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Post by stuckonthe486 on Sept 18, 2018 15:07:04 GMT
I have used the new calculation numbers for the last two years in these answers. Route 162 - 2015/16 - 1,476,886 2016/17 - 1,883,043 27.5% increase 2017/18 - 1,903,494 1.09% increase The 162 has seen patronage increase every year since 2006. That's a good record. Route 336 - 2015/16 - 1,259,211 2016/17 - 1,550,425 23.13% increase 2017/18 - 1,800,482 16.13% increase The 336 has also grown strongly since 2006 but did have patronage falls for a couple of years. However, the last two years have seen very strong patronage growth as is typical when you increase frequencies. Thank you for kind of this information. It must be busier ever than before. Glad to see that it is in the right direction. I hope TfL not going to cut both of my local two routes in anytime soon. (*"anecdote is not data" warning*) Indeed, just caught a 336 (stupidly travelled at school chucking-out time) and it was heaving coming into Bromley, emptied out in the southern bits of Downham, then was heaving again after picking up in the northern bits of Downham. And as has been pointed out further down, it's hard to see a route like this getting any help any time soon. |
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Post by sid on Sept 18, 2018 16:28:31 GMT
Thank you for kind of this information. It must be busier ever than before. Glad to see that it is in the right direction. I hope TfL not going to cut both of my local two routes in anytime soon. (*"anecdote is not data" warning*) Indeed, just caught a 336 (stupidly travelled at school chucking-out time) and it was heaving coming into Bromley, emptied out in the southern bits of Downham, then was heaving again after picking up in the northern bits of Downham. And as has been pointed out further down, it's hard to see a route like this getting any help any time soon. Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. |
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Post by stuckonthe486 on Sept 18, 2018 16:46:44 GMT
(*"anecdote is not data" warning*) Indeed, just caught a 336 (stupidly travelled at school chucking-out time) and it was heaving coming into Bromley, emptied out in the southern bits of Downham, then was heaving again after picking up in the northern bits of Downham. And as has been pointed out further down, it's hard to see a route like this getting any help any time soon. Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. I have no idea, but with the greatest of respect, having just got on a heaving 336 (the first time I’d experienced the huge demand from school kids there), I thought I’d address a fellow poster’s concern for that route in a friendly manner rather than picking needless holes in a small element of a broader conversation. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 16:47:32 GMT
While continuing to dig round in the new data one route that has suffered an enormous "correction" under the new calculation methodology is route 423. It has seemingly lost half of its patronage which feels ridiculous to me. I know it has a large section in the "Heathrow free travel zone" but how can a methodology designed to *better* capture "non payment" result in the loss of 50% of route patronage? The 482 and 350 have also had a bit of a drop - I assume for similar reasons. Looks like an error to me. Yes I'd say the 423 is certainly an error given it serves the Beavers Farm Estate and its many Heathrow workers.Unless as you say there is chronic abuse of the Heathrow free fare system going on (obvs only jnys from T5) |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 18, 2018 17:13:57 GMT
While continuing to dig round in the new data one route that has suffered an enormous "correction" under the new calculation methodology is route 423. It has seemingly lost half of its patronage which feels ridiculous to me. I know it has a large section in the "Heathrow free travel zone" but how can a methodology designed to *better* capture "non payment" result in the loss of 50% of route patronage? The 482 and 350 have also had a bit of a drop - I assume for similar reasons. Looks like an error to me. Yes I'd say the 423 is certainly an error given it serves the Beavers Farm Estate and its many Heathrow workers.Unless as you say there is chronic abuse of the Heathrow free fare system going on (obvs only jnys from T5) I've only used it once and it was very busy. A lot of people did get off at the very edge of freeflow zone to then walk to their residences. Nonetheless these people are real users of the service regardless of whether they pay or not. I assume Heathrow pay TfL something for the revenue foregone so I'd expect there to be an estimate of those users collected from on bus data. I don't know if drivers have to press an ETM button to record these users or not. |
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Post by sid on Sept 18, 2018 17:19:43 GMT
Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. I have no idea, but with the greatest of respect, having just got on a heaving 336 (the first time I’d experienced the huge demand from school kids there), I thought I’d address a fellow poster’s concern for that route in a friendly manner rather than picking needless holes in a small element of a broader conversation. That's fine but obviously a lot of routes get rammed at school times, single deckers being a particular problem, but are relatively quiet at other times. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 17:32:56 GMT
Yes I'd say the 423 is certainly an error given it serves the Beavers Farm Estate and its many Heathrow workers.Unless as you say there is chronic abuse of the Heathrow free fare system going on (obvs only jnys from T5) I've only used it once and it was very busy. A lot of people did get off at the very edge of freeflow zone to then walk to their residences. Nonetheless these people are real users of the service regardless of whether they pay or not. I assume Heathrow pay TfL something for the revenue foregone so I'd expect there to be an estimate of those users collected from on bus data. I don't know if drivers have to press an ETM button to record these users or not. Pretty sure I’ve seen the drivers press something, but I don’t think all of them do it. These buses are often full leaving T5. |
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Post by 6HP502C on Sept 19, 2018 8:37:06 GMT
When I drove the 490 (once), people just piled on through both sets of doors at Heathrow. I wondered what on earth was going on, then remembered about the Freeflow Zone. The people were bemused when I made an announcement at Hatton Cross insisting those still on the bus who got on through the back doors now needed to produce a valid ticket.
But no, it isn't necessarily the case that these passengers are recorded by the driver.
