Busses rarely run at a profit, if your metro service is very lucky user fares cover half the cost of bus service (lookup farebox recovery ratio), hence some US bus systems going fare free since it makes a minimal difference financially.
Semantics. Profit, net zero, sustainable with tax dollars, etc.
Doesn't matter. You get the idea dude. It's about routes not being worthwhile because the damn transport option is too costly for just a few people. Autonomous car is gonna be more effective for these scenarios.
Rather than profitability, perhaps the right metric is utilization.
Even if you don't care about the revenue, having only a handful of people on the bus per run in the evening makes it hard to justify the cost of operating the line. Having other options to get home is great.
