London Banter - View Single Post

Paul Corfield · December 21st 03, 02:18 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 11:36:01 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

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.

But one of the big problems with artics is that it is impossible to get
them onto stops in a straight line. Therefore the back sticks out
preventing the passage of other vehicles - especially buses. On Oxford
St there are so many traffic islands that I can see one or two artics
that are badly parked while at stops bringing the whole street to a
halt. They are also twice as long as a normal bus which will simply
exacerbate the already chronic congestion in Oxford St and at Oxford
Circus where routes 12 and 25 will stand.

The other point you miss about route 73 is the extremely busy section
via Stoke Newington, Newington Green and Islington. This area is poorly
served by the Tube and therefore has very high bus demand. You cannot
get on 73s currently. I have great doubts as to whether artics where
more people will have to stand in crush conditions represent an
improvement in quality compared to a Routemaster.

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.

But the point surely is that sufficient buses should be provided to meet
the demand so that standing, pushing past people etc is not an issue.
While I recognise some of your remarks about Routemasters I experience
far more instances of severe congestion on opo buses because there is no
one to manage where people sit, enforce the standing capacity rules and
also to make sure people get off before others get on. Many of these
issues are to do with passenger safety and it is demonstrably clear that
conditions become quite unacceptable on OPO buses because the driver
cannot or will not enforce the rules; in fact on an artic I do not
believe it is possible.

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.

As I discovered when a lady from Newcastle was having grave problems
trying to purchase a ticket for the 507 on Horseferry Rd. I have to say
though that she had not read the instructions which I pointed out to
her. I appreciate people use intuition when using "familiar" machines
but all the cashless machines do have instructions on them!

My main observation about these machines is that they are cheap and
therefore lacking in functionality and sophistication. I don't believe
they are up to the job.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!