Yesterday's Evening Standard had as its main story that Ken Livingstone
was thinking of scrapping all bendy buses. I'm surprised that there has
been nothing on this here.
--
Thoss

[To reply, replace * with . in Reply-To address]

"thoss" wrote in message
...
Yesterday's Evening Standard had as its main story that Ken Livingstone
was thinking of scrapping all bendy buses. I'm surprised that there has
been nothing on this here.
--
Thoss

Maybe because that wasn't what he said just the Standard's "spin" on it

From someone who was at the "meeting" "He made it clear that he recognises
they are not working -as well- on *some routes* compared to others, and that
they were working very well on high
volume short distance routes, but they are looking at the way they work on
the longer routes, re-iterating that only 300 of 8,000 buses are bendy.
This being in response to a question that wondered why double-deckers were
not being used."


Paul

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 Paul wrote:


"thoss" wrote in message
...
Yesterday's Evening Standard had as its main story that Ken Livingstone
was thinking of scrapping all bendy buses. I'm surprised that there has
been nothing on this here.
--
Thoss

Maybe because that wasn't what he said just the Standard's "spin" on it

From someone who was at the "meeting" "He made it clear that he recognises
they are not working -as well- on *some routes* compared to others, and that
they were working very well on high
volume short distance routes, but they are looking at the way they work on
the longer routes, re-iterating that only 300 of 8,000 buses are bendy.
This being in response to a question that wondered why double-deckers were
not being used."

Thanks for putting it in perspective.
--
Thoss

[To reply, replace * with . in Reply-To address]

"thoss" wrote in message
...
Yesterday's Evening Standard had as its main story that Ken Livingstone
was thinking of scrapping all bendy buses. I'm surprised that there has
been nothing on this here.
--

I think people on here know, from bitter experience, to ignore every word
that appears in that newspaper.

It is so transparent that they have their own axe to grind, regardless of
the truth, that reading their stories winds me up even when I agree with
what they're saying!


Jim

Jim wrote:
"thoss" wrote in message
...
Yesterday's Evening Standard had as its main story that Ken Livingstone
was thinking of scrapping all bendy buses. I'm surprised that there has
been nothing on this here.
--

I think people on here know, from bitter experience, to ignore every word
that appears in that newspaper.

It is so transparent that they have their own axe to grind, regardless of
the truth, that reading their stories winds me up even when I agree with
what they're saying!



I feel the same about the Standard, yet probably agree with them if
they don't like bendy buses.

Double-deck trains and bendy buses: two solutions looking for a problem.

"MIG" wrote in message
oups.com...

Double-deck trains and bendy buses: two solutions looking for a problem.

Thats clever, I never thought of it like that.

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 19:17:57 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote:


"MIG" wrote in message
roups.com...

Double-deck trains and bendy buses: two solutions looking for a problem.

Thats clever, I never thought of it like that.

Most European countries find both of them very useful.

"Ken" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 19:17:57 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote:


"MIG" wrote in message
groups.com...

Double-deck trains and bendy buses: two solutions looking for a problem.

Thats clever, I never thought of it like that.

Most European countries find both of them very useful.

They even find them useful in the US, too. Clearly the poster hasn't been
on the trains in the Netherlands. Their double-decker trains are sweet, and
actually work a damn-sight better than ours. Maybe double-decker trains and
bendy-busses are the way to go

Ken wrote:

Most European countries find both of them very useful.

The main thing that prompts them to use DD trains is to save money.
They tend (TGV Duplex excepted) to end up largely on short regional
trains that could easily be made longer for that reason. This even
happens in countries like Germany where low platforms mean that longer
platforms are cheaper than the UK.

Bendy buses are a different matter, and their suitability for, say,
German-style operations has a different reason behind it. In a typical
large German city, there exists an integrated public transport system
with sufficient capacity on all modes and a good distribution. Thus,
the purpose of a bus is to move people in the areas not served by rail
rapid transit of whatever type to the nearest station on such a system.
There are comparatively few bus services that penetrate the city
centre compared with London, and most of those are rather short
distance runs.

In the UK, by contrast, it is common for buses to provide a through
service from a location not served by rapid transit rail (of whatever
type) to the city centre. Outside London, this is often a competitive
service. This means longer journeys by bus than would be typically
seen in the mainland European city. This, in turn, means that people
are more likely to be bothered about wanting a seat.

The double-decker bus, therefore, is more suited to such a situation.
It means that the long-distance travellers can take a seat in the upper
deck, while anyone taking a short journey can remain on the lower deck
in a similar low-seating configuration to the bendy.

To apply the question to London, then - yes, long-distance routes are
better with deckers. Whether the aim should be to move to a European
interchange model or remain with a British through service model is
another, rather more difficult, question. However, there are routes
where bendies are more suitable, potentially with the appropriate
infrastructure changes. I'd certainly nominate Oxford Street - but
then on the European model, it also needs fewer routes (maybe only
one?) and interchange at convenient points at each end.

There is one more factor. It is my understanding that the standard
bridge height in most European countries tends to be lower than the UK,
thus DD buses don't necessarily fit. They (and some pretty huge ones
by the typical UK standard) do exist, however - in Berlin, for one.

Neil

On 2 Mar 2006 11:08:28 -0800, "MIG"
wrote:

I feel the same about the Standard, yet probably agree with them if
they don't like bendy buses.

I wonder if they're used on the right routes - I don't use buses that
often, but they do seem to have a habit of blocking junctions and
generally getting in the way. However on some roads, mainly
straighter, wider ones with relatively few junctions, they seem to
work well. So maybe... the bus routes need reviewing and perhaps
changing so that routes suitable for bendy buses are created.