The stunt
A 40-foot city bus parked sideways in a lot, nobody on board. A ramp on one side, a landing on the other, and the wheel goes over the roof. It opens the season, and it comes with a question about the bus itself.
The work
Measuring the bus. Building ramps tall enough to clear the roof with room to spare. Landing it over a bus-sized frame at ground level before a real bus is ever parked between the ramps.
The night
A parking lot, a crowd behind barriers, the bus in the middle. After the landing, the big screen shows what that bus costs per rider: nearly empty, half full and packed.
Solve the Jump
When is a bus the cheapest way to move people, and when would a Lamborghini be cheaper?
A bus costs about the same to run with 2 people on board or 60. So the cost of each ride is the cost of running the bus divided by the people riding it. Packed, a bus is one of the cheapest ways to move a crowd. Nearly empty, the math gets strange.
Example: in 2024 it cost Metro St. Louis about $13.44 to run a bus one mile, with 6.4 riders on board on average. That's about $2.10 per rider for every mile. How full would the bus have to be to get under 50 cents?
The physicsCost per rider per mile = cost to run the vehicle one mile ÷ riders on board
What makes it interesting
A new city bus costs about $500,000 with a diesel engine and about $1.1 million electric. A Lamborghini Urus costs about $281,000 and seats five.
On average, a Metro St. Louis bus has 6.4 people on board. It costs about $13.44 a mile to run, driver, fuel and repairs included. That's $2.10 for every rider for every mile, and fares cover about 8 cents of every dollar.
So would a fleet of chauffeured SUVs be cheaper? On a quiet route, maybe. Then rush hour comes and 60 people are waiting at one stop. That's 15 SUVs and 15 drivers, or one bus. Do the math before you believe a hot take, including this one.
Bonus: a chauffeured SUV with 4 riders costs about $4.80 a mile to run, car and driver included (Chapter 01 of the workbook shows where that comes from). How many riders does the bus need before each one rides for less?
Sources: NTD 2024 agency profile: Metro St. Louis · Brookings: Paying less for public transit buses · Kelley Blue Book: 2026 Lamborghini Urus
What gets measured
- Speed at the lip
- Clearance over the roof
- Landing force in g
What has to be true first
- The transit agency says yes and parks an empty bus for it
- The ramps are engineered and load-tested, and the landing matches the flight path
- Landed over a bus-sized frame at ground level first
- Crowd lines set well back from the landing