The operator answers
The Shuttle Timetable, in Writing
A number everybody quotes and almost nobody sources. This line exists to put a date on it and to say where it came from.
The four fields
- What the hold asks
- How often does the shuttle run, at what hours, and does it run on the same pattern on a Sunday in January as on a Thursday in June
- What comes back
- The pattern the lot puts in writing, printed as given, with the date it was given
- When to ask
- At the time of the request, and again if the hold moves into a different month
- If it is not asked
- The hold says the pattern was not supplied, and the quote does not substitute a typical figure from anywhere else
- Where the answer came from
- A written reply from the operator, dated, and repeated in the hold with that date attached
Why a date matters more than the number
A shuttle pattern is a staffing decision, and staffing changes. A figure that was true in July is not evidence about February, and a figure a lot gave two years ago is not evidence about anything.
So this line prints two things: the pattern, and the date the lot said it. If the date is old, the reader can see that it is old and ask again. That is a smaller service than promising a number, and it is one this counter can actually perform.
The three questions inside the one question
Asked together, because a single figure hides all three:
- How often, at the busiest hour. The interval at six in the morning is the one that decides whether somebody makes a flight.
- How late, and how early. A lot whose van stops at ten in the evening is a different product from one that runs to the last arrival, and the difference matters far more in a Milwaukee January than the daily rate does.
- Whether the pattern thins on a quiet day. Sunday morning in the middle of winter is when a thin pattern is most likely and least expected.
What this counter does not do with the answer
It does not convert a pattern into a promise about how long anybody will wait. Vans get held up, roads get cleared, and a pattern is a plan rather than a guarantee. Where a lot gives a pattern, the hold repeats the pattern and says it is the lot's plan.
It also does not compare lots on this basis in any ranked way. Two patterns are printed side by side in a quote when two lots answered, in the order the answers arrived, with the dates on them.
What to check availability against, if you are deciding on this alone
Ask for the pattern first and the daily rate second. A cheap lot with a thin evening van can cost an extra night's accommodation, and that is a real number that never appears on a rates page.
- Access after the streets are clearedThe other question a lot can answer and most readers forget to ask.
- Whether anyone is there at nightThe same subject where the answer is usually silence.
- RatesThe daily rate range and every addition, including the ones a van pattern hides.
- Get a quoteTick the timetable question and it goes to the lots with the request.