I thought the buses are always on time, if they arrived early aren’t they supposed to wait? How come when I get there on time (two minutes earlier) the buses are already gone?
I can confirm that they aren’t late, because I literally waited for the next bus.
Some times I catch the bus 5min before the departing time and the bus just goes to the next stop in no time…
Im serious someone please teach me how to time it correctly.
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In my experience, if it is a (edit: first) station, then they will leave on time. If it is a bus stop, expect ±5 minutes. In our area, you can use the qr code in bus stops to monitor the real time location of the bus.
They’re probably late. I don’t know why you think you know they’re not but in my experience they’re pretty much always at least a bit late. So if for example there’s supposed to be a bus at 10:00, 10:08, 10:16, 10:24, and you get to the bus stop at 9:58 and wait and wait and no bus comes until around 10:08, it might not be that the 10:00 bus was early and just left before you got there and then you caught the 10:08 bus, it’s probably that the bus you rode at 10:08 was actually the 10:00 bus and was just several minutes late. The 10:08 bus was also several minutes late and so on and so on. It’s very common for them to be late because traffic is so unpredictable, there can be construction, they can hit every red light, have to stop for several crosswalks, get a slow driver in front of them, etc.
Plus then you get old people who didn’t charge their Suica and then need to stand there for 3 minutes counting out change to pay for the bus, 45 junior high school students getting on/off the bus at one stop, needing to wait for people to sit down before they drive (not every driver does that though lol) and stuff like that happening which can also eat up time. It’s not like trains where the track is generally smooth and unobstructed and the stop times can be perfectly timed and they aren’t held up by people paying or finding a seat or whatever
>I thought the buses are always on time,
Traffic exists.
in my experience they pretty mmuch are and i use buses daily for commute.
In my experience, if they arrive early, they leave as soon as it hits the time they’re supposed to leave! I’ve had most buses be on time on 5 mins late, but I’ve also had to wait 15 mins or more for a bus. I used to religiously take buses all over Tokyo and I never experienced one leaving before the time they were meant to leave
Busses are usually just late.
If you missed the bus because it came early it could be that it had few stops lately (no one getting on/off) so it breezes by or the opposite end it’s full and no room to stop either so it might pass a stop before the pickup time making it so you can’t see that it already drove past.
I’ve had busses whiz on by for being full. And I’ve been on empty busses that don’t stop for many stops because no one is there and that might make them ahead of schedule. I’ve never had a bus sit and wait regardless of if they were early or not in my experiences.
Also arriving 2 mins ahead of the target pickup time is late imo when it comes to busses.
Check if the bus company displays actual bus times on its website or even an app. One of the routes I occasionally use has 6 buses an hour but at odd intervals and with traffic delays a wait of 20 minutes is not unusual, so on the occasions I need to use it, with the aid of the website I can time it to get to the stop a little before the bus actually arrives.
buses are usually late but still within5-10 min ranges. That’s a pretty on time comparing with other countries worldwide. Dense traffic and tiny roads and overloading passengers can extend arrival time, in this 30million people metropolitan. Try to drive a big car on your own around Tokyo to pick up friends and you will see.
I think half the people commenting are ignoring your question and just assuming the bus is late…
Anyway to answer the question, no they don’t necessarily wait. If it’s the busy heart of Tokyo they might try to stick close to the scheduled time but basically if they don’t see anyone waiting or approaching the bus stop they often just move on.
It really depends on the bus though. If one comes every 5-10 minutes or whatever, they won’t always wait, and in fact might leave early as they might run into traffic on the way to the next stop anyway, so any extra leadtime is a bonus.
Now if the bus is one that only comes once every 1-3 hours, they will likely wait until the designated time. Still, if they don’t see anyone at or approaching the bus station I wouldn’t be surprised if they left up to a minute early from time to time.
The buses are not always on time, that’s the trains you’re thinking of. No they do not wait if they get to the stop early and no one is there or it doesn’t look like anyone is running to catch them, they leave. The bus is most likely not already gone but hasn’t even gotten there yet and is actually running late.
Trains are very reliable, but buses are not. Obviously they have traffic. I’ve never heard of buses arriving early and leaving early however. Make sure you are checking the correct timetable. There is always a different timetable for weekends and national holidays
The timetable is sometimes more like an estimate.
The bus will leave the terminal at the appointed time, but all other points on its journey are subject to the ever changing whims of the gods in this floating world.
I have a neat trick to tell exactly when the bus will arrive. It’s when you don’t need them.
I always try to arrive at any bus stop 10mins before its scheduled to arrive. No transportation system in the world is perfect, so it’s best to get there early rather than show up on the dot or later then find out its already gone.