Why your bus network may never improve

[wirewiper]

Jarrett Walker, the American Transport Planning Consultant and writer of the "Human Transit" blog, has written this interesting article on the challenges of revising bus routes and networks.

It refers specifically to Dublin where a complete city network redesign is due to be rolled out in late 2019. However many of the issues are pertinent to London (and elsewhere) and indeed are acted out often on posts to this Forum.

I would genuinely be interested to hear what other people think.


humantransit.org/2018/09/why-your-bus-network-may-never-improve.html

[ServerKing]

The problem with London Consultations is that they are more proclamations of what they will do rather than asking us what we think. Too many parts of TfL don't communicate with each other, let alone with us, look at the delay in the Crossrail launch but in order to save face some routes may still be cut. Also the fact they are struggling financially is a factor in the current mess. 13/82 bus route fiasco is one, then it looks like the 48 may still go, 10 finishes soon, 305 gone... we need at least to renumber what's left... the haphazard collection of W routes could get renumbered for instance. We have a 375 but no 373 or 374...

Being aware of people's shopping and commuting habits would help TfL. Try sitting in never ending jams in West London like Kew or Regents Street, Piccadilly, Southall Broadway to name a few and other places in the Square Mile where its quicker to walk, the lack to promotion of the bus network, failed branding schemes... shall I go on?

A good article but it seems the sensible and experienced have moved on from TfL already

[vjaska]

Sept 23, 2018 18:10:29 GMT wirewiper said:

Jarrett Walker, the American Transport Planning Consultant and writer of the "Human Transit" blog, has written this interesting article on the challenges of revising bus routes and networks.

It refers specifically to Dublin where a complete city network redesign is due to be rolled out in late 2019. However many of the issues are pertinent to London (and elsewhere) and indeed are acted out often on posts to this Forum.

I would genuinely be interested to hear what other people think.


humantransit.org/2018/09/why-your-bus-network-may-never-improve.html

I read the article but I'm struggling to see how it would relate to London - the example of the 40D in Dublin would very rarely apply to a route in London given most have decent or good frequencies anyway.

Dublin's bus network was cut to smithereens in the wake of the financial crash where Ireland had to be bailed out by us among other EU countries which probably explains why their bus network is now being proposed to be remodeled as it suffered greatly - interestingly, it also allowed them to rapidly accelerate the replacement of the remaining Leyland & Volvo Olympians as well as some early low floor ALX400 B7TL's and the tiny fleet of ALX400 Tridents.

[snoggle]

Sept 23, 2018 18:10:29 GMT wirewiper said:

Jarrett Walker, the American Transport Planning Consultant and writer of the "Human Transit" blog, has written this interesting article on the challenges of revising bus routes and networks.

It refers specifically to Dublin where a complete city network redesign is due to be rolled out in late 2019. However many of the issues are pertinent to London (and elsewhere) and indeed are acted out often on posts to this Forum.

I would genuinely be interested to hear what other people think.


humantransit.org/2018/09/why-your-bus-network-may-never-improve.html

I've read the blog article and the comments below it. For someone who has been redesigning bus networks for 25 years he seems very defensive and somewhat prickly about criticism. If, as he states, he knows how people will react and why then surely he doesn't need to act in the way he seemingly does? Also why include mildly insulting comments about an income group that then needs to be removed? Doesn't demonstrate much expertise and empathy to me. It all feels a bit odd for an "expert" to act like this.

I don't know Dublin's buses but I have seen on Twitter that there is more than one "Dublin Buses are cr*p" type account. A twitter contact who commutes on Dublin public transport regularly suffers extremely overcrowded buses. Their "TD" (member of the Dail) is actually the Taoiseach and yet nothing has been done to improve matters (so far). So far so familiar to those of us in London.

I completely take the points he makes about who shouts loudest and longest. However if you start from a position of proper engagement and listening then you can avoid a lot of this. If you acknowledge there are valid points raised and then explain how they'd be dealt with then you stand more of a chance of taking people with you. In London there is precisely NONE of this with respect to talking to / engaging with the poor souls who use buses. TfL dabbled with it for a while and, of course, it's stopped happening - I assume because there are simply not enough staff left to do it properly. Talking to stakeholders is all very well but they can't know everything and they have their own agendas that may be contrary to what passengers really want.

