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Post by Londonbuses54 on Apr 20, 2019 7:06:42 GMT
If anyone follows me on Instagram (the same name) please confirm if the citaro on my story is in limp mode. Thanks
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 11:49:26 GMT
Is it just me or have TfL removed the 605 bus route page from their website?
EDIT: They have removed most of the school routes for whatever reason, I tried 606, 632, 642 and 643 all to no avail. Routes 628 and 688 are still working though...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 21:33:07 GMT
This afternoon I witnessed ENX29 on route 469 driving in-service down Grand Depot Road with its front doors wide open! I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
I get that it was unseasonably warm today, and as far as I could see there were only 2 passengers onboard, but nonetheless is this not extremely dangerous and perhaps even illegal?
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Post by redbus on Apr 20, 2019 21:37:01 GMT
New initiative by TfL where buses are not allowed to hold back for more then 3 minutes at one stop with passengers onboard. Seems like the bus in front of yours was instructed to hold for you and the other passengers to board allowing your original bus to hold for over 3 minutes. So rather than amend the schedules to avoid all this nonsense TfL now place a greater onus on the operators? Hmmm - interesting view about where the responsibility for slack schedules sits. I'll readily acknowledge that this is not an easy issue given operators provide the schedules and manage the service day to day and thus own the performance risk. However TfL own the specification and accept the schedule and PVR so they're not exactly "off the hook" either (IMO). The problem with a '3 minute' rule is that the Operator can simply regulate the service twice, waiting once for two minutes, then at another stop waiting for another two minutes. I have been on a 205 and had the service regulated THREE times on the same journey.
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Post by snoggle on Apr 20, 2019 22:10:14 GMT
So rather than amend the schedules to avoid all this nonsense TfL now place a greater onus on the operators? Hmmm - interesting view about where the responsibility for slack schedules sits. I'll readily acknowledge that this is not an easy issue given operators provide the schedules and manage the service day to day and thus own the performance risk. However TfL own the specification and accept the schedule and PVR so they're not exactly "off the hook" either (IMO). The problem with a '3 minute' rule is that the Operator can simply regulate the service twice, waiting once for two minutes, then at another stop waiting for another two minutes. I have been on a 205 and had the service regulated THREE times on the same journey. Which shows to some extent that every time you invent a rule you have people who immediately work out how to "game" the new constraint. Which brings us neatly back to the underlying problem of ludicrously slow and lax schedules that are the antithesis of what passengers actually want. Fix the schedules, don't p*** about making more hoops for operators to jump through because they're better at playing the game than TfL are. It really makes me wonder whether anyone at TfL actually did a "desktop" role play of how operators would respond to this? If they had and there is anyone with a clue left in the organisation they would not have created this rule. Everytime you draw a line in the sand it has unforeseen consequences. Years of contract performance management taught me that.
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Post by redbus on Apr 20, 2019 22:50:18 GMT
The problem with a '3 minute' rule is that the Operator can simply regulate the service twice, waiting once for two minutes, then at another stop waiting for another two minutes. I have been on a 205 and had the service regulated THREE times on the same journey. Which shows to some extent that every time you invent a rule you have people who immediately work out how to "game" the new constraint. Which brings us neatly back to the underlying problem of ludicrously slow and lax schedules that are the antithesis of what passengers actually want. Fix the schedules, don't p*** about making more hoops for operators to jump through because they're better at playing the game than TfL are. It really makes me wonder whether anyone at TfL actually did a "desktop" role play of how operators would respond to this? If they had and there is anyone with a clue left in the organisation they would not have created this rule. Everytime you draw a line in the sand it has unforeseen consequences. Years of contract performance management taught me that. As usual you are right. You could tweak the rules to say no waiting for more than three minutes in the whole journey, but then some other way around it will be found.
I don't claim to have easy answers, but I think a large part of the problem is the variability of London traffic. A schedule that is tight on a busy week will be lax when the traffic is light. Even if you have different schedules for known quiet times such a school holidays, there will still be too many cases of variable traffic. Further in central London all the changes in recent years which have reduced road space and so on have made the situation worse by making the traffic even less predictable than it used to be.
