Why minibuses in the city are bad

Minibuses compete with normal public transport, gradually squeezing it out of the streets. They are inefficient because they have a small capacity, they clog the streets and create traffic jams (one minibus can accommodate 15 passengers, a regular tram or bus can accommodate 120, and modern articulated trams can accommodate 300 passengers). Disabled people, people with luggage, strollers, etc. cannot use the minibuses.
Minibuses are killing public transport, which is why you won’t see them on the streets of London, Paris or Copenhagen.

Three years ago, City Projects made this picture, which illustrates the efficiency of public transport modes. We see that the minibus is losing to everyone. Even a regular bus is almost 10 times more efficient.

The following is a quote from Georgy Krasnikov’s blog, https://griphon.livejournal.com/116167.html

But the presence of minibuses is healthy competition. People have a choice. Those who need it faster choose a minibus, those who need it cheaper choose a bus or trolleybus.**

The fact of the matter is that there really is no competition. It only seems that if different types of transport travel along the same route, then there is fair competition between them. If you look at it initially, there was a trolleybus route, say, from the Kirov Stadium metro station to the 39th block. Everyone knows how it runs, and the route has a steady flow of passengers. Then a minibus appears and starts traveling along the same route, stopping at the same stops! Note that they are not coming up with any new route (although it could be very useful). It’s much easier to stick your nose into someone else’s bowl and steal a tidbit - this is what the tactics for developing minibus taxis really look like. It is no longer possible to talk about “fair competition” when some came up with a route, while others were the first to skim off the cream on the already invented one.

In addition, not a single type of municipal transport service can compete with minibuses simply because it has different tasks. He must adhere to the schedule, transport privileged categories of citizens - do everything that private owners do not want to bother with. Therefore, within the framework of fierce competition, it will always lose to minibuses, but this never means that this situation is normal. Anticipating possible objections, I’ll say right away that minibuses that do not duplicate transport routes exist, and there are quite a few of them, but still this is rather an exception. And they appeared only after they managed to make money on regular routes.

Well, if you remove minibuses, municipal transport will not be able to cope with passenger flow.

Naturally, in no case should minibuses be banned without offering passengers any replacement. The processes of increasing the share of municipal NOT and decreasing the share of commercial ones should proceed evenly. Let's say a new bus route is launched, and at the same time the contract with the carrier company serving a parallel commercial route is terminated.

But they say that the bus is big and goes along certain routes, but the minibus can go anywhere, it is small. And it's convenient.

This is exactly the case when one aspect is taken and generalized to the entire problem. But how about this situation: you are at a bus stop, a bus comes and it goes along some route, and the next bus goes along a completely different route. And you don't know exactly where each one is going. Would you like, like in the countries of South America and Africa, all these minibuses to travel throughout the city, wherever you want? They can, but you won't be able to find out where they're going. In addition, minibuses travel very often on main routes and create much more traffic jams. Because where eight of these minibuses are required, one or two regular buses could be used.

If minibuses exist, it means they are profitable. And if they make a profit, that means they are needed.

A common mistake is that if something makes a profit, society needs it. The most typical example is drugs. Their production and distribution can bring incredible profits, but no one will say that the drug business is needed by society. Minibuses, of course, do not cause as much harm as drugs. But just because they, unlike drugs, are legal, does not mean that there is no harm from them. How do they manage to make a profit if public transport is an unprofitable industry?

Well, certainly not thanks to the brilliant managers who developed an effective business plan. The basis of success is the endless number of violations at almost all stages of transportation organization, which significantly saves costs. This also means savings on the repair of rolling stock, which results in the production of terrible gazelles on the line that fall apart as they move. This is savings on drivers’ salaries, expressed in the form of the need to pass the so-called. “plan”, because of which the latter turn into zombies, working 18 hours a day to repel this plan. They are also forced to drive recklessly, violate traffic rules, avoid traffic jams in yards, sidewalks and oncoming lanes, just so that the plan is carried out. Savings on parking, as a result of which backed-up minibuses litter the outer lanes of the streets, complicating the often already difficult situation on the roads. (The best known examples to me are minibus taxi stands near the Tekstilshchiki and Ulitsa 1905 metro stations). At the same time, the desire to make money here is again above all else. It is a completely normal situation when out of 20 minibuses there are 5-6 on the line, and the rest are waiting for their turn. All the boys need to earn money.

And I like it! You can get there quickly and conveniently.

Of course it's convenient. While municipal transport is well developed, minibuses are forced to adapt to passengers so that it is more profitable for them to travel. But I assure you, such happiness does not always last. See next point.

Well, what's wrong with that? Let all transport be commercial. Why is this necessarily a bad thing?

If a businessman realizes that he already holds a significant market share, then almost immediately he begins to greyhound. Low intervals disappear first, followed by gigantic speeds. What’s the point if passengers still have no alternative: municipal transport is destroyed and not competitive! The city administration also cannot suddenly terminate the contract with such a would-be carrier: you won’t be able to take the required number of buses right away, but people need to be transported.
There is another situation. If the market has not yet been properly divided between the minibus mafias, then a race for survival begins between them. A race in the literal sense: in each direction there are several 95% duplicate routes, which race each other, cut each other off and by hook or by crook try to take the passenger away from the competitor. This is the “healthy competition” that traditionally leads to chaos and high accident rates on the roads.

With this approach, the municipal carrier can also do whatever he wants. And you won’t find any authority over him. And if there are no minibuses, then people will have no choice if it doesn’t work well.

Yes, it’s worth admitting that a municipal carrier is far from always ideal. Actually, because of its “imperfection”, minibuses appear on city streets. However: a) the activities of the municipality can be regulated by an abundance of complaints and appeals. In the case where there are more than 50 minibus offices in the city, writing complaints is much more difficult, because it is not very clear where to write them and whether there will be any reaction to them. b) the appearance of minibuses, as a rule, does not make MoonOT work better, but instead all the above-mentioned problems appear in the city. So poorly functioning municipal transport is a reason to develop it and correct its problems, and not a reason to replace it with a commercial surrogate.

So, it turns out that private transport cannot exist at all? This turns out to be some kind of socialism.

Private transport as such is entirely possible. Moreover, as strange as it may seem, in most European countries it is private. But the principle of participation of a third-party carrier in the transport system should be as follows. The carrier enters into an agreement with the city for a specific route with a fixed schedule and with the obligation to accept all types of travel documents. Thus, from the user's point of view, it is exactly the same as a municipal bus. Similar schemes are found in Russia: St. Petersburg, Perm.

Why then are minibuses so popular if they are harmful?

It's very simple. Everyone wants to make money, but the industry here is so raw. In addition, minibus taxi owners often have good connections in the city leadership, and sometimes they themselves are deputies of the city duma. Naturally, such deputies will be interested in quickly dismantling the municipal transport system, which is their direct competitor. This is where the liquidation of tram and trolleybus lines, the bankruptcy of bus public transport lines, etc. come from.