On May 15, 1:01*pm, MIG wrote:

On 15 May, 11:51, Paul Terry wrote:

martin wrote:

Someone's put in a Freedom of Information request to TfL for the
manual issued to bus drivers, the Big Red Book, which I suspect will
be of interest to some people here.

Interesting to see the advice about stopping: "It doesn't matter what
kind of stop, or if the passengers put their hands out, if there's
someone waiting to board ... stop".

But it doesn't say how, at a stop served by multiple routes, the driver
can know if there's someone waiting to board the particular bus he or
she is driving!

Wasn't that the proposal a while back, which at first glance appeared
to be a recognition of the reality of the lack of distinction between
request and compulsory stops these days (ie drivers don't stop at any
of them unless you throw yourself in front of them), but equalised
them in the way suggested above, which didn't reflect reality after
all, and required drivers to stop at stops they didn't used to.

So is this book a kind of snapshot of a proposal that was never
implemented, or was it after all?

There doesn't seem to have been any definitive conclusion to all that.


In any case, given the reality of timekeeping, we know that the need
to get the empty bus to its next checkpoint will override the need to
let anyone on the bus.

Do we? Interesting...

In message
s.com of Sat, 15 May 2010 06:12:10 in uk.transport.london, Mizter T
writes

On May 15, 1:01*pm, MIG wrote:

On 15 May, 11:51, Paul Terry wrote:

martin wrote:

I am grateful to martin (sic) for starting this thread.


Someone's put in a Freedom of Information request to TfL for the
manual issued to bus drivers, the Big Red Book, which I suspect will
be of interest to some people here.

Interesting to see the advice about stopping: "It doesn't matter what
kind of stop, or if the passengers put their hands out, if there's
someone waiting to board ... stop".

But it doesn't say how, at a stop served by multiple routes, the driver
can know if there's someone waiting to board the particular bus he or
she is driving!

Wasn't that the proposal a while back, which at first glance appeared
to be a recognition of the reality of the lack of distinction between
request and compulsory stops these days (ie drivers don't stop at any
of them unless you throw yourself in front of them), but equalised
them in the way suggested above, which didn't reflect reality after
all, and required drivers to stop at stops they didn't used to.

So is this book a kind of snapshot of a proposal that was never
implemented, or was it after all?

There doesn't seem to have been any definitive conclusion to all that.


In any case, given the reality of timekeeping, we know that the need
to get the empty bus to its next checkpoint will override the need to
let anyone on the bus.

Do we? Interesting...

sent a response on 31 March 2009 to
me saying "It is true that there used to be separate designations for
'compulsory' and 'request' stops. This is no longer the case. Following
a review of the matter last year, drivers have been advised to treat all
designated bus stops in the same manner. If there are customers waiting
at the stop they must stop, and if a passenger presses the stop request
button on board the bus they must stop at the next bus stop. There is no
documentation of this change."

That is the theory. If readers find otherwise, an email to that address
reporting the issue would be useful.
Alternatively, Surface Travel Customer Services at 0845 300 7000 is open
Monday to Friday between 0800 and 2000.

The following would help TfL handle the report:
Your details: name, snail mail address, and phone number(s).
Date and time;
Driver description;
Bus details: service number and destination, license plate number,
running number - sometimes in the cab and sometimes on the side of the
bus, and bus company vehicle number - usually on the back of the bus.
Stop details: name and number - usually on the stop flag bottom face;
Description of the incident.

With luck, somebody will be along with URLs showing pictures. Obviously,
it would take forever to get all this information. Some redundancy is
useful to counter a "Not me, guv!" response from the driver.

I think London bus drivers are 95%+ good. It is up to Londoners to help
raise that percentage. Drivers' skill in piloting big vehicles in small
lanes staggers me. Pedestrians and cyclists seemingly determined on
suicide make the job more difficult.

I often get more service than I am entitled to. At Moorgate, going to
Bank, I miss a bus, which then stops at a red light. An Oyster tapped on
the door gets me on the bus.
According to http://www.londonbusroutes.net/routes.htm, I can expect
an average headway of 75 seconds at 0730 on a weekday; Journey Planner
shows 6 minutes. I would have guessed 2 minutes. I don't know where to
find official timetables.
--
Walter Briscoe

On 15 May, 15:49, Walter Briscoe wrote:
In message
s.com of Sat, 15 May 2010 06:12:10 in uk.transport.london, Mizter T
writes



On May 15, 1:01*pm, MIG wrote:

On 15 May, 11:51, Paul Terry wrote:

martin wrote:

I am grateful to martin (sic) for starting this thread.







