> you seem to be treating bus stops independent of alternative means of transportation
Perhaps you misunderstood my point, which was more about data and statistics, as is the article itself, rather than transportation.
A similar argument could apply to the article's example of "average class size", where that's a valid statistic when observed by a teacher (or facilities manager), but misleading to a potential student. Something like "average size of a freshman's classes" would be more meaningful to a prospective student, and "oversampling" would not be a valid complaint there, either.
> instead of waiting at the bus stop, because of what happened to them yesterday at the bus stop.
It sounds like you're suggesting that there's an even better measure than the two I proposed, rather than the original measure being better. If so, I don't dispute that there could be many more, as I never claimed "best".
In this instance, though, measuring people who never show up to the bus stop in the first place is impossible, and even measuring those who showed up but abandoned waiting (i.e. never boarded) is impossible without additional instruments (whereas, presumably, electronic fare collection equipment could closely enough approximate counting boardings).