h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have an idea about Random Busses, and need help compleating and realizing the idea. You know when you need to go from A to B, but the busses go to C, D, H and Y? You'd like to cach a buss going to B directly. The Random Busses would drive around, random. Youd jump on the one that comes by, and it would take the people on it to where they'd like to go. Perhaps the majority desides, by putting the hands in the air. "Next cross: How many people wants to turn left? Hands in the air!" 7. "How many wants to turn right?" 4. Ok, then, the buss turns left. Easy!

Ok, but what if you wanted to go left, left, right, and the vote went left, left, left?

Democracy is fine in some instances, but don't believe it would work in this one, instead I reckon you'll just have to put up with the dictatorship of the bus schedulers, or you'd probably never get anywhere.

You'd jump off the buss and cach another Random Buss. Or you'd stayed on the first one and arrived at an even better place than the one you were going to in the first place!

Isn't that what taxis are for?

Or we could just install moving sidewalks, and then you wouldn't have to bother with the vote.

Taxi: Too expencive
Mooving sidewalks: Too slow. And expencive to install...

What if you don't know which way to turn to get to where you're going?

Then you'll end up at an exiting, unexplored new and unknown place, like an iceland in the passific ocean or something.

I think the whole point of this is that it only works if you don't have a particular destination in mind. Which is all well and good, but then how do you get home? What if you wind up outside the regular bus routes?

If the buses are that random, there's no guarantee that any given spot will have a bus just happen by in the next minute, hour or month.

Interestingly, what this actually sounds like is the first glimmerings of the idea of Uber... you were just about fifteen years too early...