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Post by cl54 on May 27, 2018 6:30:57 GMT
I reckon instead of route branding perhaps TfL could have trialled on branding up bus doors to help irregular users in the correct way to board relevant non-LT buses. My girlfriend and I have not long seen three separate instances where tourists have entered a standard decker through the exit doors, likely believing that 'any' red bus can be entered via its exit doors. I know it's likely that many travellers would not notice such branding but at least something's done about the situation despite its unlikely effectiveness. Many years ago I worked on a campaign to try and get people to pay there fare into a turnstile instead of to the driver. This involved a yellow door with publicity on the exterior. www.yellins.com/transporthistory/bus6/afc.htmlThe turnstiles couldn't cope with being bounced around and they were removed. Eventually both parts of front doors were painted yellow until privatisation brought assorted liveries.
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Post by ServerKing on May 27, 2018 6:50:19 GMT
I reckon instead of route branding perhaps TfL could have trialled on branding up bus doors to help irregular users in the correct way to board relevant non-LT buses. My girlfriend and I have not long seen three separate instances where tourists have entered a standard decker through the exit doors, likely believing that 'any' red bus can be entered via its exit doors. I know it's likely that many travellers would not notice such branding but at least something's done about the situation despite its unlikely effectiveness. Many years ago I worked on a campaign to try and get people to pay there fare into a turnstile instead of to the driver. This involved a yellow door with publicity on the exterior. www.yellins.com/transporthistory/bus6/afc.htmlThe turnstiles couldn't cope with being bounced around and they were removed. Eventually both parts of front doors were painted yellow until privatisation brought assorted liveries. People are a little erm.. larger so such schemes would never work nowadays Nice to see LT use any font rather than the dogged clinging to New Johnston we've seen in the Barkingside and Hayes attempts Branding only works when buses are kept on the route they are branded for. Area branding or adding more than route could work in future
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Post by snowman on May 27, 2018 7:32:57 GMT
The whole point of the LTs is to clear busy stops quickly. Front door only boarding would stop this happening. The original point of LT's was an open platform at the back, the current arrangement inevitably lead to fare evasion and confusion as mentioned. Three door buses in Berlin were changed to front door boarding for similar reasons. Alternatively have open boarding on all buses but inevitably there would be a massive loss of revenue. There are so many routes with mix of 2 door and 3 door buses (where different route numbers use common routing) that the only sensible thing to do now is make it front door entry, and other doors exit. Never going to fix confusion on these sections. On the LTs would also make sense to mark front stairs up only and rear stairs down only at same time as making doors directional. Ironically buses tended to be faster before the 3 door boarding LTs were introduced, the slowing was for other reasons, but the few seconds gained is no longer useful (in sense journey becomes attractive because it’s quick). So go front door boarding and cut fare evasion.
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Post by M1199 on May 27, 2018 8:16:06 GMT
I reckon instead of route branding perhaps TfL could have trialled on branding up bus doors to help irregular users in the correct way to board relevant non-LT buses. My girlfriend and I have not long seen three separate instances where tourists have entered a standard decker through the exit doors, likely believing that 'any' red bus can be entered via its exit doors. I know it's likely that many travellers would not notice such branding but at least something's done about the situation despite its unlikely effectiveness. I'd like to see a return of yellow entrance doors. Ok, it may look a little silly on an LT, having 3 of them, but it's an ugly brute anyhow! On a conventional vehicle, it'd also break up the blandness of the all over red. On the rear doors they should bring back the large NO ENTRY signs, like they used to have on the M's, T's etc, they must of worked reasonably well, as a lot of those signs lasted right up till they were withdrawn.
