London Banter - View Single Post - Piccadilly line 'bustitution' to Heathrow this weekend

Recliner[_2_] · November 16th 13, 12:58 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Sat, 16 Nov 2013 07:24:37 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:01:49 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message

, at 16:24:21 on Fri, 15 Nov 2013, Recliner
remarked:

Of course, they will have to stop giving "free" rides from T123 to T4
(etc)
The latter won't work, as it's a fundamental requirement for Heathrow
in the modern age to be able to move passengers from one terminal to
another free of charge.

But not necessarily by underground train -- lots of airports use
inter-terminal buses, as does Heathrow for air-side movements.

Indeed, but Heathrow's layout means that using buses is extremely
inefficient and slow. It would be a major new fleet and an expensive
operation to run. Far simpler just to let the passengers use the trains,
given that the trains are already there.

Are the buses actually slower to get between T4 and T5? You'd need
two Heathrow trains to do it, and they're only 4tpi. The bus route is
fairly direct using the tunnel.

What route would they take? A long way round the outside of the airport I
would have thought.

They could go either through the central area, or round the perimeter
road (3.9 miles). For a landside transfer, the latter is probably
better. Bing reckons it's an 11 minute drive; Google obviously drives
faster, and estimates nine minutes. Let's average it at 10 minutes.
Assuming the buses ran fairly frequently, that would beat the two
trains quite easily.