On Aug 22, 8:03*pm, Richard wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:22:41 +0100, Arthur Figgis

wrote:
AIUI the problem was that the 726 timings were horribly unreliable by
the time it reached Sutton, never mind Kingston, and it only ran hourly.
This made it a bit dodgy to use for getting to to the airport and only
much use for other trips if you had a lot of time on your hands. It also
stopped everywhere, so people going one stop slowed it down even more.
[...]
It did improve west of Croydon - doubled in frequency, chopped some stops.

From my westerly location I got the feeling that reliability improved
dramatically when it went to Metrobus... am I being unfair? *Perhaps
it was cut back to Croydon on the same date.

The doubling in frequency of the X26 was, as you'll know, more recent
and a Boris-inspired trial of orbital express routes. *I recall a
report saying that it hadn't really proved the point but they'd keep
the new frequency (to avoid the embarrassment of cutting it so soon?).
Still, at the new frequency it seems very well-used. *Ken's point
elsewhere is a good one I think - it would have been a perfect route
for early Countdown 1.0 installation.

A pity that (your?) N213 had to suffer at around the same time.

Let's see what Quality Line make of the X26, new Citaros on the way I
think.

On the point of tram conversions without through fares, having through
fares between any bus routes on Oyster would, I think, address many
people's complaints in what is clearly one of the best bus networks in
the world. *I'm not joking! *But would people support the increase in
fares that would be necessary?

Richard.

You mean bus fares being even more expensive compared with Underground
than they already are?

To get from most central pubs I am likely to be in to reasonably near
home, starting after 1900, would cost me

£1.90 LU and DLR
£2.40 two buses

Even during the peak, LU and DLR would be 10p more than two buses, and
a helluva lot quicker. I don't think non-through bus pricing makes
any sense.

On 22/08/2011 20:03, Richard wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:22:41 +0100, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

AIUI the problem was that the 726 timings were horribly unreliable by
the time it reached Sutton, never mind Kingston, and it only ran hourly.
This made it a bit dodgy to use for getting to to the airport and only
much use for other trips if you had a lot of time on your hands. It also
stopped everywhere, so people going one stop slowed it down even more.
[...]
It did improve west of Croydon - doubled in frequency, chopped some stops.

From my westerly location I got the feeling that reliability improved
dramatically when it went to Metrobus... am I being unfair? Perhaps
it was cut back to Croydon on the same date.

The doubling in frequency of the X26 was, as you'll know, more recent
and a Boris-inspired trial of orbital express routes. I recall a
report saying that it hadn't really proved the point but they'd keep
the new frequency (to avoid the embarrassment of cutting it so soon?).
Still, at the new frequency it seems very well-used. Ken's point
elsewhere is a good one I think - it would have been a perfect route
for early Countdown 1.0 installation.

IIRC the report said something to the effect that had they known what
the passenger numbers would be then they wouldn't have bothered
increasing it, but now they have bothered they wouldn't cut it back.

A pity that (your?) N213 had to suffer at around the same time.

Let's see what Quality Line make of the X26, new Citaros on the way I
think.

I noticed a pair of very shiny looking "not in service" buses the other
day, and wondered if they were new vehicles on test or something. But I
know nothing about buses, other than where to find the seats on the
little 410 buses where I can sit facing forward.

On the point of tram conversions without through fares, having through
fares between any bus routes on Oyster would, I think, address many
people's complaints in what is clearly one of the best bus networks in
the world. I'm not joking! But would people support the increase in
fares that would be necessary?

Bus transfer tickets would be nice, but I can't see it happening because
of the revenue implications.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 22/08/2011 20:19, Ken wrote:
In article , Arthur
Figgis writes
On 21/08/2011 13:14, Ken wrote:

The major rail station is east Croydon bus the bus station is at West
Croydon. There is a bus terminal, of sorts, outside East Croydon station

As in the bus station?

There is a set of bus stops. It is not exactly a station in the sense
that there is at West Croydon.

No, but it would pass a duck test. West Croydon is palatial compared to
some bus stations.

Of course, were our hypothetical passenger to be arriving from Lewisham
rather than Bromley, his No 75 bus would go sailing past West Croydon
bus station on the wrong side of a nasty dual carriageway. Not even just
round the corner like East Croydon railway station and Dingwall Road -
which the 75 doesn't go to either.

bus the 726 didn't use it. Instead, it stopped in Dingwall Road. If you
know Croydon, it's not difficult to find, but for those in unfamiliar
surroundings, it was very confusing.

I can't help thinking the market for people who don't know Croydon but
want to go there from Bromley at 6 in the morning must be somewhat
limited.