Someone's put in a Freedom of Information request to TfL for the
manual issued to bus drivers, the Big Red Book, which I suspect will
be of interest to some people here.

Interesting to see the advice about stopping: "It doesn't matter what
kind of stop, or if the passengers put their hands out, if there's
someone waiting to board ... stop".

But it doesn't say how, at a stop served by multiple routes, the driver
can know if there's someone waiting to board the particular bus he or
she is driving!

Wasn't that the proposal a while back, which at first glance appeared
to be a recognition of the reality of the lack of distinction between
request and compulsory stops these days (ie drivers don't stop at any
of them unless you throw yourself in front of them), but equalised
them in the way suggested above, which didn't reflect reality after
all, and required drivers to stop at stops they didn't used to.

So is this book a kind of snapshot of a proposal that was never
implemented, or was it after all?

There doesn't seem to have been any definitive conclusion to all that.

In any case, given the reality of timekeeping, we know that the need
to get the empty bus to its next checkpoint will override the need to
let anyone on the bus.

Do we? Interesting...

sent a response on 31 March 2009 to
me saying "It is true that there used to be separate designations for
'compulsory' and 'request' stops. This is no longer the case. Following
a review of the matter last year, drivers have been advised to treat all
designated bus stops in the same manner. If there are customers waiting
at the stop they must stop, and if a passenger presses the stop request
button on board the bus they must stop at the next bus stop. There is no
documentation of this change."

That is the theory. If readers find otherwise, an email to that address
reporting the issue would be useful.
Alternatively, Surface Travel Customer Services at 0845 300 7000 is open
Monday to Friday between 0800 and 2000.

The following would help TfL handle the report:
Your details: name, snail mail address, and phone number(s).
Date and time;
Driver description;
Bus details: service number and destination, license plate number,
running number - sometimes in the cab and sometimes on the side of the
bus, and bus company vehicle number - usually on the back of the bus.
Stop details: name and number - usually on the stop flag bottom face;
Description of the incident.

With luck, somebody will be along with URLs showing pictures. Obviously,
it would take forever to get all this information. Some redundancy is
useful to counter a "Not me, guv!" response from the driver.

I think London bus drivers are 95%+ good. It is up to Londoners to help
raise that percentage. Drivers' skill in piloting big vehicles in small
lanes staggers me. Pedestrians and cyclists seemingly determined on
suicide make the job more difficult.

I often get more service than I am entitled to. At Moorgate, going to
Bank, I miss a bus, which then stops at a red light. An Oyster tapped on
the door gets me on the bus.
According to http://www.londonbusroutes.net/routes.htm, I can expect
an average headway of 75 seconds at 0730 on a weekday; Journey Planner
shows 6 minutes. I would have guessed 2 minutes. I don't know where to
find official timetables.
--
Walter Briscoe

It is useful as a warning to know that the distinction is officially
gone, but not particularly helpful compared with knowing that a bus
would stop at a compulsory stop.

At about 0320 last Saturday, there were two of us at what would
previously have been a compulsory bus stop, bleedin obviously waiting
for a bus and no one else around. but we turned our backs to look at a
particular side of the timetable and a N136 sailed past.

As we were just reading while not looking the right way, it was on
time. Nice to know the bus got where it was going on time. Shame we
didn't get there, not being given a chance to get on the bus.

On 15/05/2010 16:34, MIG wrote:

At about 0320 last Saturday, there were two of us at what would
previously have been a compulsory bus stop, bleedin obviously waiting
for a bus and no one else around. but we turned our backs to look at a
particular side of the timetable and a N136 sailed past.

As we were just reading while not looking the right way, it was on
time. Nice to know the bus got where it was going on time. Shame we
didn't get there, not being given a chance to get on the bus.

All bus stops are compulsory for night buses, unless they've changed that.

On 15/05/2010 16:38, Basil Jet wrote:
On 15/05/2010 16:34, MIG wrote:

At about 0320 last Saturday, there were two of us at what would
previously have been a compulsory bus stop, bleedin obviously waiting
for a bus and no one else around. but we turned our backs to look at a
particular side of the timetable and a N136 sailed past.

As we were just reading while not looking the right way, it was on
time. Nice to know the bus got where it was going on time. Shame we
didn't get there, not being given a chance to get on the bus.

All bus stops are compulsory for night buses, unless they've changed that.

