Paul Corfield wrote:

I am also somewhat intrigued by your comments about there being only one
performance indicator for London Bus performance and that that it
relates to arrivals at the end of the routes. How did you come to that
understanding?

TfL publishes where it does it timing checks for each route and on my
local route the checks are most certainly not done at the extreme ends
of the route. Arriva's inspectors are not located at the end of the
route either.

The trouble with my usual local route (the W6) is that the measuring
points *are* at the terminals, but as the monitoring doesn't take place
from first bus to last bus and the drivers know when they're being
monitored, it produces results that bear very little resemblance to reality.

After about 21:00, the frequency drops to half hourly and it's not
unusual for buses to leave 2 or 3 minutes early, and to get to the other
end of the route 5 minutes early, yet when you complain to TfL Buses
about it they just send a standard fob off letter giving the usual
excuses of traffic, bunching, and statistics, and don't actually *do*
anything.

The most extreme example I've experienced was when I was coming back
from work one day. I got the 22:40 299 from Muswell Hill Broadway, with
the intention of catching the 23:00 W6 from Southgate. As it was around
22:55 when we got to Ye Olde Cherry Tree, I got off the 299 there and
had just crossed the road and was walking back to the W6 stop when it
shot past me, before it was even due to leave Southgate Station, and I
had to wait nigh on 40 minutes for the last bus of the night.

Cheers,

Barry