arduous: No problem. I usually like running through numbers. My analysis doesn’t really cover school buses anyway, since all of my numbers are for inter-city busing. I don’t know how intra-city transportation compares, although my guess is that it’ll be worse because intra-city buses stop more often. But you’re right overall. If you think that buses are replacing individual drivers rather than pairs, then they don’t have to have as many passengers to provide a net gain.

I think that intra-city buses are much more likely to replace single drivers, both for the reason you mentioned and because most people who drive to work drive by themselves. While on longer trips, I tend to see at least two people in most cars, which is why I used that as my estimate.

Which all just goes to say that yes! You’re absolutely right that short-range buses probably don’t need as many passengers to break even.

The only thing about those small school buses is that, to be fair, while there are two people in the car driving to school, it’s usually a parent and a child. Parent doesn’t actually need to go to school, they’re just driving because kid can’t drive. So yes there are two people in the car, but one of those people doesn’t count. When you factor in that the parent drives BACK home without kid, I think it works out so that if four children are on a school bus, then the school bus is worth it. Are my calculations correct?