"Ross" wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:58:45 -0800 (PST), Paul wrote:

[...]
Just to put my twopennyworth in, I don't like the policy where the
front of the bus only shows the final destination. I realise that this
may hae something to do with the provision of better information for
people with poor eyesight, but it seems a shame that improvements for
one set of passenger has to be at the expense of another set of
passengers. London gets a lot of tourists who are not familiar with
the bus network and who need to know where the buses go. (eg if you
are on Regent Street and want to go to the Tower of London, and you
see a no. 15 with the destination "Blackwall", you would not
necessarily realise that this bus takes you where you want to go.)

On the other hand, if you are a tourist unfamiliar with London, going
to the Tower of London, and a bus turns up with the destination
Blackwall and a traditional London via screen showing "Tower Hill"
amongst a list of other unfamiliar places, how do you know whether
that bus is going towards Tower Hill or whether it has already passed
Tower Hill earlier in its journey?

The only realistic answer for on-bus information screens is for using
electronic blinds with via information that updates during the journey
as the bus passes the via point(s), but that would then involve either
only showing one, presumably relatively local, via point (not very
useful to tourists) or scrolling via points - and ISTR reading
somewhere that scrolling displays aren't very easy for the people with
poor eyesight to read, so you end up with the best of a bad job option
which is to have route number and final destination on the bus, and
decent information at the stop which allows you to find out that the
number 15 to Blackwall from this stop will take you to Tower Hill.

Of course, we then hit the problem that provision of information at
bus stops is nowhere near as wonderful in this country as it should
be...

Though the provision of information at bus stops in London is very high -
all have timetables, the bus stop flags indicate the broad direction of
buses, numerous busier bus stops also have individual 'line diagram' style
timetables produced specifically for them which show the onward route of
buses from that stop, and numerous bus stop stands also display a 'bus
spider map' which diagrammatically shows routes that run from that locale
along with a small street map insert which shows which bus stops are located
where, along with a key and often a table to work out which route goes where
and from what stop. (Though Paul C will be along in a moment to say that he
disapproves of the simplified timetables!)

(And furthermore, once Countdown - that's the electronic bus stop displays -
is eventually made to work reliably, it'll be even better. And if realtime
iBus info ever makes its transition onto mobile phones... though we're still
waiting for that one!)

Meanwhile bus stops around the rest of the country are often fairly hopeless
in comparison, and a great many are completely useless.