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Post by snoggle on Jan 16, 2019 13:02:04 GMT
CentreComm have now changed their name. They now announce 'Network Management Control Centre' over the radio. Bit of a mouthful! I preferred CentreComm.
Attention all bus staff: CentreComm out… …NMCC in From 7 January 2019, CentreComm staff will merge with other TfL control centres to become one large control centre called the Network Management Control Centre (NMCC). • This means we are more able to support you across London’s bus network, as we can make better use of our resources and have more operators available at peak times • Although the name ‘CentreComm’ will no longer exist, you can still expect the same level of support from the NMCC • Drivers should continue to use Code Red for all emergency situations and Code Blue to report information. 3 January 2019
Another bit of subjugating the bus network under LU control. The NMCC has its roots in LU's old control structure so this is another example of modal knowledge being squashed. I suspect the controllers will all be forced to "work flexibly" and be doing buses one day, roads the next and the tube the day after. This, of course, is a nonsense given you need genuinely specialist knowledge to deal with emergencies on different modes.
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Post by redbus on Jan 16, 2019 23:09:29 GMT
Attention all bus staff: CentreComm out… …NMCC in From 7 January 2019, CentreComm staff will merge with other TfL control centres to become one large control centre called the Network Management Control Centre (NMCC). • This means we are more able to support you across London’s bus network, as we can make better use of our resources and have more operators available at peak times • Although the name ‘CentreComm’ will no longer exist, you can still expect the same level of support from the NMCC • Drivers should continue to use Code Red for all emergency situations and Code Blue to report information. 3 January 2019
Another bit of subjugating the bus network under LU control. The NMCC has its roots in LU's old control structure so this is another example of modal knowledge being squashed. I suspect the controllers will all be forced to "work flexibly" and be doing buses one day, roads the next and the tube the day after. This, of course, is a nonsense given you need genuinely specialist knowledge to deal with emergencies on different modes. No doubt certain people would argue that having separate control centres is 'flabby'. Merging them I think is more to do with saving money. I don't doubt that you are right about specialist experience and that it could be lost, but sadly in the current environment that will count for little. Beancounters have little way to give that experience a monetary value.
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Post by ibus246 on Jan 17, 2019 1:54:12 GMT
Attention all bus staff: CentreComm out… …NMCC in From 7 January 2019, CentreComm staff will merge with other TfL control centres to become one large control centre called the Network Management Control Centre (NMCC). • This means we are more able to support you across London’s bus network, as we can make better use of our resources and have more operators available at peak times • Although the name ‘CentreComm’ will no longer exist, you can still expect the same level of support from the NMCC • Drivers should continue to use Code Red for all emergency situations and Code Blue to report information. 3 January 2019
Another bit of subjugating the bus network under LU control. The NMCC has its roots in LU's old control structure so this is another example of modal knowledge being squashed. I suspect the controllers will all be forced to "work flexibly" and be doing buses one day, roads the next and the tube the day after. This, of course, is a nonsense given you need genuinely specialist knowledge to deal with emergencies on different modes. Although separate, I came across this FOI and interestingly TfL Bus Alerts Twitter team are based in centrecomm! www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_of_your_twitter_accoun#incoming-1189148
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Post by londonbusboy on Jan 17, 2019 9:32:18 GMT
CentreComm have now changed their name. They now announce 'Network Management Control Centre' over the radio. Bit of a mouthful! I preferred CentreComm.
Attention all bus staff: CentreComm out… …NMCC in From 7 January 2019, CentreComm staff will merge with other TfL control centres to become one large control centre called the Network Management Control Centre (NMCC). • This means we are more able to support you across London’s bus network, as we can make better use of our resources and have more operators available at peak times • Although the name ‘CentreComm’ will no longer exist, you can still expect the same level of support from the NMCC • Drivers should continue to use Code Red for all emergency situations and Code Blue to report information. 3 January 2019
Before the name changes code blues took ages to be answered and they still broadcast over the radio from time tot time about code blue restrictions and to report issues to our home garages. I done a code red a couple of days ago normally they answer within seconds but i was waiting a minute or two which seemed like for ever
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Post by danorak on Jan 17, 2019 20:37:35 GMT
This month's Buses is worth a read. There's a typically astute opinion piece from Roger French about London and a piece about Tridents from Matthew Wharmby.
