> At the other extreme, where you have a regular bus coming every hour to every house in very sparsely populated area
Obviously mass transit makes less sense without the masses, in cases like that there are many places that offer community bus services that operate more like taxis. You call and say you want a pick up and the bus will pickup and drop off anyone else along the way. Think uber pool but half a century older.
There are even private companies that run free shuttles just to get old ladies pumping their pensions into poker machines.
Right, but this is not a "public transit", it's effectively private transit with a chauffeur, and it's obviously much more expensive and less efficient than driving yourself (because it saves a little on vehicle amortization, but loses a lot on extra labor cost).
No it's still public transport, it's resources are shared by the community, you don't have exclusive access even while travelling/booking and it may make several stops to pick up other people or drop them off. It's a bus with no fixed route and schedule, that doesn't make it private transport with a chauffeur.
Obviously mass transit makes less sense without the masses, in cases like that there are many places that offer community bus services that operate more like taxis. You call and say you want a pick up and the bus will pickup and drop off anyone else along the way. Think uber pool but half a century older.
There are even private companies that run free shuttles just to get old ladies pumping their pensions into poker machines.