Capacity is what really makes buses inefficient. Buses will never be able to match the capacity of trains, and that is why they do not work for high capacity networks.
A single 10 car train on most systems, such as SF's BART, NYC's subway, Chicago's el, etc., can carry roughly 2,500 people at any single moment. Using the highest capacity buses, which can carry from 80-100 people at a time, you would need roughly 30 buses to match the capacity of a single train. It is physically impossible to move 30 buses along a transit line as fast as you can move a single train.
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