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Post by ServerKing on May 27, 2018 8:19:23 GMT
I reckon instead of route branding perhaps TfL could have trialled on branding up bus doors to help irregular users in the correct way to board relevant non-LT buses. My girlfriend and I have not long seen three separate instances where tourists have entered a standard decker through the exit doors, likely believing that 'any' red bus can be entered via its exit doors. I know it's likely that many travellers would not notice such branding but at least something's done about the situation despite its unlikely effectiveness. I'd like to see a return of yellow entrance doors. Ok, it may look a little silly on an LT, having 3 of them, but it's an ugly brute anyhow! On a conventional vehicle, it'd also break up the blandness of the all over red. On the rear doors they should bring back the large NO ENTRY signs, like they used to have on the M's, T's etc, they must of worked reasonably well, as a lot of those signs lasted right up till they were withdrawn. I would like the reintroduction of 10p and 30p fares as well as yellow doors, and more adventurous 1990s style branding
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Post by M1104 on May 27, 2018 8:47:23 GMT
I reckon instead of route branding perhaps TfL could have trialled on branding up bus doors to help irregular users in the correct way to board relevant non-LT buses. My girlfriend and I have not long seen three separate instances where tourists have entered a standard decker through the exit doors, likely believing that 'any' red bus can be entered via its exit doors. I know it's likely that many travellers would not notice such branding but at least something's done about the situation despite its unlikely effectiveness. I've seen this happen a lot in Central London and the confusion is understandable, surely best to make LT's front door boarding only and put prominent no entry stickers on the rear and middle doors? It might take a while to get people used to the new arrangement but there will be a lot less fare evasion. If anything LTs should have branded doors advertising it's three choice entry as there are often the opposite effect of punters passing the other two doors to board through the front... bearing in mind some may wish to do so to approach the driver for general enquiries.
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Post by busman on May 27, 2018 8:49:01 GMT
I was waiting at the Safari Cinema bus stop in Harrow yesterday afternoon. Along comes a 182 with 140 route branding. Ugly and confusing. No amount of branding can make a frog face look pretty 😉 I think branding done well can help infrequent route users understand what goes where, but the way TfL and operators have implemented this trial has been dire.
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Post by Volvo on May 27, 2018 9:02:40 GMT
Imo i think it is pointless, buses are route branded at the front, nearside & back anyway and people rarely pay attention to that . As a spare driver I go to different areas and still the same thing people will look at the blinds and then ask you do you go to said place on the blinds, so I doubt would be any different if you have it written in small lettering on the sides & rear of the bus. I often find People too busy sometimes even notice the bus is there until I start closing the doors or they even too busy to get their oyster or bank card or irritating iPhone out until they get on the bus then start holding up the bus.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2018 15:05:35 GMT
What 👆🏽said. My observations:
- Not necessary to have stickers on the front and side displaying just the route number when you have these on blinds anyway. If it’s about colour coding it would be better to colour the black bit around the blinds, drawing attention to this info (like they did with single deck routes like the 195)
- No one cares about how frequent (or not) the bus is, if you are standing there waiting for the bus already, this info is available at the bus stop. This info is misleading at certain times of the day, the ‘up to’ is so tiny it’s vitually unreadable. And even during these times, it’s going to look a bit daft if you have to wait half an hour for a branded bus boasting every 8 minutes due to usual London traffic.
- London buses are a different animal to the irregular and / or rural routes that have branding to help tourists etc as to its routeing. Again, the route info is available at the bus stop. There is little point plastering it down the side and even less of a use on the rear windows, especially considering Londoner behaviour of squashing at the flag just trying to be first on. They are closer to the information while waiting for the bus yet choose not to read that so why would they pay attention to the side or go around the back to look? You will still have people ask the driver like s/he’s an A-Z.
- Another glaring point is the allocation difficulties these branding provide. Or not as it would seem, as many on here have already stated they’ve spotted them on other routes. Makes a complete mockery of the idea and again, would cause confusion.
Branding works in some towns. But clearly London is the worst idea for this, at least in the way TfL have done it.
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Post by sid on Oct 13, 2018 21:46:22 GMT
So have the Hayes and Barkingside trials been quietly dropped?
And it would appear that the rumoured route branding for the X26 isn't going to happen.
