Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 21:06:21 +0000, Joyce Whitchurch
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

[much useful stuff snipped]

Thanks for that.

b) TfL requiring standard headways despite much extended running
times at the peak. Non of this moving from a bus every 30 minutes to one
every 42 minutes that you see in deregulated land.
Intriguing - that's not apparent to the passenger. The timetables at
stops just say cheerfully "every 10/12 minutes" or whatever, as though
the headways do in fact vary at peak times.

Hang on though -
LOGICAL FALLACY
- the headways can't be constant throughout the route if the running
times vary. They might be constant at one point but not at every timing
point.
DOES NOT COMPUTE
WHIRR
CRASH
BANG
REPLACE USER AND REBOOT

OK fair comment. Yes you get minor variations as running times build up
and down on the shoulders of the peak. My local route is x10 for most of
the day but varies between 7 and 12 minute intervals *at my stop* in the
shoulders. At the end of the route buses are arriving every 10 minutes.

TfL put in the extra resources for the longer running times *and*
maintain a 10 min headway on my route. I'd imagine in deregulated land
that it might be x10 off peak but x12 or so in the peaks. This, of
course, is bonkers because at peak times you want the capacity to be at
least as good as off peak and yet it isn't because they won't put the
extra buses on. And people wonder why buses are not used by a proportion
of the population?

The point about extra buses in the peaks is an interesting issue for
deregulated operators; as you say, extra vehicles are required to
maintain headways in the peaks, but this would then require purchasing
and maintaining extra vehicles solely for the peak service.

The result is that the marginal cost of operations to the deregulated
bus company (i.e. the cost for each additional passenger) in the peaks
is much higher than for the off-peak (where extra services can be run
without buying any extra buses, because there will always be some
"peak-only" vehicles sitting around) - which in turn means that
deregulated bus companies have a big incentive to increase off-peak
travel, but much less incentive to increase peak travel.

It perhaps seems odd then that evening services are so poor in
deregulated areas compared to London.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London