The Aardvark Speaks : essence, effervescence, obscurity. Established 2002. A weblog by Horst Prillinger. ISSN 1726-5320


December 05, 2005

Public transport and Murphy's law

I think that Murphy's law of public transport says that as soon as you approach the station, you will notice there's a tram/bus/train there, which will leave immediately as you move closer, and then there'll be some sort of disruption and you'll be waiting for the next tram/bus/train, like, forever.

At least that's what happens every morning when I leave the house to go to work; I see there's a tram in the tram station right on the other side of the street, and never manage to catch it before it leaves. The alternative is seeing a tram that has departed something like 20 seconds ago further down the street. In any case, there's always some kind of disruption afterwards, so I have to wait at least 10-15 minutes for the next tram.

Interestingly though, this doesn't happen when I don't intend to go to work, but elsewhere. Anywhere else, for that matter.

Even more interestingly, when I go to my favourite Indian restaurant and leave there late in the evening, there's always a bus coming around the corner that will take me home. Like, it's always coming, even though it's late at night and there's officially a 15-minute interval at the time, and it's always coming in such a way that I only have to wait for half a minute or so, and I always manage to catch it.

If I were to believe in karma (which, incidentally, I am), I would draw my conclusions here.

Posted by Horst on December 5, 2005 09:45 PM to my so-called life | Tell-a-friend
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Comments
dieter said on December 6, 2005 10:58 AM:

There is another version of Murphy's law of public transport at work with 48A bus. If you go to the bus stop in the morning (intending to bring your child to kindergarden and go to work afterwards), you are very likely to see a bus pass you by.
Be careful *not* to expect the next bus to come soon, because the next bus will come even before you reach the bus stop, and the disruption happens after that. It seems that those buses only drive in convoys...

Ritwik Patra said on December 12, 2005 05:01 PM:

Hi..Thought I should tell U that I have posted a blog on Public Transport in Delhi with a focus on ordeal of disabled persons.
Thanks...

Ritwik

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