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Post by snoggle on Oct 13, 2018 22:55:44 GMT
So have the Hayes and Barkingside trials been quietly dropped? And it would appear that the rumoured route branding for the X26 isn't going to happen. Short answer - don't know. As they are trials then there does have to be an end date and I'd say the Barkingside effort has run for a decent period of time. That should allow TfL to take a view. I haven't seen the Hayes one other than via photos and comments here. That looks to be rather half hearted and obviously hasn't run as long as the Barkingside effort. Whether TfL can take a view about the Hayes trial I really couldn't say - I doubt they have enough data over a long enough period to reach any sort of meaningful view. Perhaps they'll just do market research locally to see if any noticed the branding and if their travel patterns altered as a result?
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Post by M1199 on Oct 14, 2018 22:55:21 GMT
I think the whole Hayes branding scheme has been a farce since the day they rolled it out! What with branding vehicles for routes they wasn't (strictly) allocated to and the farcile errors they made with the frequencies. Since then, you've had: - The 350's altered to show the correct frequency, although 1 still shows it runs every 12min in the front window. -The U4's were completely removed and then replaced with correct frequencies, although not on all the same vehicles originally selected. -The U5, 2 out of the 3 branded MMC's have now transferred out. -The H98, the 4 DLE's have now been repainted (or are in the process of) and now only show the route number in the side window -The 607, VW1568 has now gone for scrap with the rest being replaced at the end of the year.
There are most probably other oddities and observations about that could be mentioned, I just haven't noticed them yet.
Take the A10 for example, if you look at the current branding and then look at Ray Stennings excellent Heathrow Fast livery, there's only one winner in my eyes.
Saying that, I don't think it's all entirely TfL's fault, I do feel that dual door single deck vehicles (especially the near side) aren't really awashed with space to allow for a decent attempt at route branding!
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Post by vjaska on Oct 14, 2018 23:18:13 GMT
I think the whole Hayes branding scheme has been a farce since the day they rolled it out! What with branding vehicles for routes they wasn't (strictly) allocated to and the farcile errors they made with the frequencies. Since then, you've had: - The 350's altered to show the correct frequency, although 1 still shows it runs every 12min in the front window. -The U4's were completely removed and then replaced with correct frequencies, although not on all the same vehicles originally selected. -The U5, 2 out of the 3 branded MMC's have now transferred out. -The H98, the 4 DLE's have now been repainted (or are in the process of) and now only show the route number in the side window -The 607, VW1568 has now gone for scrap with the rest being replaced at the end of the year. There are most probably other oddities and observations about that could be mentioned, I just haven't noticed them yet. Take the A10 for example, if you look at the current branding and then look at Ray Stennings excellent Heathrow Fast livery, there's only one winner in my eyes. Saying that, I don't think it's all entirely TfL's fault, I do feel that dual door single deck vehicles (especially the near side) aren't really awashed with space to allow for a decent attempt at route branding! Not to mention the idiotic decision to brand just 25% of a routes allocation compared to 75% in the Barkingside trial.
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Post by sid on Oct 15, 2018 4:36:02 GMT
So have the Hayes and Barkingside trials been quietly dropped? And it would appear that the rumoured route branding for the X26 isn't going to happen. Short answer - don't know. As they are trials then there does have to be an end date and I'd say the Barkingside effort has run for a decent period of time. That should allow TfL to take a view. I haven't seen the Hayes one other than via photos and comments here. That looks to be rather half hearted and obviously hasn't run as long as the Barkingside effort. Whether TfL can take a view about the Hayes trial I really couldn't say - I doubt they have enough data over a long enough period to reach any sort of meaningful view. Perhaps they'll just do market research locally to see if any noticed the branding and if their travel patterns altered as a result? I read in another section about branding being removed from some buses and assured the idea had been dropped. The X26 would be an obvious candidate for route branding but the cynical view would be that TfL don't want to attract more custom to the route.
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