> Had this really not been done before? Apparently not on land. Ferries are an ancient idea, both for crossing water bodies and for traveling along them. They are fixed routes, of course, but that’s mostly because the shore is fixed.

Historically, not true for the “trekschuit” in 1632. For that, the shore didn’t exist before the route was envisioned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekschuit:

“The first trekschuit 'sailed' in 1632 between Amsterdam and Haarlem and could carry 30 passengers. The trekvaart or canal was dug in a straight line to facilitate an easy pulling process and to guarantee the shortest route”

"He was fortunate to live at a time (the mid-1600s) when, if you were born to the right parents, nobody told you you needed to specialize."

Or, he could have been just that much smarter than you you, dismissive author.

"At age 11, Pascal had re-derived much of Euclid’s geometry from scratch because his father kept the books from him"

Guessing not in the author's bio

I don’t think that there was much fixed scheduling for water transport prior to the the development of steam engines either, because you were usually at the mercy of the winds and the tides.

Regarding public transport route design, I've long wondered how much efficiency current routes in a given country might be leaving on the table.

As in: if one collected sufficient anonymised travel data to offer a reliable understanding of the population's travel needs, and given the fixed constraints of the existing road and rail network, and the existing number of buses and trains, how much more efficient could the network be by varying routes, timings, stops, and interactions?

Imagine if such a dataset was made available, and a prize offered for the best solution.

The challenge could also be extended to explore optimal areas for investment in additional infrastructure - a wider road here, a new roundabout or branch line there.