Adelaide Independent Taxis



  • I was applying for a job tonight and looked at how I could get home after midnight from said job if the need were to arise that I had to work until midnight. The buses run quarter to every hour on Saturday PM\Sunday AM and don't run any other day after midnight, which took me to taxis. A quick Google brings up [url=http://www.aitaxis.com.au/]Adelaide Independent Taxis[/url] and they have an estimator, which is nice.


    I bring up the first City list, and try to find my suburb... and the first suburb is ~!@#$%^&*()(_+, - clearly something isn't right here, but I press on.


    Scrolling down, I find other oddities such as Altonaxxxxx, Exxxxx, Gbvsdfgsd, Hooey, Jacksonville on the list three times next to each other, Jimx, London (which interestingly had only one street: Downing Street), Xxsuburb, Zazazaza, and my personal favourites, Heaven and Hell.


    Then I try to find the suburb I want... and I find that it's not there. Hell, no Adelaide suburb is there. All the real suburbs on the list are all Melbourne suburbs.


    For a company that claims to be "wholly South Australian" I find it hard to believe that they've managed to put the wrong suburb list in. In the end, I discovered that another company not only had an estimator that worked properly but they could take me home for about $14.



  • @Douglasac said:

    In the end, I discovered that another company not only had an estimator that worked properly but they could take me home for about $14.

    Assuming you mean Australian Dollars, that looks like quite a bargain. It's probably cheaper than a taxi ride here in the Netherlands.



  • @toon said:

    Assuming you mean Australian Dollars, that looks like quite a bargain. It's probably cheaper than a taxi ride here in the Netherlands.
    Indeed, Australian dollars. That said, it's only a 3km trip, so YMMV.



  • @Douglasac said:

    it's only a 3km trip

    In that case, I'd say it's about comparable. Why not simply go by bicycle? It's only about 15 minutes away by bike.



  • Only 12 km/hr or 4.7 mi/hr?

    I do realize my 24 km/hour on average (over ~3000 km) is a tad high, but only twelve?...



  • @pnieuwkamp said:

    Only 12 km/hr or 4.7 mi/hr?

    I do realize my 24 km/hour on average (over ~3000 km) is a tad high, but only twelve?...


    For short trips the time required to lock and unlock and fiddle with lights, trouser clips, etc. is quite significant.



  •  More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.



  • I think a better question is why are you preparing to work after midnight? You have insider knowledge about an upcoming WTF? Or just insanely OCD?



  • More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.

    At 18:00, on a dark Monday night, with your eyes blind-folded, no doubt.

    When in Rome...



  • @pjt33 said:

    @pnieuwkamp said:
    Only 12 km/hr or 4.7 mi/hr?

    I do realize my 24 km/hour on average (over ~3000 km) is a tad high, but only twelve?...


    For short trips the time required to lock and unlock and fiddle with lights, trouser clips, etc. is quite significant.

    So are the gas (petrol) saved and the positive effects on health (unless he's riding through da 'hood).



  • Cool - It's only AU$44.70 to go from 1 Hammond Ave, Airport West to 10 Downing St, London - Even cheaper than a flight!



  • @MeesterTurner said:

    Cool - It's only AU$44.70 to go from 1 Hammond Ave, Airport West to 10 Downing St, London - Even cheaper than a flight!
    But do you really want to be in one of their taxis for that long?



  • @toon said:

    @Douglasac said:
    it's only a 3km trip

    In that case, I'd say it's about comparable. Why not simply go by bicycle? It's only about 15 minutes away by bike.

    It would be faster with a Segway. And if you use it 10 times a month it becomes cheaper than a taxi. However, there is nobody in the Segway that can find a hooker or a gram of coke for you.



  • @Severity One said:

     More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
     

    That is a lie.



  • @Severity One said:

     More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.

    Some of us have been in the center of Amsterdam, you know. And I, for one, call BS.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Severity One said:

     More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
     

    That is a lie.

