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Bus timetables from the TfL Journey Planner
On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 07:23:12 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote: Prompted by another of today's threads I thought I'd post this. There is one feature of the TfL Journey Planner I find very useful, though judging by the reactions from friends and acquaintances when I point them towards it I don't think it is well known about. It is the ability to call up a PDF of a bus timetable which appears exactly the same as those actually displayed at bus stops. (Tram timetables are available through this facility as well.) Apologies for raining on your parade but those timetables are not necessarily the same as appears at local bus stops. It would be good if they were aligned but they aren't. This aspect of London's information provision really, really makes me cross. In addition far too many of the timetables do not show departure times - they simply say every x-y minutes which in most case cases is downright misleading. This is because the interval is derived not by a common sense view of what the actual timetable interval is for the vast majority of the day but by a computer which goes "what is shortest and longest intervals between buses between 07.00 and 19.00". Invariably the answer - due to the way running time is built up or reduced at the peak shoulders - is something like "7 - 12 minutes". However there may only be one 7 minute gap in the entire timetable and similarly only one 12 minute gap with 99% of buses actually running at 10 minute intervals. However the timetable doesn't say this - it gives a load of rubbish instead. Here is an example for my local service. I can tell you unreservedly that the stop info at the stop differs from this. I can also tell you it is not accurate - the Sunday interval is particularly irksome as it does not give the minutes past the hour just because there is one 13 minute interval. The real stop info *does* show the minutes past the hour and it's essential because who wants to turn up when the bus has just gone and there's 15 mins to wait? What a mess. http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/use...__000054bb.pdf I would dearly love the JP timetable section to work as most continental planners work - i.e. it shows the precise minutes past each hour of the day that a bus is due at each stop. The system has that information but it has been decided it won't be displayed. I think that is an error. I'm afraid I tend to use www.londonbusroutes.net which may be an "amateur" site but at least gives me real, detailed timetables that I can print out and carry around with me. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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