I have long been a fan of such an idea. This is borne out of experience
of express routes running in the old Met county areas like Tyne and Wear
and West Yorkshire where a multi centred conurbation can support such
services. The other key example which works well is Hong Kong which has
a hierarchical bus service network.

From my experience of it in West Yorkshire, it doesn't work very well.
The Express X84 runs (with a minor deviation) out of Leeds as far as
Lawnswood with the local 1 and 95. It is only express in the sense
that it picks up only outbound and sets down only inbound within the
Green Zone. When I have ridden it, the only place where it passed a 1
or 95 is inbound where the 1 and 95 diverge off the A660 to stay on
Woodhouse Lane and serve the University. Most of the benefit of this
express run was in the driver's sadistic enjoyment of slamming the
doors shut in people's faces in Headingley. I didn't even save any
time as I had to walk down from the Headrow to the Railway Station,
which the 1 would have dropped me near.

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Vancouver has something similar as well - they have a mesh of local bus
services, and for rapid transit, they have two light rail lines serving
the middle-southwest part of the city, plus three express bus routes, the
B-Lines, in the other areas. they run articulated buses, have few stops,
and get you around fast. i think they're equivalent to normal buses in
terms of fares etc.

In Vancouver, everything's equivalent in terms of fare though. You buy
ticket ("transfer") and it's valid wherever you want to go, by any mode, for
(I think) two hours. The upshot of this is that any journey across a certain
number of zones will cost the same. It makes everything much less confusing,
although I don't think they have a travelcard equivalent that lasts all day,
monthly or similar.

Jonn

James wrote:

I have long been a fan of such an idea. This is borne out of experience
of express routes running in the old Met county areas like Tyne and Wear
and West Yorkshire where a multi centred conurbation can support such
services. The other key example which works well is Hong Kong which has
a hierarchical bus service network.

From my experience of it in West Yorkshire, it doesn't work very well.
The Express X84 runs (with a minor deviation) out of Leeds as far as
Lawnswood with the local 1 and 95. It is only express in the sense
that it picks up only outbound and sets down only inbound within the
Green Zone. When I have ridden it, the only place where it passed a 1
or 95 is inbound where the 1 and 95 diverge off the A660 to stay on
Woodhouse Lane and serve the University. Most of the benefit of this
express run was in the driver's sadistic enjoyment of slamming the
doors shut in people's faces in Headingley. I didn't even save any
time as I had to walk down from the Headrow to the Railway Station,
which the 1 would have dropped me near.

From my experience of it in South Australia, it does work very well but
I doubt it would be at all well suited to London.

Here in Adelaide there are three different types of express buses. Those
closest to as you've described are numbered with an F suffix. They're
good for passengers from outer suburbs who benefit from significantly
reduced journey times, but unlike the non stop buses (X suffix) they do
take these passengers to destinations short of the City. And although
they don't stop to pick up passengers going into the City, some drivers
will let passengers on if they've stopped already (as long as there
aren't too many, as the boarding process is slower than that of London).

The third kind of express buses are those which only serve a few of the
stops along the route. These routes are numbered with a T prifix,
although not all of them are based on stopping routes, and those that
are avoid taking the deviations that the stopping route takes.

I don't think any of these would work so well in London. The main
obstacle is the road congestion in Inner London. Bus lanes have gone
some way to alleviating this, but very few of them are wide enough to
permit overtaking (and places wide enough to overtake are are often at
the more important stops), so the benefits would be limited. Also the
dominance of the City (or even of Zone 1) is much lower in London, so F
type buses would be stopping a lot more than they do here. London also
has a much more comprehensive rail system, so there are fewer places
where express buses would be more convenient than trains.