One solution is to have greater stand space and let buses run 'to traffic' to their destination. When the traffic is busy the buses will only be on stand a short time before returning. When the traffic is light, journeys will be quicker so instead of buses dawdling and being regulated, they would be spend longer on stand before returning. Finding the necessary stand space to do this is another matter.
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Post by busaholic on Apr 20, 2019 23:36:53 GMT
Which shows to some extent that every time you invent a rule you have people who immediately work out how to "game" the new constraint. Which brings us neatly back to the underlying problem of ludicrously slow and lax schedules that are the antithesis of what passengers actually want. Fix the schedules, don't p*** about making more hoops for operators to jump through because they're better at playing the game than TfL are. It really makes me wonder whether anyone at TfL actually did a "desktop" role play of how operators would respond to this? If they had and there is anyone with a clue left in the organisation they would not have created this rule. Everytime you draw a line in the sand it has unforeseen consequences. Years of contract performance management taught me that. As usual you are right. You could tweak the rules to say no waiting for more than three minutes in the whole journey, but then some other way around it will be found.
I don't claim to have easy answers, but I think a large part of the problem is the variability of London traffic. A schedule that is tight on a busy week will be lax when the traffic is light. Even if you have different schedules for known quiet times such a school holidays, there will still be too many cases of variable traffic. Further in central London all the changes in recent years which have reduced road space and so on have made the situation worse by making the traffic even less predictable than it used to be.
One solution is to have greater stand space and let buses run 'to traffic' to their destination. When the traffic is busy the buses will only be on stand a short time before returning. When the traffic is light, journeys will be quicker so instead of buses dawdling and being regulated, they would be spend longer on stand before returning. Finding the necessary stand space to do this is another matter.
Stand space is much more of a general problem these days with so much more management of every inch of road service. The days of finding eight 73 s at Stoke Newington Common or six 53s at Plumstead Common are long gone, even lines of 25s and 38/As queuing to get on to the appropriate stands at Victoria, with some being sent round to Victoria garage (GM) in the peaks just to get them out of the way for a few minutes. What might be a possible solution in some places, though, particularly when the stand is after the last set-down stop is for that stop to be used for regulation: in other cases, the stand might be the last stop but not very much used, so regulation one stop before termination mightn't be too awful. TfL should certainly be resistant to losing any more 'bus station' usage and should, in fact, be arguing for more to be created. On some routes the possibility of scheduling short workings, particularly in the peaks, might provide some sort of answer too, but that would require a change in policy. No magic wands, though. There'll never be 'an answer', let alone an ideal one. TfL should choose a few routes to experiment with, in different parts of London and with different operators to avoid charges of favouritism (or its opposite!) I do realise that the operational structure now militates against it but I'd argue we are in desperate times, about to get more desperate, and a few moderately radical tactical interventions are needed!
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Post by Volvo on Apr 21, 2019 0:37:31 GMT
The roads in North West London are really bad, along the 79 (the Mall Kingsbury to Preston road, Preston road itself, around wembley, Ealing road. 303 (princess avenue, Hay lane, around colindale station is especially awful, Hale lane). 326, Finchley lane, southover/long land drive, Lyonsdown road, East Barnet road, Barnet station road.
These road are awful it's like driving in a 3rd world country.
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Post by twobellstogo on Apr 21, 2019 10:13:58 GMT
This afternoon I witnessed ENX29 on route 469 driving in-service down Grand Depot Road with its front doors wide open! I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I get that it was unseasonably warm today, and as far as I could see there were only 2 passengers onboard, but nonetheless is this not extremely dangerous and perhaps even illegal? Don’t think it’s particularly dangerous: happened frequently before alarms and suchlike were applied to bus doors.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2019 10:42:30 GMT
The roads in North West London are really bad, along the 79 (the Mall Kingsbury to Preston road, Preston road itself, around wembley, Ealing road. 303 (princess avenue, Hay lane, around colindale station is especially awful, Hale lane). 326, Finchley lane, southover/long land drive, Lyonsdown road, East Barnet road, Barnet station road. These road are awful it's like driving in a 3rd world country. I have to agree that the roads around Colindale station are disgraceful, especially seeing as it's a priority area for development, meaning the area is meant to attract visitors and people looking to invest in property. I hope they will get resurfaced soon, though highly unlikely given LBBs financial situation at the moment....
