I am currently in Walsrode, trying to get to Weltvogelpark Walsrode, the bird park. I have navigated here with google maps, and the bus turns out to be a minivan? is this common for rural areas where capacity isn't needed?
another question is that I saw a bus that was supposed to depart at 09:51, but stayed at the bahnhof bus stop until 10:00 before leaving. The bus was completely empty (i couldve taken it too, but seeing it being empty I thought something was off and didnt) Was the bus waiting for passengers?
Thanks for any replies!
by WangYat2007
15 comments
You know, you can always just ask the bus driver
These buses are basically “on call”, they have a few stations they drive to or start off from, but can be requested by app to stop at other points to pick you up or let you off. So their schedule is more of a suggestion and not set in stone. And yes, this is meant to be more flexible for rural regions where the large capacity busses are only needed during school hours.
BTW Walsrode isn’t far from where I live. The Vogelpark is nice. Enjoy!
Welcome to rural parts:-) In my village (lowersaxony), there are phonenumbers in the Busstops. You need to call a central, and inform them that you are there and want to take the Bus line to xyz. Then the Bus will come and stop.
If you dont call, they will not stop, and if nobody calls for the whole bus line, the bus will not even start.
Yes it is. Often there are Rufbusse which you have to call an hour in advance. Otherwise they won’t come. Drivers on these small rural roads also don’t really need to be that punctual either. Often they run the same line back and forth every other hour with no other lines to connect to and long waiting times on their schedule.
> is this common for rural areas where capacity isn’t needed?
Yes, minivans are not uncommon in rural areas, I used one regularly commuting to work. Sometimes it’s hard to identify them.
> but stayed at the bahnhof bus stop until 10:00 before leaving.
Sometimes buses and trains have some kind of gentlemen’s agreement on waiting for each other. For example, if the bus regularly departs at 09:51, but the driver knows that a regional train arrives at 09:52, they might wait a few minutes to see if there are passengers for the bus. That’s more common in rural areas where passengers would need to wait a long time for the next connection.
When in doubt: Feel free to ask the driver. Sometimes they are unnecessarily grumpy (sometimes I wonder if this is a requirement for being hired as a bus driver), but often they are quite helpful.
I live in a bigger city and yet we have those small buses in residential areas. Those opeate like normal buses on a fixed schedule.
If it was waiting, I guess there is another connection that is timed with the one of that bus. If that one is delayed, maybe there was an order to wait for it.
Some years ago I had to call a number for a bus stop in the weekend in a village. It was a normal taxi that take you the bus station you required. He only asked me for a valid public transport ticket and told me that that the local government pays the fare.
At the back in other station the minibus was full and one passenger voluntarily left because a relative will pick up her…
Yes, it´s often just a van because public transport is shit and that´s why people avoid it, so demand decreases.
Literally have these buses in Marzahn and Lichtenberg in Berlin.
Yes, that’s common. Even some very low volume buses in Berlin use smaller solutions. Probably will become even more common if driverless buses become available.
> is this common for rural areas where capacity isn’t needed?
Not just rural areas, ages ago a friend told me how some Mercedes pulled up late at night in the city/burbs and was like “I am the bus”
I live in a rural area in Lower Saxony and I regulary take a Bus like this to commute home from the nearest train station.
> the bus turns out to be a minivan? is this common for rural areas where capacity isn’t needed?
As you now know, it was an on-demand bus. But even regularly scheduled buses might be minibuses if demand is low enough. They use less fuel than full-sized buses do, they can more easily navigate narrow roads and sharp turns, they’re less likely to be stuck in traffic, and so on.
> I saw a bus that was supposed to depart at 09:51, but stayed at the bahnhof bus stop until 10:00 before leaving. The bus was completely empty (i couldve taken it too, but seeing it being empty I thought something was off and didnt) Was the bus waiting for passengers?
Very likely. You say it was at the “Bahnhof”; it’s likely that the driver had been told that an incoming train or an incoming bus was late, and so waited in case there were passengers who needed to make the connection. That’s often possible in rural areas, where there is a lot more flexibility in the timetable and fewer other connections that have to be made.
I am from Walsrode, about 500m from where you took that photo lol. They are called „Bürgerbus“ here and are basically used for routes that don’t require a normal bus. Have fun in Walsrode haha
In addition to what others wrote, there’s also a “[Bürgerbus](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCrgerbus)” in many cities and villages all over Germany that also use the smaller form factor to transport up to eight passengers.
Those busses are driven on a voluntary basis and they usually serve routes that aren’t profitable—or due to their size even passable—for regular busses.
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