You have a less skilled driver in the van. The one I often drive is just a 3 seat van. The driver is making $12 an hour I think they told me. It's a 6 month experiment.
I don’t want to say less skilled, but you need less training which probably lowers costs.
However in terms of passengers, shorter trips means it’s better to compare passengers per hour rather than the number in a bus at any one time. If they can average 8 passengers per hour the service would be making money on it’s own and 4+ could probably be worthwhile as part of a larger network.
