On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:20:10 -0000
"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote:
wrote:

But bendy buses weren't restricted to cental london. Some routes went out
into the burbs where you'll find a lot of HGVs. So what was the rationale
in getting rid of them from there?

Because a bus primarily designed for fast rapid trips at airports and in
city centres is not automatically suitable for longer journeys across the
suburbs. The bendies had an official capacity (as printed on the signs by

Who said it was only designed for rapid trips and city centres? Because the
standing to seating ratio is high? So what, its high in plenty of metro trains
too.

the driver's cab) that was about 50% more than they could hold in practice,
and they had limited seats and space to safely store the likes of
supermarket shopping. When you have long journeys seats are invariably more

And you think in a double decker there is space to store shopping? Where?

desirable than a bus rampacked with standing room only crush crowded because
the route has had its de facto capacity cut despite official figures saying
it is sufficient. Furthermore the "free bus" aspect was particular disliked

Standing is better than no bus at all. The number of times I've seen packed
double deckers that couldn't let anymore people on I've lost count of. And
if you think standing in a bendy bus is bad trying standing on the staircase
of a double decker with a driver who thinks he's Schumacher.

because many passengers felt it brought extra problems to the route - and it
was hard to persuade people the bendies weren't "free" when ticket checks
were rare, especially outside zone 1, and a person who didn't mind the
stigma of being occasionally fined would be significantly better off because
the fines never approached regular usage (plus with readers spread across
the bus one could always tap their Oyster onto one if they did get wind of
an inspection).

Irrelevant. Thats an issue with inspection , it has nothing to do with the
bus. Using that logic you should close the whole of the DLR since it has
very few physical ticket barriers and the train captains rarely inspect
everyones tickets in rush hour.

B2003