Yeah, like I was just saying, all stops were request for night buses.
But since there are now 24-hour buses with no N prefix, the rules must
have been changed since then.

In message , Walter Briscoe
writes

sent a response on 31 March 2009 to
me saying "It is true that there used to be separate designations for
'compulsory' and 'request' stops. This is no longer the case. Following
a review of the matter last year, drivers have been advised to treat all
designated bus stops in the same manner. If there are customers waiting
at the stop they must stop, and if a passenger presses the stop request
button on board the bus they must stop at the next bus stop. There is no
documentation of this change."

It's difficult to see the logic behind this change, unless it is just a
general dumbing-down for the benefit of those poor souls who can't
remember the difference between a compulsory stop and a request stop
when waiting for a bus.

Almost all of the stops on the route that I use most frequently are
served by a variety of different routes (with totally different
destinations), and it is a great irritation for passengers and other
road traffic when the bus keeps stopping at places where nobody wishes
to alight and where none of the waiting people want to board the bus
concerned.

Worse than that, drivers are often confused by this notion of people
"wanting to board" - some stop, even if nobody boards; some slow down
and look quizzically for some unspecified intention to board; some sail
past, oblivious to the shaking fists visible in their rear-view mirrors.

Worse still: when TfL (or their agents) refurbish bus stops - as they do
several times a year in these parts (*) - or when they supply temporary
bus signs for road works - they still use a mix of request and
compulsory stop signs. Why? To confuse the public?

(*) This is really a subject for a different thread, but I'm appalled at
the money wasted by TfL on street furniture. It was good to see most bus
stops in the area supplied with seats, shelters and information a few
years ago. However, most of those shelters have been moved several times
since their installation - some further back from the kerb, some nearer,
two have been moved sideways because their supports blocked the bus exit
doors, one was moved further because the bus exit was blocked by a BT
street cabinet, and then moved back again because the new position was
too close to a road junction, another had to be removed because it was
built on a pavement so narrow that it blocked push chairs and wheel
chairs. And most of them are dug up at frequent intervals because the
supply cable to the Countdown system or the electric adverts failed.

I've no idea who is responsible for all of this chaos, but I'm sure TfL
could save a significant sum if they appointed a team with the ability
to analyse what is required and then get things right from the outset,
instead of wasting funds on correcting earlier, and often multiple,
mistakes.

--
Paul Terry

Paul Terry wrote

Worse than that, drivers are often confused by this notion of people
"wanting to board" - some stop, even if nobody boards; some slow down

and look quizzically for some unspecified intention to board; some
sail
past, oblivious to the shaking fists visible in their rear-view
mirrors.

Obviously it will take some time before the customers work out a
suitable protocol.

There remain several problems, ie

(a) at some stops the driver can't see whether there is anyone waiting
when they are in the shelter, sitting on the bench.

(b) a stop that is just one stop before their terminus may well cause
drivers to get creative. I have in mind the Hampton Court Palace Gates
stop where it is conceivable that someone would take the R68 across
Hampton Court bridge to its terminus at Hampton Court rail station but
a clear signal might be expected.

(c) Both TfL and non-TfL buses call at the same stop.

(d) people who are at the stop to use their mobile phones in shelter.

--
Mike D

On 16 May 2010 19:13:48 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

Obviously it will take some time before the customers work out a
suitable protocol.

The German one is to stop unless absolutely sure there is nobody
wanting that bus. That generally means nobody at all at the stop,
unless there is one person only at the stop who visibly either waves
them past or shakes their head and steps back.

(a) at some stops the driver can't see whether there is anyone waiting
when they are in the shelter, sitting on the bench.

The German assumption would in that case be to stop to find out.

That said, there is one big difference between German and UK bus
operations in that the stops in Germany are far further apart (often
as much as 1km rather than the usual few hundred metres over here).
Stopping everywhere and opening the doors would make routes very slow
indeed in the UK.

That being the case, unless we close some (that would cause outrage),
a more sensible approach is the "UK standard" one that all stops are
treated as request stops, possibly modified slightly to say that if
the driver can't see the stop clearly e.g. because of another bus,
even if of the same route[1], they should proceed slowly and look
carefully if someone wants the bus. (Stopping anyway at the rear of a
long queue of buses may still cause people to miss it!)

[1] The front bus might, for instance, be full and dropping off only.
Or it might be terminating short (TfL, of course, only display the
number on the rear blind, not the destination).

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.