    Maybe he had the windmills to his back?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Severity One said:

     More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
     

    That is a lie.

    Maybe he had the windmills to his back?

    Or he took off his wooden shoes. I'd never do that - it's illegal.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Severity One said:
    More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
    That is a lie.

    What about at 3:00 AM? You could pull that off in Seattle at 3:00 AM.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:
    @Severity One said:
    More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
    That is a lie.

    What about at 3:00 AM? You could pull that off in Seattle at 3:00 AM.

    Dutch cities aren't big grids. Amsterdam's center is full of small bridges and canals and stuff, as well as a river, and they're building a big subway line under the city right now. So if that person pulled it off, it's quite a feat.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Severity One said:
     More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
     

    That is a lie.

    The only lie that matters is the cake.



  • @Anketam said:

    The only lie that matters is the cake.

    Ugh. Go away



  •  @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:
    @Severity One said:
    More like 6 minutes. I averaged 30 km/h through the centre of Amsterdam.
    That is a lie.

    What about at 3:00 AM? You could pull that off in Seattle at 3:00 AM.

    But no one in their right mind wants to live in Seattle, if for no other reason than you're automatically deemed to be a Washington driver and Washington drivers suck.  I'm sure bicyclists up there don't follow the rules of the road either.  The one redeeming value of a Washington driver is that he/she knows how to maintain a passing lane, but that just doesn't balance out all the other faults.



  • @nonpartisan said:

    But no one in their right mind wants to live in Seattle, if for no other reason than you're automatically deemed to be a Washington driver and Washington drivers suck.

    Hey at least we're not Oregon drivers.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Hey at least most we're not Oregon drivers
    FTFY.  Such would be the improvement.



  •  Fine, fine, maybe I exaggerated a little bit. But from Central Station to Buitenveldert, there isn't an awful lot in terms of little streets and bridges. Damrak, Rokin, Vijzelstraat, and onwards. And there are bicycle paths everywhere. The trick is obviously to avoid tourists that don't know the difference between a pavement and a bicycle path, and step right in front of you to watch some particularly interesting façade.

    We're talking over 11 years ago, too, when they weren't digging up half the city and turning it into another The Hague.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I think a better question is why are you preparing to work after midnight? You have insider knowledge about an upcoming WTF? Or just insanely OCD?
    Being a poor starving IT student, I'm willing to take whatever work is possible... in this case, applying at a Pizza Hut, which closes at midnight a couple of nights a week.

    EDIT: I also applied to get paid to stand on buses, trains and trams and show people how to rotate their hands ninety degrees to use the new ticket validating machines properly. It pays better than my tech job at home.



  • @Douglasac said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    I think a better question is why are you preparing to work after midnight? You have insider knowledge about an upcoming WTF? Or just insanely OCD?
    Being a poor starving IT student, I'm willing to take whatever work is possible... in this case, applying at a Pizza Hut, which closes at midnight a couple of nights a week.

    EDIT: I also applied to get paid to stand on buses, trains and trams and show people how to rotate their hands ninety degrees to use the new ticket validating machines properly. It pays better than my tech job at home.

    I wish you lived where I live, so you could show people how to poke the yellow strips (labeled "TOUCH HERE") on the back doors of our new busses instead of waving their arms around like magicians of some kind. (The old busses required you to wave your hands around near a green square like magicians of some kind, which was incredibly dumb, but the new doors look completely different, and we've had them for nigh on two years now, and I still see people trying to magic the doors open)



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    I wish you lived where I live, so you could show people how to poke the yellow strips (labeled "TOUCH HERE") on the back doors of our new busses instead of waving their arms around like magicians of some kind. (The old busses required you to wave your hands around near a green square like magicians of some kind, which was incredibly dumb, but the new doors look completely different, and we've had them for nigh on two years now, and I still see people trying to magic the doors open)

    ... why doesn't the driver just open the back door when he opens the front door? Why have a button or magic wave-y pad at all?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @pkmnfrk said:
    I wish you lived where I live, so you could show people how to poke the yellow strips (labeled "TOUCH HERE") on the back doors of our new busses instead of waving their arms around like magicians of some kind. (The old busses required you to wave your hands around near a green square like magicians of some kind, which was incredibly dumb, but the new doors look completely different, and we've had them for nigh on two years now, and I still see people trying to magic the doors open)

    ... why doesn't the driver just open the back door when he opens the front door? Why have a button or magic wave-y pad at all?

