One of the reasons why buses are sometimes less pleasant to ride than trains is that they’re much more likely to offer a jerky ride. This probably has a lot to do with the traction afforded by rubber tires and the unpredictability of the street traffic that buses travel in. Either way, when you’re on a sideways-facing hard plastic seat, or standing on a crowded vehicle without a convenient handhold, the net effect is that you might become better acquainted with your fellow riders than you’d like.

While some of the jerkiness can no doubt be chalked up to the vehicle, in my experience some drivers definitely have a lighter touch than others. Why not reward the attention paid by a conscientious driver to the quality of the ride? A simple accelerometer in the AVL package would likely be enough to figure out who was doing a good job. (There’s at least one company, Road Safety, selling this type of hardware for first-responder, commercial fleet, and of course anxious parent applications.)

Rather than using this system to punish careless drivers, it’d be be better (if more costly) to offer incentives for a driver to opt into, and perform well in, this type of monitoring. In some ways, this would be similar to the pilot programs that Progressive Insurance has run in which private drivers can choose to have their driving behavior recorded in exchange for reduced insurance charges. This way, it can preserve driver dignity at the same time that the smoother rides improve rider dignity.