Most significantly, there's an interview with Claire Mann, now TfL's director of bus operations. Her background and some of the comments do suggest that rail, and rail attitudes, are currently in the ascendancy at TfL. It appears we will see further schemes in outer London similar to that in Croydon whereby routes do not cross the town centre. I wonder where else, other than the known Richmond scheme, they have in mind.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Jan 17, 2019 20:47:36 GMT
This month's Buses is worth a read. There's a typically astute opinion piece from Roger French about London and a piece about Tridents from Matthew Wharmby. Most significantly, there's an interview with Claire Mann, now TfL's director of bus operations. Her background and some of the comments do suggest that rail, and rail attitudes, are currently in the ascendancy at TfL. It appears we will see further schemes in outer London similar to that in Croydon whereby routes do not cross the town centre. I wonder where else, other than the known Richmond scheme, they have in mind. Looking at East London Romford looks like an are where this technique could be employed. The 5, 248, 370 could all be cut short at Romford Station and the 86, 66 and 128 could be cut short at Romford Market. Can't think of anywhere else in East London they can muck with due to the layouts of the Town Centres, except for Walthamstow where there seems to be no limit of stupidity when it comes to fiddling with the bus network there.
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Post by snoggle on Jan 17, 2019 23:48:47 GMT
This month's Buses is worth a read. There's a typically astute opinion piece from Roger French about London and a piece about Tridents from Matthew Wharmby. Most significantly, there's an interview with Claire Mann, now TfL's director of bus operations. Her background and some of the comments do suggest that rail, and rail attitudes, are currently in the ascendancy at TfL. It appears we will see further schemes in outer London similar to that in Croydon whereby routes do not cross the town centre. I wonder where else, other than the known Richmond scheme, they have in mind. I've not seen the new edition. Not surprised that Claire "London Overground" Mann thinks buses are really trains when they really, really are not. Still I'm sure she gets on well with Mike "Choo Choo" Brown, the Commissioner, so that's all that matters. I did warn what would happen. I believe every major town centre in Outer London is going to get the Croydon treatment to some extent. The only constraining issue will be lack of stand space e.g. in Bromley - not much near Bromley South to turn services from the south. There may be limited scope to link route across Bromley to give a net reduction in bus movements by removing overlaps in the town centre. If they're prepared to rip buses away from Walthamstow Bus Station I can certainly see something similar happening in Harrow where the bus station is way too small for the volume of movements. If they could get away with moving the 182 and 186 out and forcing people to walk from the High St then I reckon they'd do it. The 140 is a tougher one to move. Kingston is another place where you could change where buses stand - terminate the 65 at Cromwell Rd and force people to walk. Start the 71 from the south end of the town centre. I'm sure there are other options. Barnet and Enfield are a bit more difficult because of the road layout and lack of stand space.
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Post by busaholic on Jan 17, 2019 23:58:51 GMT
This month's Buses is worth a read. There's a typically astute opinion piece from Roger French about London and a piece about Tridents from Matthew Wharmby. Most significantly, there's an interview with Claire Mann, now TfL's director of bus operations. Her background and some of the comments do suggest that rail, and rail attitudes, are currently in the ascendancy at TfL. It appears we will see further schemes in outer London similar to that in Croydon whereby routes do not cross the town centre. I wonder where else, other than the known Richmond scheme, they have in mind. I'm afraid I fell asleep last night reading the Claire Mann interview, but that was probably more to do with it being 2 a.m. than anything else:I'll return to it tonight. On the general point of cutting the number of routes traversing town centres, although there may be scope for limited changes in one or two cases there should imo be no overall policy of a cull, otherwise you just get a mini version of what's going on in the West End i.e. depositing passengers short of their intended destinations, so they have to seek alternatives to continue their journey, Romford, Bromley, Wood Green/Turnpike Lane are examples of where such thinking might come into play, and I regard it as wrong-headed in the extreme. The savings compared to the bad reaction from the public, and the resultant switch from buses to other modes e.g. cars, won't be worth it long term. It's a short term panic measure to easily achieve a two or three percentage point drop in bus numbers.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 18, 2019 1:22:35 GMT
This month's Buses is worth a read. There's a typically astute opinion piece from Roger French about London and a piece about Tridents from Matthew Wharmby. Most significantly, there's an interview with Claire Mann, now TfL's director of bus operations. Her background and some of the comments do suggest that rail, and rail attitudes, are currently in the ascendancy at TfL. It appears we will see further schemes in outer London similar to that in Croydon whereby routes do not cross the town centre. I wonder where else, other than the known Richmond scheme, they have in mind. I've not seen the new edition. Not surprised that Claire "London Overground" Mann thinks buses are really trains when they really, really are not. Still I'm sure she gets on well with Mike "Choo Choo" Brown, the Commissioner, so that's all that matters. I did warn what would happen. I believe every major town centre in Outer London is going to get the Croydon treatment to some extent. The only constraining issue will be lack of stand space e.g. in Bromley - not much near Bromley South to turn services from the south. There may be limited scope to link route across Bromley to give a net reduction in bus movements by removing overlaps in the town centre. If they're prepared to rip buses away from Walthamstow Bus Station I can certainly see something similar happening in Harrow where the bus station is way too small for the volume of movements. If they could get away with moving the 182 and 186 out and forcing people to walk from the High St then I reckon they'd do it. The 140 is a tougher one to move. Kingston is another place where you could change where buses stand - terminate the 65 at Cromwell Rd and force people to walk. Start the 71 from the south end of the town centre. I'm sure there are other options. Barnet and Enfield are a bit more difficult because of the road layout and lack of stand space. I agree and that would be what kills these particular town centres if they're not already on their last legs.