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Post by rj131 on Sept 19, 2018 13:11:05 GMT
(*"anecdote is not data" warning*) Indeed, just caught a 336 (stupidly travelled at school chucking-out time) and it was heaving coming into Bromley, emptied out in the southern bits of Downham, then was heaving again after picking up in the northern bits of Downham. And as has been pointed out further down, it's hard to see a route like this getting any help any time soon. Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. londonbusroutes.net has just announced a frequency decrease for the 336  down to 16 M-S and 21 Sunday. Weird frequencies. |
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Post by vjaska on Sept 19, 2018 14:05:01 GMT
Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. londonbusroutes.net has just announced a frequency decrease for the 336 down to 16 M-S and 21 Sunday. Weird frequencies. 336's always look quite busy and the 2 rides I had (both under Metrobus but a good number of years apart) were busy particularly between Catford & Bromley - another stupid decrease. |
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Post by sid on Sept 19, 2018 14:09:09 GMT
Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. londonbusroutes.net has just announced a frequency decrease for the 336 down to 16 M-S and 21 Sunday. Weird frequencies. It appears to be just a temporary reduction due to roadworks and it's only by a minute so I don't suppose anybody will even notice but I agree it is a bit odd. |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 19, 2018 15:53:03 GMT
Does the 336 actually need any help anytime soon other than maybe a Sunday daytime increase? I'd have thought the Mon-Sat frequency was more than adequate and obviously any increase would mean more instances of buses meeting on the narrow sections in Downham. londonbusroutes.net has just announced a frequency decrease for the 336 down to 16 M-S and 21 Sunday. Weird frequencies. As Sid has said almost certainly due to roadworks. TfL opt for these widened headways as a mechanism to increase round trip time but without incurring extra resources. In effect it's a cost saving initiative. Most routes have such timetables for a few months whereas the 123 has had a "temporary" widened M-S headways for almost 4 years despite there not being roadworks on the route for all of that time. It has had some major issues to deal with such as the Tottenham gyratory works plus Mini Holland but 4 years is a very long time. Hopefully the current works at Charlie Browns won't last much longer. On very low or low frequency routes TfL has long opted not to add resources to routes which is why we have 70, 80, 90, 33 etc minute headways. It's sort of justifiable on the very low frequency services where people have long had to know specific departure times but rather less satisfactory on routes like the 492 and 397 which have moved from regular "mins past the hour" timetables to needing to know specific times to avoid missing a given bus. That's a bit of a pain really given how 99% of the TfL network works - regular headways and consistent, as far as possible, mins past the hour on low frequency routes. It also screws up the use of live departure info which uses a 29 minute window for departure info. If TfL are going to move more services to just slightly wider than 30 min headways they should really widen the live departure info window to something like 39 or 40 minutes. Obviously it means more data being displayed but it's more helpful on low frequency routes plus those routes with wide headways early mornings, evenings and Sundays. Hopefully TfL implement this change when they get round to restructuring and replacing I-Bus / Countdown and associated API data feeds. |
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Post by capitalomnibus on Sept 30, 2018 16:09:38 GMT
I was in Walthamstow yesterday evening at a restaurant and was also observing patronage on buses. I was shocked that after 10pm on a Saturday evening end of month which used to be so busy it was dead.
Many buses had single figures of passengers on Hoe Street, none more than 30 passengers. The most under-used was the 357 at times there was no one on board apart from the driver in either direction. I never saw one of them with more than 5 people, very worrying.
97 and 34 were the busiest, but still nothing like they were years ago. Some 97's and 34's struggled to make double figures.
215's had one or two with not much on board. the 212 was better used, but still not busy. The 275's were also very under-used. I wonder if people are fedup of Walthamstow. I noticed a lot of Uber Toyota Prius around.
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Post by sid on Oct 1, 2018 5:07:42 GMT
I was in Walthamstow yesterday evening at a restaurant and was also observing patronage on buses. I was shocked that after 10pm on a Saturday evening end of month which used to be so busy it was dead. Many buses had single figures of passengers on Hoe Street, none more than 30 passengers. The most under-used was the 357 at times there was no one on board apart from the driver in either direction. I never saw one of them with more than 5 people, very worrying. 97 and 34 were the busiest, but still nothing like they were years ago. Some 97's and 34's struggled to make double figures. 215's had one or two with not much on board. the 212 was better used, but still not busy. The 275's were also very under-used. I wonder if people are fedup of Walthamstow. I noticed a lot of Uber Toyota Prius around. Doesn't surprise me, I was in Croydon on a Saturday night recently and couldn't help but notice how many bus routes that would have been busy a few years ago were very quiet, I can only assume there has been a big switch to Uber? |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2018 5:37:28 GMT
I was in Walthamstow yesterday evening at a restaurant and was also observing patronage on buses. I was shocked that after 10pm on a Saturday evening end of month which used to be so busy it was dead. Many buses had single figures of passengers on Hoe Street, none more than 30 passengers. The most under-used was the 357 at times there was no one on board apart from the driver in either direction. I never saw one of them with more than 5 people, very worrying. 97 and 34 were the busiest, but still nothing like they were years ago. Some 97's and 34's struggled to make double figures. 215's had one or two with not much on board. the 212 was better used, but still not busy. The 275's were also very under-used. I wonder if people are fedup of Walthamstow. I noticed a lot of Uber Toyota Prius around. Doesn't surprise me, I was in Croydon on a Saturday night recently and couldn't help but notice how many bus routes that would have been busy a few years ago were very quiet, I can only assume there has been a big switch to Uber? Indeed, the days of Friday and Saturday being pub nights are vanishing. Richmond was heaving when I was younger, so much so the last buses on the R70 had to be double decked and were noisy and often boisterous. Not so much now. Massive change in habits at play in many areas of life. If you fancy Uber spotting, Whitechapel seems buzzing with them 24/7 |
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down to 16 M-S and 21 Sunday. Weird frequencies.
