Photograph by Astrid Stawiarz, Getty Images
A stranded young wizard in the world of Harry Potter need only jab a wand in the air to summon the Knight Bus, a triple-decker that offers a topsy-turvy brand of public transportation on demand. Forget taxis. This machine can shrink to squeeze through tight spots, and passengers can buy hot chocolate or a toothbrush on board.
"I love Harry Potter's Knight Bus," said Rachel MacCleery, vice president of infrastructure for the Urban Land Institute. "[It's] so great that it's a bus--the workhorse of any transit system-and not a train," she wrote in an email.
Wands sadly remain the stuff of fiction, but the Knight Bus illustrates concepts at work in real-world transportation systems. Telematics, for example, have helped advance "demand responsive" and community-based flexible transport services to help fill the gap between buses and taxis, especially in rural areas. Routes can be optimized based on real-time demand and passengers can be assigned dynamically based on the location and status of vehicles in the fleet.
In cities around the world, minibuses and share taxis facilitate this kind of trip aggregation in more informal networks. Residents of New York City and other metro areas, meanwhile, have a growing number of apps to use for finding fellow travelers who will share a cab ride--thereby saving on fare and potentially preventing emissions that would otherwise result from two cars carrying solo passengers.
"Even with diesel buses, we're taking cars off the road," Virginia Miller, a spokesperson for the American Public Transportation Association said in a phone interview. But many buses now run on natural gas or use gas-electric hybrid systems. Percentage-wise, she added, "If the auto fleet here had as many hybrids as the transit system does, we'd be in a much better place."
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