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Post by snoggle on Jan 18, 2019 20:54:52 GMT
On the general point of cutting the number of routes traversing town centres, although there may be scope for limited changes in one or two cases there should imo be no overall policy of a cull, otherwise you just get a mini version of what's going on in the West End i.e. depositing passengers short of their intended destinations, so they have to seek alternatives to continue their journey, Romford, Bromley, Wood Green/Turnpike Lane are examples of where such thinking might come into play, and I regard it as wrong-headed in the extreme. The savings compared to the bad reaction from the public, and the resultant switch from buses to other modes e.g. cars, won't be worth it long term. It's a short term panic measure to easily achieve a two or three percentage point drop in bus numbers. It is, though, the new policy. It is about forcing people to walk more or to switch to cycling. If you force people off buses "in the wrong place" they have no option but to walk to their destination in the short term. The policy will also seek to remove cars or make it very troublesome for people in cars to reach town centres. Of course this policy is going to run into massive opposition in Outer London where most town centres have large volumes of car parking space and most shopping centres specifically include vast car parks. The opposition will come from both the Borough Councils and residents and businesses. There is no solution to any of this in the Mayor's Transport Strategy. It just sits there as a "command" - you WILL achieve 80% of trips on "healthy" modes by 2041 (or whatever the deadline is). It is a load of old nonsense as you say but it's there in black and white (for now). It may be the strategic direction but the actual policies and spend within TfL will not deliver the objective and that's before you get real living opposition. We've said it a 100 times but making buses slower, less frequent and making people change buses in inconvenient places will not deliver any growth. The plans in Croydon are so wrong headed they're unbelieveable. They'll certainly stop me from making trips in the area because there's no way on earth I'm schleping across the town centre to try to find a bus stop or doing it in the reverse direction to reach a railway station. The fact that Tramlink only has a one way loop and doesn't reach the precise areas where buses will be curtailed to is another massive nonsense but that was built into the system when it was designed 20+ years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2019 21:04:27 GMT
Strange observations today at Mill Hill East; wondering if anyone can explain?
221s were displaying Edgware on iBus and blinds as normal, then terminating and standing at Mill Hill East Station. The buses would unload everyone and stand until the next 221 arrived, only to collect the passengers that were originally unloaded and those from the arriving bus. The bus behind then went on stand for however long (iBus still on Edgware and the engine running the whole time but the lights switched off) until the next bus came and did the same thing. This happened throughout the day as I saw it in the morning as well as twice in the evening.
I understand that route control is paramount these days and regulating at a bus stop is fine when necessary, but kicking passengers off a bus into the cold and deliberately standing to wait for the one behind to catch up is quite absurd.
A fellow passenger, an elderly gentleman, seemed to think it was because there were officials from TfL in and around Edgware timing the gaps between the buses and assessing the service. I didn't agree thinking that if TfL did want to get this information, they could surely just obtain this data from iBus etc?
Either way, whatever the reason I found it to be very strange behaviour from Arriva/TfL to go to this extreme, presumably just to provide a perfectly timed service between Mill Hill East and Edgware.
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Post by T.R. on Jan 22, 2019 18:37:53 GMT
There is a taxi demo along the full length of Tottenham Court Road every day this week. Good luck if using the Northern line between TCR and Warren Street.
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Post by John tuthill on Jan 22, 2019 18:59:51 GMT
There is a taxi demo along the full length of Tottenham Court Road every day this week. Good luck if using the Northern line between TCR and Warren Street. They're not driving in the tunnels are they?!
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Post by T.R. on Jan 22, 2019 19:02:06 GMT
There is a taxi demo along the full length of Tottenham Court Road every day this week. Good luck if using the Northern line between TCR and Warren Street. They're not driving in the tunnels are they?! Hahaha no, they're parked from Oxford St to UC Hospital. My comment regarding the Northern Line is due to overcrowding between said stations, with queues from Goodge Street entrance to the barriers
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Post by busaholic on Jan 22, 2019 21:32:20 GMT
They're not driving in the tunnels are they?! Hahaha no, they're parked from Oxford St to UC Hospital. My comment regarding the Northern Line is due to overcrowding between said stations, with queues from Goodge Street entrance to the barriers Just a thought - how about a bus demo on the same stretch, on behalf of the poor, beleaguered central London bus passenger? I guess they'd be finding it hard to muster sufficient buses now to create that wall.
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