Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:54:05 GMT, Kevin
wrote:

What would be really nice, from the drivers point of view, would be a
bell that once rung would not ring again until after the doors have been
opened and closed.

It would be if the drivers always stopped when the bell was rung.
Sometimes it is necessary, from experience, to ring repeatedly to get
the driver's attention to prevent him zooming past a stop as he
"forgot" or something.

As an aside, the Dutch don't use bells. There is a quiet beep in the
cab when the button is pressed the first time, but after that the only
indication is the light.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:26:31 -0700, francis
wrote:

Bring back the bell cord that used to hang from the roof along the
whole deck.

Until the local yoof swing on it and pull it off.

An American-style cord along the middle of the windows might be better
to reduce that problem, as it's difficult to swing on a cord that's
only a few feet off the ground.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:14:26 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

In the light of your comments you might be interested to read the
proposals here

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/proj...ions/5003.aspx

and perhaps send in some comments to TfL. Closing date 20 July 2007.

Interesting - a change to the German system where the default is to
stop, unless there is no intending passenger or (unofficially) the
passenger waves the bus past.

This is a far more friendly system, though it can be a bit wasteful if
a lot of routes serve one stop (though the best solution to that is to
change things so a lot of routes no longer serve one stop).

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

"Kevin" wrote in message
. uk...

[snip]

What would be really nice, from the drivers point of view, would be a
bell that once rung would not ring again until after the doors have been
opened and closed.

We had that with the Volvo B7's we had a few years ago. Sadly they removed
it on the Geminis and Tridents we had after that.

Ivor

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

Ivor Jones wrote

Hmm. Lit buttons. More complications, do we need them..? There are
already
signs in the bus saying "Stopping" or similar when the bell has been
pressed, do we really need illuminated buttons as well..? I hope
they're

Not all buses, even in London.

I noticed that the buses on the 465 Kingston-Dorking didn't have a
'Stopping' sign, just a raspberry noise when the bell was pressed.

--
Mike D

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:26:31 -0700, francis
wrote:

Bring back the bell cord that used to hang from the roof along the
whole deck.

Until the local yoof swing on it and pull it off.

The cords on trolleybuses, as well from being longer, also seemed pretty
strong. They're the only ones I've ever looked at closely (in Colindale
scrapyard).

An American-style cord along the middle of the windows might be
better to reduce that problem, as it's difficult to swing on a cord
that's only a few feet off the ground.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:51:00 +0100, Neil Williams
wrote:

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:14:26 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

In the light of your comments you might be interested to read the
proposals here

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/proj...ions/5003.aspx

and perhaps send in some comments to TfL. Closing date 20 July 2007.

Interesting - a change to the German system where the default is to
stop, unless there is no intending passenger or (unofficially) the
passenger waves the bus past.

This is a far more friendly system, though it can be a bit wasteful if
a lot of routes serve one stop (though the best solution to that is to
change things so a lot of routes no longer serve one stop).

I don't see that as a Good Thing, certainly not while we have the current
fare structure of 'one ride, one fare'. In a city as massive as London it
is a fact of life that you need multiple routes from a given point to
cover all the journeys required. Unless you mean that each route should
have their own exclusive stops just a few meters from each other. But then
the whole street would be one massive bus stop with no room to park cars.
Ahhhh, yes, I see where you're going now. Good call.

--
Fig

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:55:57 -0700, MIG

wrote:

The reason for this is that, in London at least, drivers don't
stop at bus stops any more. This may not be their fault, in
that instructions not to stop are probablly the only way that
the bus operators can interpret TfL's timing regime.

However, until drivers can be relied on to stop at bus stops,
they are going to hear a lot of bells ringing.

(And in another thread, I reported that I stood up to get off
at a compulsory stop in Trafalgar Square in the rush hour, but
the driver apparently deemed this to be too minor a place to
stop and whisked me off down Whitehall. This is not an
isolated incident, so I have learned by experience and always
ring.)

In the light of your comments you might be interested to read the
proposals here

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/proj...ions/5003.aspx

and perhaps send in some comments to TfL. Closing date 20 July 2007.

Thanks, Paul. I wasn't aware of that proposal and consultation, and
there doesn't seem to be a link to it from the main London Buses page.
I've no problem with the idea of removing the distinction between
compulsory and request stops. Effectively they'll all become compulsory
as far as boarding passengers are concerned (buses will stop at all
stops if anyone is waiting), but will be request stops for alighting
passengers (ring the bell if you want the bus to stop, which is what 80%
of passengers always do anyway).

But if they are going to standardise on one design of bus stop sign, I'd
much prefer the white-on-red of the current request stop, as IMHO it's
much more visible from a distance than the compulsory stop. I've
suggested this in my response to TfL. What do others think?

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

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:27:01 +0100, Fig wrote:

Unless you mean that each route should
have their own exclusive stops just a few meters from each other. But then
the whole street would be one massive bus stop with no room to park cars.

It doesn't necessarily need to be each route - you can group some
together that have common sections and are infrequent enough to avoid
the problem. London is, and always was, far better at that than other
parts of the country, but it could do with being better.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Strange buttons on Bendy buses
 

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:39:18 GMT, Neil Williams
wrote in :
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:27:01 +0100, Fig wrote:

Unless you mean that each route should
have their own exclusive stops just a few meters from each other. But then
the whole street would be one massive bus stop with no room to park cars.

It doesn't necessarily need to be each route - you can group some
together that have common sections and are infrequent enough to avoid
the problem.

We have that here, but imperfectly. Outside Tesco in Uxbridge
there's one stop for, inter alia, the U5 and another further down the
street that serves the U1 and U3. Neither are request stops. Especially
when the U5 first started, the drivers would turn into the street and
then see how fast they could accelerate past the stop... Problem is that
I and a lot of other people can use either the U3 or the U5 (and for a few
of us the U1 as well) so we wait midway between the two stops. There's
about enough time to get to the U3 stop from first sighting the bus, but if
the U5 driver's hell-bent on not stopping there's no way to get to the
stop in time to hail the bus.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. ] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".