Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:16:51 -0000, West Yorkshire Bus
wrote:

I have just come back from a trip to London and am wondering, am I
right in thinking that there are no walk in travel centres like I've
come to expect elsewhere in the UK anywhere in London

The Travel Information Centres that TfL advertise seem to be no more
than a glorified tube station ticket window or bus station inspector's
window. You have to ask for what publicity you want and then you have
to know what to ask for, and I'm sure they don't like giving out any
more than 1 or 2 items per person

I think I must be living in an alternative London.

Every bustop I use has a timetable for all the routes that stop there, a
diagram of the routes, and usually a spider map of the routes in the
area and a map of night buses.

I've never come accross a tube station that hasn't had a bus map to hand
out, as well as on display.

And a variety of maps can be downloaded from the website.

Admittedly, this is Central London - where was it that you couldn't find
information?

sr

Paul Corfield wrote:

Overall I think the TfL bus network is pretty damn good but the whole
approach to passenger information I cannot stand.

Come to think of it, every tube station seems to have a rack of boat
timetables, but no bus map. I suppose LU views buses as competition, but
boats as something that people will visit by tube.

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:26:11 +0100, stephen wrote:

I think I must be living in an alternative London.

Every bustop I use has a timetable for all the routes that stop there,

Not a timetable (i.e. something that tells you what times the buses
come), just a frequency guide (i.e. something that says useful things
like "every 2-15 minutes").

a diagram of the routes, and usually a spider map of the routes in the
area and a map of night buses.

But no actual street map showing what actual roads the bus travels
along (and where you can change to other bus routes, and where those
go).

Besides, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, this info is only
available *after* you've already reached the bus stop you're supposed
to be travelling from. What about when you're planning your journey?

And a variety of maps can be downloaded from the website.

The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the new
website. If I hadn't already known they existed and made a determined
effort (5+ minutes), I'd probably never have found them. And
apparently, even they are under threat and may get the chop soon.

(5 years ago, a poster version of them was displayed at every bus
stop, along with "you are here" arrow. How things have declined since
then.)

"asdf" wrote in message
...

And a variety of maps can be downloaded from the website.

The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the new
website. If I hadn't already known they existed and made a determined
effort (5+ minutes), I'd probably never have found them. And
apparently, even they are under threat and may get the chop soon.

In that case you need some new glasses.

1. Go to www.tfl.gov.uk
2. Click on buses
3. Click on bus route maps

Seems like a fairly logical place to put them.

Peter Smyth

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 18:17:25 +0100, Peter Smyth wrote:

And a variety of maps can be downloaded from the website.

The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the new
website. If I hadn't already known they existed and made a determined
effort (5+ minutes), I'd probably never have found them. And
apparently, even they are under threat and may get the chop soon.

In that case you need some new glasses.

1. Go to www.tfl.gov.uk
2. Click on buses
3. Click on bus route maps

Seems like a fairly logical place to put them.

Now that's odd - the "buses" link in step 2 doesn't appear in Opera,
although it does in IE.

Anyway, the way I tried to find them was equally logical, apart from
the thing that actually worked:

1. Go to www.tfl.gov.uk
2. Click on "maps" (top-right corner)
3. Click on "bus route maps"
4. As none of the other links on the page look relevant, spend ages
looking through the alphabetical listings for them (which incidentally
contain the night bus spider maps for NE and SW London, but not NW or
SE London - why?), unsuccessfully
5. As a last resort, click "bus and tram" on the left-hand side of the
screen, which unexpectedly takes you straight to the quadrant maps.

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 15:23:07 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

Overall I think the TfL bus network is pretty damn good but the whole
approach to passenger information I cannot stand.

Come to think of it, every tube station seems to have a rack of boat
timetables, but no bus map. I suppose LU views buses as competition, but
boats as something that people will visit by tube.

I really don't think anyone in LU sees buses as competition to the tube.
I've never heard that expressed and given we all report back to TfL I
can't see that such an attitude would be tolerated. I think it is back
to the lack of promotion of the bus network as a companion to the rail
and tube network.

When the old style Local Bus Guide was put in the tube racks at Seven
Sisters or Walthamstow Central it would be whipped out of the racks very
quickly as people clearly wanted the information. The same happens with
the London Connection Map - One had put a load of them in their racks at
Walthamstow yesterday (I picked one up myself) and today they are all
gone while all other leaflets are still there. From very simple
observations I would say there is a real demand for network forms of
information and yet there is so little of it produced. Something
different has to be done if people really are to be persuaded / pushed
out of their cars and on to public transport.

If you were to say that many people in LU know very little about the bus
network and how it works and where it goes then I would agree with that.
I could surmise that the same would be true if you asked people in
Surface Transport (buses) about how LU works although they would be a
bit more familiar with the basics of the tube map (like many people)
given its prominence and their familiarity with it.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, asdf wrote:

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:26:11 +0100, stephen wrote:

I think I must be living in an alternative London.

Every bustop I use has a timetable for all the routes that stop there,

Not a timetable (i.e. something that tells you what times the buses
come), just a frequency guide (i.e. something that says useful things
like "every 2-15 minutes").

Also, not terribly portable, unless you have a spanner with you.

a diagram of the routes, and usually a spider map of the routes in the
area and a map of night buses.

But no actual street map showing what actual roads the bus travels along
(and where you can change to other bus routes, and where those go).

I still reckon this could be added to the spider maps without too much
trouble.

And a variety of maps can be downloaded from the website.

The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the new
website.

And it *still* doesn't have the High Frequency Services map at all!

tom

--
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky,
about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even
the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the
sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature
of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known
with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience. -- St Augustine

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, asdf wrote:
The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the
new website.

And it *still* doesn't have the High Frequency Services map at all!

You haven't tried very hard!

EITHER:
Go to the TfL site, enter "high frequency services" in the search box,
and the first item in the results is a PDF file of the map.

OR:
Go to the TfL site, click on "Getting Around", then click on "Maps", and
a link to the HFS map is there under "Popular maps".

OR (if you want to cheat):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/HFS_Quad1g.pdf

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, Richard J. wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, asdf wrote:
The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the
new website.

And it *still* doesn't have the High Frequency Services map at all!

You haven't tried very hard!

EITHER:
Go to the TfL site, enter "high frequency services" in the search box, and
the first item in the results is a PDF file of the map.

OR:
Go to the TfL site, click on "Getting Around", then click on "Maps", and a
link to the HFS map is there under "Popular maps".

OR (if you want to cheat):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/HFS_Quad1g.pdf

I sit corrected. I *swear* that wasn't there last week!

tom

--
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky,
about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even
the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the
sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature
of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known
with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience. -- St Augustine

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, Richard J. wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, asdf wrote:
The proper (quadrant) maps are now very difficult to find on the
new website.

And it *still* doesn't have the High Frequency Services map at all!

You haven't tried very hard!

EITHER:
Go to the TfL site, enter "high frequency services" in the search box,
and the first item in the results is a PDF file of the map.

OR:
Go to the TfL site, click on "Getting Around", then click on "Maps", and
a link to the HFS map is there under "Popular maps".

OR (if you want to cheat):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/HFS_Quad1g.pdf

I sit corrected. I *swear* that wasn't there last week!

You're right! It has been added since 30th June.

http://web.archive.org/web/200706301...ound/1106.aspx

Peter Smyth