    Realistic answer: Because the driver is busy dealing with customers boarding at the front, and you don't want/need to open the back doors if no one is using them (in case someone tries to sneak on in the back)

    Very realistic answer: Because they would required effort.



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Realistic answer: Because the driver is busy dealing with customers boarding at the front, and you don't want/need to open the back doors if no one is using them (in case someone tries to sneak on in the back)

    Seriously? This is a problem? Do you live in Freeloadonia?

    @pkmnfrk said:

    Very realistic answer: Because they would required effort.

    More effort than hiring engineers to create futuristic cyber-door-handles which, and let's be honest here, undoubtedly STILL have to be "unlocked" via some driver control anyway and so when you think about it there's more effort required for this stupid solution than for the simple one.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @pkmnfrk said:
    Realistic answer: Because the driver is busy dealing with customers boarding at the front, and you don't want/need to open the back doors if no one is using them (in case someone tries to sneak on in the back)

    Seriously? This is a problem? Do you live in Freeloadonia?

    I've only ever seen it happen once. Much more often, the driver is distracted by Johnny Q. Freeloader who thinks that a random scrap of newspaper he found is equivalent to a transfer. If you rely on the driver opening the door in this case, then the door isn't getting opened.

    @blakeyrat said:

    @pkmnfrk said:
    Very realistic answer: Because they would required effort.

    More effort than hiring engineers to create futuristic cyber-door-handles which, and let's be honest here, undoubtedly STILL have to be "unlocked" via some driver control anyway and so when you think about it there's more effort required for this stupid solution than for the simple one.

    The wavy hand ones are immensely stupid and over-engineered, so I'll concede that point. However, I refer to effort on the driver's part. I don't know exactly how they control the doors, but since they always open the front doors even when there's no one at the stop, I suspect it's related somehow.

    Regardless, I don't see why you think that having to manually open the back doors is such a big deal. I've never seen anyone complain that they have to initiate the opening of the door (only that the door doesn't work because they're not waving their hands in exactly the right spot)...

    Do the busses in your region work like this? I'm genuinely curious.



  • Do they work by swatting at imaginary flies to open doors? No. No they do not.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Do they work by swatting at imaginary flies to open doors? No. No they do not.

    Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that your are functionally illiterate. Let me simplify what I said for you:

    • Hand wavy doors: utterly stupid, agreeing with you.
    • Push button doors: not stupid
    • Never seen back doors that did not require a passenger to open them
    • Do your busses require a passenger to open them?


  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Do the busses in your region work like this? I'm genuinely curious.
    Until about 15 years ago, the bus drivers here controlled all the doors (and also had to either stop at every station - even if nobody was waiting there, or look if it looks like somebody might want to exit). Then they started getting buses with stop and door open buttons (which work like stop buttons if the driver didn't press his door open button), so nowadays you push the stop button when you're nearing the station where you want to exit, and then press the door open button once it lights up.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    This is a problem? Do you live in Freeloadonia?

    Fuck, do I need to change my country name again? At least here it happens a lot, busses do have the buttons to open them but they disconect them so that people don't sneak in the back and ride the bus without paying, then again most buses still accept cash with the problem of the driver keeping part of the fare for himself. Is'nt life beautiful?



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Do your busses require a passenger to open them?

    No.

    The problem doesn't have to do anything with me being functionally illiterate, the problem is that your "that" in the question didn't clearly match-up to anything else in your post. So my interpretation of "that" meaning "magical hand wave-y thing" is just as correct as your interpretation of "that" meaning "bus driver opens the back doors". So I stand by my response and also I call you an idiot.



