
You're not necessarily making more destinations available. You're potentially just requiring more changes to go to the same destinations.
Imagine a metro area with somewhat grid-like streets (or at least common paths) that go on for an hour+ in each direction. People still generally cluster to 20-30min from the destinations they care to go to, so it doesn't break that standard. Breaking it up into four 15-minute stretches isn't making it better for anyone. All you're doing is forcing people to get off one bus at an edge and hop on another. Just run more busses on the full path so there's still ample service for the changes.
How does forcing the 15-minute max path make more destinations available?
It doesn't inherently make more lines. You might (you probably will) just have the same lines more broken up.
You could also just have more lines even if they're long. The length of the lines doesn't change the number of them. It's just a question of how many busses and drivers do you really have and what service interval are you trying to hit.
If you're arguing they should have like a 15 minute hub and spoke model, you might also be forcing some really inefficient routes and once again force people to change busses more when one bus route could have better served the community.
This is highly regional - any major city with a decent transit system will have excellent bus routes in dense areas. Also, “operators” usually means bus drivers, not transit agencies
Only dense areas. Some cities are ignoring dense areas that other cities have proven can support great service because they are not the densest there. People have places to be, and large parts of any city do not have reasonable transit options even though the density is there. Too often you are foced to take the long trip downtown and then back out even though your destination is just barely beyond walking distance.