I'm not sure whether you've mis understood something, as you've put that
opinion below my comment about looking for the 726 stop, which a person
travelling from Bromley would not be doing. To try to clarify:

Quite. So I don't see that there is a significant problem which could be
rectified by redeploying trams.

Typically, a journey has an outward component and an inward component.
Imagine a person from Bromley, Sidcup, Petts Wood or wherever travelling
to Croydon for an onward destination to Gatwick, Brighton, Worthing etc.
It is not part of my argument that the market is large, (though actually
the trains can often be quite full) but rather I would argue that we
travel to odd places at unsocial times from time to time, and a public
transport has to address that requirement, otherwise people give up and
get cars. In other words a public transport system means that some buses
will run empty, or almost empty.

And for some journeys cars do make sense.

It is the return journey where the person starts looking for the bus
stop and can't find it. This could be at any time of the day. A person
may be tempted to think it must stop somewhere and just make a run for
it when they see the bus coming. It wouldn't occur to them to think that
the bus doesn't stop there at all.

Such a person is not going to be able to cope with public transport
anyway (other than a taxi). How long might such a person spend at
Bromley South waiting for a train to Gatwick before deciding to
investigate whether that is actually a good idea?

Or maybe they are stuck in Bognor, thinking it doesn't look like
Brighton. Or their brain has exploded while trying to work out which
portion of a train to be in at Haywards Heath.

There are very few places where buses are easy to use if you don't
know the area and don't check up where to go - at least London has
lots of maps and signs to help.

Moreover, I wouldn't call Croydon
the safest of places and an ordinary person might feel rather vulnerable
waiting about in Dingwall Rd.

If they had spent their entire life on one of those remote islands
where no-one bothers putting doors on their hovels, maybe. But if they
have been in any UK city centre in recent years it's OK - it's not
even as if there are any pubs round there. I've been there late at
night plenty of times (until Boris Ate My Bus), and not seen any
trouble; it's right the other side of the town centre from where
people spend their time incinerating furniture shops.

(BTW, the first time I went to Bromley I stepped out the station into
a BNP rally!)

It wasn't part of my argument that Bromley is safer than Croydon, or
even that Croydon is unsafe. Merely that I felt people waiting about in
Dingwall Rd might feel a bit vulnerable. You seem to be wanting to
justify the indefensible - the bus passing the bus stand (or what you
call a station) without stopping

Which bus: the one which doesn't exist because it has been chopped back
and become the X26, or the 119 which apparently doesn't count (and
anyway does use the bus station in one direction, and stops opposite the
station in the other)? And why would this person not get a tram, which
is hard to avoid?

I genuinely don't think the needs of unduly paranoid thick people
travelling to unfamiliar places at unusual times should outweigh the
needs of the masses trying to squeeze onto packed trams (I had to climb
over people's stuff to get off on Sunday). If someone opens an Ikea at
Birkbeck, then maybe we'll need to rethink.

The frustrated passenger would stand
outside East Croydon Station watching an empty 726 go roaring past.

There was an issue with signage, but that got fixed. And it wouldn't
affect arriving passengers.

As discussed above, I was thinking of people leaving the station and
looking for the bus.

Furthermore, they didn't, and don't today, haven't any information
concerning the whereabouts of buses at East Croydon. They have that
information for the trams, and for the buses at many other locations,
but not there. it makes it difficult for the passenger to make an
informed choice between tram or bus.

I'm sure there are maps on the west-bound bus stops on the bridge, at
least. A sighted person would have to try pretty hard to not find the
trams.

What I meant was that there is no "bus do in 4 minutes" type of
information, which there is for the trams, and which there is at many
other bus stops of far less importance than East Croydon. I can't
remember what they do at West Croydon.

Paper timetables and maps. They have at least fixed the spelling of
"Wadden" on one of the signs.

If anything, a next bus display might confuse the unfamiliar user, as
they might think that it had some link to a meaningful concept of
reality (as the tram ones generally do, until things go tits-up).

So assuming that the passenger could read the timetable through the
dirty timetable pane, if they arrived at 12:15 for a bus due at 12:00,
they would have no way of knowing whether they had missed it, or whether
it was running late and would appear any moment.

But it isn't like any other bus stop, because most bus stops do provide
that information.

Not in Croydon (or Sutton) they don't. There is pretty much always a
timetable, often a map, but generally that's it. No whizzo real-time stuff

Just like almost every other bus stop in the world. But it's London,
so if they have missed it by 15 min they probably don't have long to
wait for another one (no-one is going to be getting the 969 by accident).

I have no idea what the 969 is but the 726 was only an hourly service at
certain times of the day.

969 runs twice a week in each direction.

The X26 (which replaced the 726 (west of Croydon)) is now half-hourly.


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK