So - the announcements are in Greek, they’ve just modernised the buses. Cool. Seems like it should be something used more often by the locals.
There has got to be more to this story. Do the buses get stuck in the same traffic jams as other cars? Are they infrequent? Do they only service certain areas?
Do the buses get stuck in the same traffic jams as other cars?
For the most part, yes, but there have been improvements.
Are they infrequent?
Somewhat, but mostly they are irregular because of the aforementioned traffic jams, lack of telematics, and until during my last visit, no scheduled times for intermediary stops (just for the start, terminus, and the interchange station).
That’s for the capital city. In my town of origin, there’s only 5 buses per day, and only three stops for 6 thousand residents.
Do they only service certain areas?
For the capital city, which is what the story mainly concerns: They used to be on a hub-and-spoke model that really didn’t match how the city is lived, but afaik the routes where redesigned last year.
There has got to be more to this story.
From my experience:
a) The culture aspect cannot be underestimated. We are talking about a place where people always offer to give you a lift even for distances under 700m.
b) Lack of telematics/real time data and good route planners including integration with Google Maps (the app for the capital city is even worse than the article, and in other areas often the best you can get is a PDF of the route on a map).
c) Complicated ticket system, where the only ticket that is easy to get does not allow transfers.
Last time I was in my town of origin, I tried to test the new company, and for a distance of 5km, which is around 10 minutes by car, I needed 2 hours from the time I set off.