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Do the busses in your region work like this? I'm genuinely curious.

    Buses are really more of a lower-class transportation here. That said, I recall most buses opening the back door when the front door opened.

    Your way has an advantage: the back door only opens if someone needs to get off, so the heat stays in better. Also, I have no desire to touch any part of the filthy bus, so I'd probably prefer a magic hand-wavey thing.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    That said, I recall most buses opening the back door when the front door opened.

    It's typically different positions on the same switch, in the United States at least. A typical configuration is to have both doors closed when the switch is in the center position, and you can push the switch forward or backward one position to open one set of doors (which one opens depends on which way you push the switch) and two positions to open both sets together.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Your way has an advantage: the back door only opens if someone needs to get off, so the heat stays in better. Also, I have no desire to touch any part of the filthy bus, so I'd probably prefer a magic hand-wavey thing.

    I was a bus driver in the United States for several years, and no fucking way did we let the passengers control when the doors opened and closed. These are two of the reasons why. The third main one is that passengers are likely to break anything they're allowed to operate.



  • @Someone You Know said:

    I was a bus driver in the United States for several years, and no fucking way did we let the passengers control when the doors opened and closed. These are two of the reasons why. The third main one is that passengers are likely to break anything they're allowed to operate.

    Yeah, I really see no reason to have the passenger's operating the door. Also, if the passenger opens the door, how does it close? Does the driver still have to close it, or does it work like an elevator door (which would be annoying to wait on and more prone to failure, I'd imagine). Presumably the driver has to operate a switch to permit the door to be opened (major safety hazard if people can open the door whenever). What if he forgets to turn it off? It's a lot more obvious to remember to shut a door that you opened, probably less so to remember to flip a switch when there's nothing reminding you to do so.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Also, if the passenger opens the door, how does it close?
    Around here, on older buses the driver closes the doors (and once that's done, the door open button acts as stop again), while newer ones also have sensors and close automatically if nobody goes through for a while (there's also a buzzer that sounds before the door closes).



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Realistic answer: Because the driver is busy dealing with customers boarding at the front, and you don't want/need to open the back doors if no one is using them (in case someone tries to sneak on in the back)

    We have buttons on most of the trains and all the trams to open the doors, but not on the buses. Any of the high floor buses plus some of the original low floor buses have doors that the driver releases but the passengers push open themselves, and on the newer buses the drivers have a "front door", "exit door" and "all doors" button.

    We have very few to no problems with people entering via the centre and rear doors on buses here.


  • @ender said:

    Until about 15 years ago, the bus drivers here controlled all the doors (and also had to either stop at every station - even if nobody was waiting there, or look if it looks like somebody might want to exit).
    Good lord, Adelaide had buses with a stop cord since the 70's at the latest... where on earth do you live?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Yeah, I really see no reason to have the passenger's operating the door. Also, if the passenger opens the door, how does it close? Does the driver still have to close it, or does it work like an elevator door (which would be annoying to wait on and more prone to failure, I'd imagine).
    I imagine they work like the trams and trains here, driver pushes a button to release the doors, passengers open doors, doors close of their own accord and are then locked by driver before departure or the drivers makes them close and lock. On the trains, the train cannot go unless all the doors are closed. Something about the control lever and doors being linked together.
    @morbiuswilters said:
    What if he forgets to turn it off?
    If it's a train, then the train doesn't go. If it's a bus, then the driver is an idiot because there's lights on the dash that say "door open". Some of the buses even have a flashing light that says STOP for the driver if the handbrake is on or the doors are open or if there is some other condition that would be silly to go in.



  • @Douglasac said:

    On the trains, the train cannot go unless all the doors are closed. Something about the control lever and doors being linked together.

    That seems silly; a failure in the sensor would make it impossible to move. Why don't your drivers just handle the doors themselves? That works perfectly fine for us.