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Post by vjaska on Apr 21, 2019 11:13:57 GMT
The roads in North West London are really bad, along the 79 (the Mall Kingsbury to Preston road, Preston road itself, around wembley, Ealing road. 303 (princess avenue, Hay lane, around colindale station is especially awful, Hale lane). 326, Finchley lane, southover/long land drive, Lyonsdown road, East Barnet road, Barnet station road. These road are awful it's like driving in a 3rd world country. I have to agree that the roads around Colindale station are disgraceful, especially seeing as it's a priority area for development, meaning the area is meant to attract visitors and people looking to invest in property. I hope they will get resurfaced soon, though highly unlikely given LBBs financial situation at the moment.... I'm not sure the financial situation dictates it as Lambeth's finances isn't great yet went through a LED street lighting program & resurfaced a number of roads but probably more what council policy is. As I do a bit of traveling around London, I've noticed a number of boroughs have yet to discover what resurfacing is and probably haven't resurfaced a roads in 30 years - worst offenders seem to be Tower Hamlets & Newham but Croydon has a number of roads in a state. The roads around Colindale are certainly awful as I discovered not too long ago - probably all the heavy construction lorries being a problem.
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Post by snoggle on Apr 21, 2019 12:35:24 GMT
I have to agree that the roads around Colindale station are disgraceful, especially seeing as it's a priority area for development, meaning the area is meant to attract visitors and people looking to invest in property. I hope they will get resurfaced soon, though highly unlikely given LBBs financial situation at the moment.... I'm not sure the financial situation dictates it as Lambeth's finances isn't great yet went through a LED street lighting program & resurfaced a number of roads but probably more what council policy is. As I do a bit of traveling around London, I've noticed a number of boroughs have yet to discover what resurfacing is and probably haven't resurfaced a roads in 30 years - worst offenders seem to be Tower Hamlets & Newham but Croydon has a number of roads in a state. The roads around Colindale are certainly awful as I discovered not too long ago - probably all the heavy construction lorries being a problem. The problem is money. Road repair monies are being directed outside of London to areas that support the government. Sadly it is all too easy to postpone and postpone capital expenditure and to do the absolute bare minimum in terms of patch and mend. We had it with the Tube and are likely to see it again in a few years, we had it with the railways and we have had it with the highway network for decades. It is worth remembering that the surplus from the tube is being used to pay for repairs to the TfL road network because the government have specifically stopped TfL receiving a share of national road fundings. More political spite.
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Post by VWH1414 on Apr 21, 2019 12:48:49 GMT
This afternoon I witnessed ENX29 on route 469 driving in-service down Grand Depot Road with its front doors wide open! I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I get that it was unseasonably warm today, and as far as I could see there were only 2 passengers onboard, but nonetheless is this not extremely dangerous and perhaps even illegal? Don’t think it’s particularly dangerous: happened frequently before alarms and suchlike were applied to bus doors. I remember when the 302 had its VPs I'd frequently see them with their front doors open whilst moving in the hot summers. On one occasion I think I saw VP505 with both sets of doors open, only time I'd say its dangerous is if the bus was really busy.
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Post by wirewiper on Apr 21, 2019 12:55:29 GMT
This afternoon I witnessed ENX29 on route 469 driving in-service down Grand Depot Road with its front doors wide open! I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I get that it was unseasonably warm today, and as far as I could see there were only 2 passengers onboard, but nonetheless is this not extremely dangerous and perhaps even illegal? Don't forget that until relatively recent times, the vast majority of London buses ran around with an open rear platform and no doors at all. Open platforms are also a feature of heritage bus services and a part-time open platform was also a feature of some LTs between 2012 and 2016.
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Post by bookd on Apr 21, 2019 14:05:51 GMT
Historically it was also the case that when the RF buses were introduced country area and Green Line ones had closing doors but the central area ones had to be without doors as that was thought to be safer.
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