Survey: Average Bus Capacity
Where bus services are provided by a small number of large operators, or a monopoly, each operator should be able to provide details of their bus fleets, including capacities.

Where there is a large number of small operators, and it is not practical or possible to obtain data from all of them individually, figures for bus capacity should be obtainable from licensing details. In practice, however, many licensed buses are not operated, while some buses may be operated illegally without licenses. License information often does not indicate where buses are operated, and therefore it will not be possible to determine the capacity of buses operating in a particular area or on a particular route.

It may therefore be necessary to obtain this information by means of surveys.

A sample survey should be carried out over a period of at least four hours, at a number of terminal points (normally 4-6 will be sufficient) on main route corridors. If there is a significant proportion of feeder routes, on which it is likely that vehicles will be used with smaller capacities than those used for the main routes, it will also be necessary to select terminal points on such routes – because there may be variations in vehicle types between one route and another, a greater number of survey points (say 6-12) is desirable.

A more accurate figure may be obtained by carrying out a more detailed survey over the full working day, since some buses may be operated for only part of the day, while the mix of bus sizes may differ between peak and off-peak periods. This may be practical for a single route, but for an entire network would involve a considerable amount of work.

It should be borne in mind that, where there is a mix of different sizes, some buses may operate more journeys during the day than others, so that the average bus capacity may differ slightly from the average capacity per bus departure. However, any difference is unlikely to be significant.

Both seating (excluding driver) and standing capacity should be recorded. In some countries it is a legal requirement for these figures to be displayed on the vehicle; if this is not the case, it will be necessary to count the number of seats, and estimate the standing capacity. For a bus designed to carry a high proportion of standing passengers, standing capacity may be up to double the seating capacity; for a bus with double seats on each side of the aisle for the full length of the bus, standing capacity (without overloading) is approximately 25%-35% of seating capacity. These proportions may be verified from observation of a sample of buses.

Bus registration numbers must be recorded so that when analyzing the data each bus is counted only once.

 

Following is a typical survey form:

 

Date
Route*
Location
Starting time
Finishing time
Surveyor

* if applicable

Reg. No.	Route*	Seats	Standing	Total	Reg. No.	Route*	Seats	Standing	Total

* if applicable