In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

On Jul 10, 10:45 pm, wrote:

In article
,
(MIG) wrote:

On 10 July, 20:58, wrote:
In article
,

(Mizter T) wrote:
I couldn't remember if it was a 24 hour route or not, so instead
of checking a bus spider map or the TfL journey planner I did a
Google image search for "n453 london bus", one of the first
thumbnails in the results led me to this page - which has an out
of date photo of a bus stop at Baker Street which displays
'plates' for both 453 and N453:

http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Travel/...uses.htm#Stops

It's obviously taken after the introduction of bendy buses, as
they both appear on yellow 'plates' with the advice/warning "Buy
tickets before boarding" (and it's just outside the central
London 'pay before you board' area too). So my half-remembered
recollection of there being a distinct N453 service in the
recent past wasn't so far wide of the mark! I'm not sure when
the separate N453 was dropped and the daytime 453 went 24-hours
though.

Surely yellow plates came in some time before the bendys to soften
people up for their introduction.

I don't think there was such a thing as a 453 before bendys though.
Or a 436. They made overlapping sections with the 53 and 36 which
were shortened, and my impression was that it happened with
bendification.

You might be right. I'm not sure even though I was cycling amongst
them at the time.

It doesn't detract from my point that off-bus ticketing came in before
the end of the Routemasters. They couldn't be scrapped without off bus
ticketing being in place and well established first.

Hmmm... that's not really right. Let me run through the choronology...

* First off I recall seeing an installation of several roadside ticket
machines at the new Waterloo 'bus plaza' - next to the big roundabout
(with the IMAX in the middle) - quite some time ago - 2001 maybe, or
2002, I'm really not too sure (dunno if this was pre-or-post
bendification of the 521). I *think* this was the first time I'd come
across these machines - it was certainly the first time I'd used one,
and I bought a one-day bus pass that was viewed with a somewhat
quizzical suspicion by the drivers I presented it to that day (I think
it was only a couple of buses).

* The first bendy bus routes in London were the Red Arrow routes 507
and 521, introduced on 5 June 2002 - source:
http://www.londonbusroutes.net/photos/507.htm
Obviously as these were going to be 'buy before you board' routes,
like all bendy bus routes to come, then roadside ticket machines had
to be installed at all the bus stops served by these two routes.

I presume the yellow plates (on the bus totem signs) with the
instruction to 'buy tickets before boarding' came in at this point. It
should however be noted that the 507 and 521 buses are only used by a
very small sub-set of London's bus passengers - notably, commuters
heading to and from London termini stations (the market they're
essentially aimed at).

* The next bendy bus route was the 436, introduced on 8 February 2003
- source:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.tr...fdea99d9aeb9ae

* And a week after that, the 453 was introduced on the 15 February
2003 - source:
http://www.londonbusroutes.net/photos/453.htm

In the case of both of these routes, again, roadside ticket machines
needed to be installed at all the bus stops they served.

I'm not quite sure if any new bendy bus routes were introduced over
the next few months, bit the next event I want to highlight is...

* The central London 'pay before you board' area was introduced on 23
August 2003 - this was a big change and meant that passengers had to
buy their tickets before boarding any bus in the area, whether bendy
or not. This led to yellow plates indication the requirement to 'buy
before you board' being introduced across the whole of the affected
area.
My source for the date is this webpage held in the Internet Archive -
see the URL for confirmation of the year:

http://web.archive.org/web/200308061...uk/buses/about
-pay-before.shtml

So whilst the apparatus of the roadside ticketing machines *had* to be
in place before the introduction of these routes, to say it was "well
established" is I think wrong. For the great majority of passengers on
the 436 and 453 routes, it was an entirely new concept (as evidenced
by the number of people trying to pay the driver in the early days).
Whilst the Red Arrow (507 and 521) buses had 'buy before you board'
first, most pax on the 436 and 453 routes won't have been using Red
Arrow buses and hence won't have been exposed to the 'buy before you
board' scenario beforehand.

Even after the August 2003 introduction of the central London 'pay
before you board' area, any notion that this would instantly have
educated all Londoners about the concept of 'buy before you board'
wouldn't be right - many Londoners use buses in central London
infrequently, and the idea that all Londoners are well versed in the
ways of central London ain't true either.

In essence, off bus ticketing got established as it went along, when
bendy bus routes were introduced and when the central London 'pay
before you board' area came into being. It simply wasn't well
established before this, not by any means.

One quick last thing - you seem to imply that all the Routemaster
routes were replaced by bendy buses. This certainly wasn't
universally
the case - off the top of my head, the 14, 19 and 159 were converted
straight from Routemasters to OPO double-deckers.

I think we're getting this the wrong way round. Off bus ticketing had to
be firmly established before the Routemasters with their conductors could
be done away with. They weren't all replaced by bendies of course.

--
Colin Rosenstiel