London used to have quite a lot of express bus routes, but rail
improvements led to the abandonment of the D1, X53 and X130. There are
some quite successful commuter routes from the Home Counties, and
Greater London still retains a few express routes such as the 726
(albeit in truncated form) and the X68 (peak hours only IIRC). However,
there are few fans of express buses now. There was an exception a few
years ago - one of the mayoral candidates announced a bold and
imaginative plan for a large network of radial and orbital express bus
routes. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, as the plan had some
major flaws) it was Jeffrey Archer.

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

Surely, though, that's one of the main reeasons they've taken the RMs off
the roads - because if they accelerate too fast there's a risk people will
fall out.

Jonn

Jonn Elledge wrote:
"Aidan Stanger" wrote...

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

Surely, though, that's one of the main reeasons they've taken the RMs off
the roads - because if they accelerate too fast there's a risk people will
fall out.

No, their engines aren't that powerful! There's always a small risk of
people falling out if you don't have doors, but that's not one of the
main reasons at all.

There was word that they wanted to get rid of the 726 at one stage. It used
to run to Dartford.

Though the reliablity was poor due to Kingston, Sutton and Croydon traffic.
Glad to see there is a skelton 726 at night now.

N285 doing the Kingston to Heathrow streches
N213 doing the Kingston to West Croydon
N119 from Croydon to Bromley


"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...
Sky Fly wrote:

There's also the 726 express bus in South London and the X68 from
Russell Square out to Croydon.





---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.656 / Virus Database: 421 - Release Date: 09/04/2004

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:25:10 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

Do the Hamburg express buses run only at peak times or all the time?

All the time, unless it's changed recently.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

Sky Fly wrote:

Do you know how effective/popular the 607 is? Knowing how an
existing express route works in practice will give a better
insight as to why this idea should/shouldn't be adopted.

It's quite popular. People get it if they can, but I don't think many
people spurn 207s unless they can actually see a 607 approaching. It
takes longer to load than the 207 because there are no centre doors,
but it's still faster overall (though I usually beat it on my bike).

Colin McKenzie

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 23:41:39 +0200, Gunnar Thöle wrote:

"Schnellbusse" (fast buses) (8 lines): These are very long lines, often
going all the way through Hamburg, the idea is to provide fast
connections from suburbs to the city and back. They run all day and they
cost a supplement of 1,05 Euro per trip. A season supplement is available.
In my opinion the supplement makes them completely useless. They are
rarely faster that getting a local bus to the next railway. They get
stuck in traffic. They are not very comfortable.

If they're still the O405s, I disagree. Even I had a good 8 inches or so
free legroom if I went for the seats over the wheelarch at the back. The
coach-style vehicles used on the Schnellbus from Bergedorf were even
better, IMO.

I did like using them - but then I wasn't always in a hurry, and quite
liked sitting back and enjoying the scenery They weren't that fast,
but did reduce the number of changes for certain journeys.

I don't want to pay a premium for them and most other Hamburgers, too,
it seems, as everytime i see a Schnellbus it has between 1 and 10
passengers only.

This is perhaps the point - you're paying extra for first class, part of
which is lower loading (especially in the peaks) and nicer seats...

There was of course one exception - though I don't know if it still
exists. The Blankeneser Bergzeiger (sp?) minibuses were considered
Schnellbusse, presumably because they'd be uneconomic to operate
otherwise, and the affluent inhabitants of Blankenese could probably
afford them. Is this still the case?

In my opinion the hamburg express bus system is rubbish... with one
notable exception: In weekend nights there is an express night bus from
the Reeperbahn amusement district to my front door, using a motorway for
most of the trip. This express bus is unbelievably cool!



Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

Neil Williams schrieb:
[a minibus route in a quite hilly part of Hamburg with very rich
inhabitants (at least some of them)]
There was of course one exception - though I don't know if it still
exists. The Blankeneser Bergzeiger (sp?) minibuses were considered
"Blankeneser Bergziege" (Blankenese mountain goat), yes, they still run
as a "Schnellbus".
Schnellbusse, presumably because they'd be uneconomic to operate
otherwise, and the affluent inhabitants of Blankenese could probably
afford them. Is this still the case?