On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 11:17:21 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

My final concern is whether we've moved from innovation into gimmicks.
Artics have a place but the recent announcements about them replacing
routemasters (normal double decks on the 25) on the 12, 25 and 73 make
me wonder whether TfL have latched onto one solution for many problems.
These routes are very busy, carry people over long distances and I think
artics will force more people to stand for far longer. This is a
reduction in quality in my view and I think it will prove to be a
mistake. I have similar criticisms of cashless boarding and changes to
publicity provision that I think are half baked and badly executed. The
concepts sound fine but the reality is a long way away from the original
intent.

The 73 goes down Oxford Street, right? I think the bendies would be
proposed for that route on that basis - load a lot of people very
quickly for a short distance. This doesn't help those who will have
to stand for long distances in the outer parts of the route, but I'm
personally really surprised this route hasn't gone bendy *much*
earlier - indeed, perhaps, as one of the first.

Apart from the jumping on and off between stops, I find Routemasters
perform quite poorly on *very* busy routes such as these, certainly
now pay before you board has been implemented. They're cramped, do
not permit standing for those who wish to unless the bus is full (and
when it is, shoving past people is difficult) and have only one
entrance/exit which will require flows in both directions from both
sides. Two-doored deckers move people quicker at the stops, and
bendies yet faster.

I'm in two minds about totally cashless operation; it'd make more
sense to have all-door boarding with payment at the driver allowed for
those without tickets on the outer reaches of these routes. Oh, and
those ticket machines are appallingly unintuitive[1], and need new
software now.

[1] They are similar to pay-and-display parking machines, with which
people are familiar. *Why*, given that change is not given and
multiple purchases not possible, do you select the ticket first and
then pay? Most parking machines work the other way around. You
should also be able to buy two bus singles for a gbp2 coin, which you
ludicrously cannot at present.

Neil

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