On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 09:11:59 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

On 25 Nov, 16:39, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 07:23:12 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

Prompted by another of today's threads I thought I'd post this.

There is one feature of the TfL Journey Planner I find very useful,
though judging by the reactions from friends and acquaintances when I
point them towards it I don't think it is well known about. It is the
ability to call up a PDF of a bus timetable which appears exactly the
same as those actually displayed at bus stops. (Tram timetables are
available through this facility as well.)

Apologies for raining on your parade but those timetables are not
necessarily the same as appears at local bus stops. It would be good if
they were aligned but they aren't. This aspect of London's information
provision really, really makes me cross.

In addition far too many of the timetables do not show departure times -
they simply say every x-y minutes which in most case cases is downright
misleading. This is because the interval is derived not by a common
sense view of what the actual timetable interval is for the vast
majority of the day but by a computer which goes "what is shortest and
longest intervals between buses between 07.00 and 19.00". Invariably the
answer - due to the way running time is built up or reduced at the peak
shoulders - is something like "7 - 12 minutes". However there may only
be one 7 minute gap in the entire timetable and similarly only one 12
minute gap with 99% of buses actually running at 10 minute intervals.
However the timetable doesn't say this - it gives a load of rubbish
instead.

Here is an example for my local service. I can tell you unreservedly
that the stop info at the stop differs from this. I can also tell you it
is not accurate - the Sunday interval is particularly irksome as it does
not give the minutes past the hour just because there is one 13 minute
interval. The real stop info *does* show the minutes past the hour and
it's essential because who wants to turn up when the bus has just gone
and there's 15 mins to wait? What a mess.

http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/use...__000054bb.pdf

The JP uses per-user dynamic URLs, so that just leads to a 404.

Ooops - sorry.

Anyway, thanks for your more detailed critique of the timetables - I
remember you saying similar things in the past but not in such detail.

Out of interest is the timetable displayed at your local bus stop the
old style full timetable - akin to that served up by the
londonbusroutes.net website? Or is it of the new simplified style,
just not as simplified as the timetables as served up by the JP?

It is a new style stop specific timetable and it is wrong. It does not
match the real timetable *nor* does it match the Journey Planner
edition. TfL has changed the format and size of the JP timetable pdfs
several times but there does not *appear* to be any programme of
reviewing what is correct against what is deployed at bus stops or in
the JP. I may be wrong in saying this and perhaps my bus stop is the
last one in the queue.

I would dearly love the JP timetable section to work as most continental
planners work - i.e. it shows the precise minutes past each hour of the
day that a bus is due at each stop. The system has that information but
it has been decided it won't be displayed. I think that is an error.

I'm afraid I tend to use www.londonbusroutes.net which may be an
"amateur" site but at least gives me real, detailed timetables that I
can print out and carry around with me.

From what you say there would appear to be a degree of
oversimplification. However I'm not sure if you're advocating putting
up full timetables (in the old style ala londonbusroutes.net) at each
bus stop. If so I'd certainly argue that would be a backwards move as
they are simply far less user friendly than displaying simplified
information.

I'm a boring old so and so and I happen to like and can read "proper"
timetables. They at least show differential running times and give you a
fighting chance of being at the stop at the proper scheduled time.

Journey Planner timetables only show indicative off peak running times
and yet the system contains the real running times - it has to in order
to do other things like plan journeys!!! Why if you are extracting a
stop specific timetable are you not allowed to be given that
information?

I am not averse to proper stop specific timetables that show the minutes
past each hour for every hour slot for every day of the week. I remain
convinced that this could easily be shown on the current format for all
services.

05 06 07 08 etc (hours)

05 05 07 07 (mins past the hour)
25 24 15 17
45 34 25 27
44 35 37
52 46 47
59 57 57

This is exactly what Amsterdam are able to do for their bus and tram
services but you also have the option of a boring old conventional
timetable too. For me that would be ideal flexibility. What is the
point of having massive amounts of information held within a system and
then constraining the way in which that information is both accessed and
displayed. Not every user is as thick as pig ****.

I have seen countless examples of people look at the timetable info on
my local stop and search for the minutes past the hour and then give up
because all it says is "every 7-10 minutes". They then look at their
watches and look cross. So much for "simple" information. More people
can cope with real timetable information than has been assumed by TfL in
their justification for this "simple" approach. I'd love to have seen
the market research that apparently supports their decision that people
can't use a real timetable.

Also, on frequent routes during much of the day I'm far from convinced
that knowing the exact times a bus is timetabled to be due at the stop
is that useful, because both traffic conditions and the variable
passenger loading levels mean this can hardly be guaranteed. Also -
and here I will sound very ignorant because that's what I am - do the
buses necessarily always follow the timetable, i.e. aren't the TfL
performance targets more about a frequent service being maintained
rather than running to the precise timetable?

Well I disagree about this supposed "frequent service" nonsense. If a
timetable is not needed for such services why is that Countdown displays
are almost exclusively provided at stops with very high frequency
services. The one at Seven Sisters n/b is served by several services the
most infrequent of which is every 15 minutes. Typically there are up to
10 buses displayed - often all going to the same place and many 1 minute
apart. It is not unusual for there to be 2 or 3 buses on the stop at any
given time. If Countdown is justified for that sort of stop why would a
paper timetable not be justified that showed the planned departures?

The fact that TfL monitor their contracted services under two different
methodologies is irrelevant to the passenger. Just because the aim is
to provide a bus every "x" minutes in the event of disruption does not
mean that TfL or the bus company do not start every day with the
presumption that the service to be offered will match that in the agreed
contractual schedule. That schedule is what forms the public timetable
and it is the schedule that controllers use in order to get buses back
on to the "slots" when it's gone pear shaped. If they did not do this
they'd have buses without crews, buses without fuel and in some cases
linked services (e.g schools) not running.

If timetables are "not important" why does TfL insist that one exists
for every service and why does it agree those timetables and why does it
have to agree any alteration to the timetable and the underlying
schedule? The answer is that the schedule is essential to the effective
running of the service and thus how much that serve costs to run.

A bus every 10 minutes is supposedly frequent - well I'm afraid I prefer
to know when to arrive at the stop for the intended departure time
rather than arrive randomly and see the bus sailing off into the
distance. I accept traffic and other issues can cause the service to
diverge from the timetable but nothing is perfect. This is where I would
like to have a countdown display or the ability to text to get "next
bus" information. Having waited 45 - 50 minutes for a 10 minute service
with no alternative service being available I can tell you that
Countdown displays are much more valuable on lower frequency corridors
if only because if the service is a disaster zone you can make an
informed decision about travelling via a completely different route.
Regrettably I very much doubt that the planned extension of Countdown
type signs will mean such stops gain the displays.


I should have added that I find the JP bus timetable lookup facility
most useful for late, early or night bus times when the results given
are specific.

Agreed but why only for those times of day? It's inconsistent.

You may have gathered that this is a subject I have a few opinions on
;-)
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!