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The Island of Hawai'i provides public transportation via the Heleon Bus System.

The buses are free to ride.

However, there are several issues with the Roberts Heleon Bus System:

• Punctuality: The buses are not punctual. If you plan to travel by bus, add several extra hours for bus tardiness.

• Regularity: The buses are not regular. Many times, a bus simply does not show up, leaving passengers stranded. Don't plan time-sensitive travel on the bus.

• Service: I have personally experienced several problems with the drivers.

  • Denial of Service: On a handful of occasions ( more than 6 ), the bus drivers denied me service, by simply not stopping for me. Once a bus stopped, the door opened, and as I was picking up my luggage to get in, the door closed within 10 seconds, and the driver drove off, with me banging on the side of the bus. On a few other occasions, I was left standing alone in the middle of the designated bus stop area, as the driver pulled in, noticed me, and kept driving instead of stopping.

  • Rude Drivers: On several occasions, bus drivers have treated me with extreme rudeness. Recently, a bus driver started shouting at me, unprovoked, asking me not to touch the doors. He would not let me get a word in edgewise.

• Unclear Stops: Bus stops are sometimes not marked clearly, or in many cases not marked at all. There is not even a sign indicating where the bus stops. Furthermore, different drivers stop at different places along the vaguely designated, unmarked bus stop area making life confusing for passengers.

• Unsheltered Stops: Many bus stops don't offer passengers shelter from the Sun, rain, or wind while they wait.

  • Ocean View: an unpaved, potholed dirt lot, with nothing around to offer passengers any shelter.
  • Whittington Beach Park: unmarked stop with no shelter.
  • Na'Alehu Elementary School: the stop could use a redesign, as it offers scant shelter from rain and wind.

• Unclear Website: The Hele-On bus website is overly complicated, and not user-friendly. The schedules and maps are not easy to access, as they are available in the form of badly laid-out PDF files. The web application to look up a route is quirky and does not always return the expected results.

• Unclear App: The Moovit app displays a lot of advertising, and is not well designed. For example, it requires an Internet connection to work, rather than storing the latest available schedules on the phone, for offline use.

• Environmental Pollution:

  • exhaust fumes pollute the air
  • noise pollution from engine

• Cost:

  • Fuel: Costly gasoline imported from the mainland.
  • Maintenance: Internal combustion engines require significant maintenance costs.

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Alternate proposal:

A solar bus system.

• Each bus will be powered by batteries which are charged at solar charging stations and swapped into buses.

• The buses will provide:

  • Onboard restroom ( with compostable sewage processing )
  • Free onboard WiFi
  • Every seat will have:
    • Free electric charging outlet
    • Fan vent
    • Reading light

• The buses will be zero emission in terms of:

  • exhaust fumes
  • sound

• The buses will be designed for passenger safety and comfort, and environmental friendliness.

• The buses will be simple, minimal and robust in design. Since there is no engine, there will be very few moving parts. The maintenance overheads will also be greatly reduced. The buses will be built to last, and not for planned obsolesence.

• The buses may have an almost completely transparent top ( ceiling and sides ), reinforced by a frame.

• Optional: Individual passengers will be able to polarize/unpolarize the window above their seat to get shade from the Sun.

• There will be a very simple, elegant and streamlined website with:

  • a clear schedule that can be quickly consulted at a glance.
  • a map showing all the bus routes, with stops, and arrival times at each stop.
  • the current real-time location of all buses ( like Lyft / Uber ) on the map.
  • the What3Words address of each bus stop.

• There will be a simple app that:

  • lets you look up the current real-time location of any bus on a map.
  • lets you look up the What3Words address of each bus stop.
  • caches the latest bus schedules for offline use.

• Each bus stop will:

  • be clearly marked with a sign, and optionally the schedules of buses that stop there.
  • be covered on all sides, providing thorough protection from the Sun, wind and rain.
  • provide free WiFi.
  • provide electric charging outlets, optionally powered by solar panels on the roof.

Benefits:

• Save money in:

  • fuel costs
  • maintenance costs

• Reduce air and sound pollution.

• Significantly improve the passenger experience, which could boost ecotourism.

• Reduce dependence on cars, which could mean better road safety for the island.

• Reduce reliance on gasoline, thereby greatly reducing Hawai'i's contribution to US wars.