    @Douglasac said:

    If it's a bus, then the driver is an idiot because there's lights on the dash that say "door open".

    No idiot would ever be allowed to drive a bus, I guess. And as this site has amply demonstrated, users always notice and respond to error messages.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    That seems silly; a failure in the sensor would make it impossible to move. Why don't your drivers just handle the doors themselves? That works perfectly fine for us.
    The drivers do... they have a button that tells the doors that they can be opened (the passengers have a button to press to open the doors), but the doors can't be opened by this button unless the train is stopped and the train can't go unless all the doors are closed. As far as I am aware, the sensors have yet to fail, however prior to the trains being refurbished and having automatic doors fitted, the doors would sometimes open mid journey or be forced open by people who apparently had nothing better to do with their time. @morbiuswilters said:
    No idiot would ever be allowed to drive a bus, I guess. And as this site has amply demonstrated, users always notice and respond to error messages.
    You have a point... one of the new bus contractors has had many issues, one of which involves the drivers not knowing where they were going. One even asked me which way they should turn at an intersection. In any case, if they don't notice the front door, which is right next to them, is open as they take off, then they have no place behind the wheel of any vehicle.



  • @Douglasac said:

    You have a point... one of the new bus contractors has had many issues, one of which involves the drivers not knowing where they were going. One even asked me which way they should turn at an intersection.

    I've seen worse - I've been waiting at a bus stop for a bus which comes once per hour and seen it go past the turn-off to the slip road on which the bus stop was located; presumably at the point someone asked what the driver was doing, because he then took the extremely tight turn which the slip road is supposed to avoid anyone having to do, and failed to stop for the people running down from the bus stop and waving at him.



  • On buses here:


    The passengers press a button to indicate to the driver that they would like to get off at the next stop. These buttons are spread throughout the bus so everyone can reach one. When pressed, a sign illuminates and a tone sounds so everyone knows the bus will be stopping (so only one person has to press it, not everyone who wants to get off). If nobody presses the button and there's nobody waiting at the bus stop, the bus doesn't stop.

    When the bus stops, the driver opens the front door if someone wants to get on, or someone wants to get out from the front door; they open the back door if someone wants to get out from the back door.

    It's been this way for at least the last 30-odd years, except that older buses had a black strip running around the top (and a few individual buttons) to press if you wanted to stop, instead of individual stop buttons everywhere.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Douglasac said:
    On the trains, the train cannot go unless all the doors are closed. Something about the control lever and doors being linked together.

    That seems silly; a failure in the sensor would make it impossible to move. Why don't your drivers just handle the doors themselves? That works perfectly fine for us.

    Because it could take up to 10 minutes to check at each station due to the length of the train?



  • @PJH said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Douglasac said:
    On the trains, the train cannot go unless all the doors are closed. Something about the control lever and doors being linked together.

    That seems silly; a failure in the sensor would make it impossible to move. Why don't your drivers just handle the doors themselves? That works perfectly fine for us.

    Because it could take up to 10 minutes to check at each station due to the length of the train?

    That's certainly a good picture to use, because in that one you can clearly see that you don't need 10 minutes to check. You just have the conductor lean out the doors, look both ways, conclude that the other doors are closed, whistle and off the driver goes while the conductor closes the last few doors. That's how they've been doing it here for ages.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Douglasac said:
    On the trains, the train cannot go unless all the doors are closed. Something about the control lever and doors being linked together.

    That seems silly; a failure in the sensor would make it impossible to move.

    That'll happen either way. On most buses I've driven, the driver opening the rear doors effectively engages the parking brake. That linkage is prone to failures and does causes buses to get stuck when the brake doesn't disengage upon closing the doors.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Douglasac said:
    If it's a bus, then the driver is an idiot because there's lights on the dash that say "door open".

    No idiot would ever be allowed to drive a bus, I guess.

    Oh, of course not. I mean, they let me do it when I was eighteen, but I knew everything then, so I obviously wasn't an idiot.


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