There are a load of ways that TfL could improve matters but there's little will to do this and almost certainly no money. I don't agree with bombarding TfL with insane ideas like we sometimes get here. That gets you nowhere really. Similarly TfL only ever putting *one* proposal on the table for a route change just raises the hackles with people. The 384 consultation could have put forward 3 options with reasoned arguments for and against. [Obivously this is just my own guess - I've only used the 384 twice]

1. Keep things they are with the 384 but with the 292 being reduced in frequency which makes "hopper" between the 107 and 292 more difficult.
2. The TfL proposals as they stand now.
3. A variant which kept almost all of local links in Barnet plus the Edgware extension and reduced 292 but at a lower frequency for the 384 overall to contain costs. You might need an extra schools bus on the 384 or do something with the 606 to ensure kids can get to / from school.

That might have been a fairer choice for people as it presents a real choice between a faster, more direct new link into Edgware from Barnet against one with preserves local links in Barnet, still reaches Edgware but leads to a loss of capacity from Stirling Corner into Edgware because of HCC funding cuts and TfL's inability to fund the gap in capacity. It would be interesting to see what people opted for but it would be a *real* choice. I've deliberately kept the "keep everything the same but extend to Barnet anyway" option off the table as I assume that's unviable for TfL. The better choice overall, though, would have been for TfL to talk to local people in Barnet first. There is nothing in the consultation to say they have done this. No wonder they're all going to shout and scream - just as happened with the ill fated 424/485 proposals.

The lack of a real, considered choice that acknowledges people's needs *and* aspirations is the huge problem TfL has. It just looks and acts like a monolith that imposes things on people. If they don't like what is imposed all TfL get is people not using its services and taking to cars / private hire vehicles which is the wrong answer.

I suspect the upcoming "Central London" consultation is going to end as a monumental "car crash" for TfL and the Mayor. They really will have petitions and people shouting and screaming from MPs downwards. They'll ignore it all and usage of all of the routes will fall as a result. End result - a shambles for Londoners and a bigger shambles for TfL. All because they can't be bothered to communicate and listen on a human scale and offer people a genuine choice. I know it is very difficult to offer choices with large scale, interconnected changes but it is TfL's own choice to make things complicated. They don't *have* to do it like this.

[wirewiper]

Thank you for the comments so far, especially snoggle who has used the 292/384 consultation as a way it could be done.

Of course when I posted the comments had not been added, and the "offending" sentence was still in situ. I didn't see anything wrong with it personally but there may be nuances or sensitivities locally that I am not aware of.

The other thing I was not aware of is the current state of bus services in Dublin - the situation sounds not unlike London in the 1970s and early 1980s when passengers at some locations would regularly be left behind by a succession of full buses. 

[snoggle]

Sept 24, 2018 7:04:10 GMT wirewiper said:

Thank you for the comments so far, especially snoggle who has used the 292/384 consultation as a way it could be done.

Of course when I posted the comments had not been added, and the "offending" sentence was still in situ. I didn't see anything wrong with it personally but there may be nuances or sensitivities locally that I am not aware of.

The other thing I was not aware of is the current state of bus services in Dublin - the situation sounds not unlike London in the 1970s and early 1980s when passengers at some locations would regularly be left behind by a succession of full buses. 

Vjaska has given some background. The other context is the move towards a tendered network which will bring in competitive pressure on Dublin Bus. That will inevitably bring problems as management will need to become more efficient to retain work. Irish state bus operations have long had fractious industrial relations which has probably not helped matters over many years. AIUI it's one reason why Dublin Buses have a unique front windscreen design - the unions complain about any other design because of reflections and refuse to drive vehicles with other designs. I'd not be shocked if Go Ahead Dublin's new buses have the same design just to avoid any fall out with the unions. The final bit of context is that the Irish economy is now growing again which is creating new transport demand which is pressuring the old network which was subject to substantial cuts during Ireland's post financial crash woes.

I recently had a brief look at Dublin's bus "map" in the context of a possible visit. I wasn't terribly impressed with the coverage but perhaps I was just choosing hotels in the wrong part of the city. I wouldn't expect to have a 15 minute walk from a main bus service artery in a city like Dublin when you're fairly close in to the centre. Further out then sure services will be more sparse but it wasn't exactly a scintilating transport offer.