About the panamanian "Metro Bus" failure

I've been thinking about if I should blog this down or not; however, somehow I’m bored at a Systems and logistics lecture given by a respectable professor from Louisville... so I’m saying ...what the hell!

Panamanian public transportation sucks. I don't use it as I have a car.. however, thousands of people day in and day out had to ride buses that wasn't secure, had no insurance etc etc... in a vial network that has developed wildly with apparently no planning at all.

Martinelli's government made the change... “diablos rojos” are becoming history as I write down these words.... people are riding new and modern urban buses... however... the system still not functional by several factors.

Anyhow, the idea behind this post is to point out a simple, yet important condition I've seen (from the outside) of why the “metro bus” system is miserably failing.

Old “diablos rojos” are “school buses” which capacity is between 48 to 77 passengers depending on the bus model... however, the buses were usually modified indistinguishably and would accommodate 80 passengers (all “seated).

Metro buses are Marco Polo Gran Viale with a similar capacity, however, because “diablos rojos” charged 25 cents per ride and the new “metrobuses” charge around a buck... people is reluctant to go standing... The users are demanding seats.
This basically means that their capacity has been cropped to something around 30 passengers (manufacturer claims 25 seats)

One of the routes that has been completely taken over by the new system is the one from “Don Bosco”... which had over 200 “diablos rojos” at service... Today, there are around 110 “metrobuses” servicing this route. Assuming that the total capacity of each unit is in use... we are still short on the amount of buses... so guess what. THE SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK.

Some has reported that they could stay waiting for a “metrobus” as long as 45 minutes... and when it comes in... it is already full (no seats available).

I have no idea of how the system was designed and the specifics of why it is not working... however, just by observing the amount of people going on the buses each day I ride from home to work and viceversa I could easily say that the amount of units should be doubled to match the service that old diablos rojos provided.


and yes... I'm glad I own a car!

I just got into photography...

Well.. that's not necessary true.
Back on the 80´s, my father owned a pentax system... As every hobby my father had (excluding firearms) eventually it was passed on to me as he got "bored".

back on those days, there was no autofocus; so everything was 100% manual... In other words I have some old and forgotten experience taking pictures with a SLR...

anyways, I just got into the canon system as someone offered me a mint condition EOS 20d with a kit lens...


this is some of what i've done with it so far..

Superpopulation

As you may know already, I won a scholarship for my masters degree.... so about a year from now i'm supposed to be defending my thesis... then i've been collecting data and taking notes on some "not technical" stuff yet interested enough to make me sniff around.

superpopulation is one of them..

is the world already overpopulated or we have space for more people?

As the demand and supply for resources and money increases over time, it is common to get annoyed by the ones who fail to keep on their 5 senses... however, I've been thinking about it, and i have some interesting conclusions regarding this... at least from a strileckly engineering standpoint.


I'll need to run some numbers in order to say something properly, but i think we are on the verge of overpopulation.

• We have seen some effects of the weather changes related to global warming... food production may not be enough as entire harvest get lost by flood, hurricanes etc.
• The "open market" demand and supply does not incentive food production as there are more profitable activities, which have to do with the
• Cost of energy. as food production requires energy and processing and packaging does need some more... 

the list go on and may go on for ever... however, these are weak arguments to such a problem, if the problem ever exist to begin with.