Changing route number at terminus

[Deleted]

Two adjacent towns in North Lincolnshire, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Several bus services (7, 8, 9, 9A) between the two with varying routes.
As the No. 7 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns from Cleethorpes as a No. 9.
As the No. 9 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 7
As the No. 8 from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 9A
As the No. 9A from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 8
I just wondered if this changing of route number at the terminus is common among provincial operators.

[vjaska]

Dec 24, 2011 21:37:55 GMT @harlesden said:

Two adjacent towns in North Lincolnshire, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Several bus services (7, 8, 9, 9A) between the two with varying routes.
As the No. 7 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns from Cleethorpes as a No. 9.
As the No. 9 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 7
As the No. 8 from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 9A
As the No. 9A from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 8
I just wondered if this changing of route number at the terminus is common among provincial operators.

Yep, it's very common

[eggmiester]

I did reply to this earlier, but i dont think it posted.

Anyway, yes outside london in the Provinces, Interworking between routes is very common. A lot of operators do so to reduce dead mileage as in most cases these services operate commercially and or with little sponosrship or subsidy, so the cost of getting buses to and from the start of a route is usually met by the operator.

It does happen in London though, but only on a few occasions, Mainly with School buses working on and off a main routes, Like the 661 and 669 buses out of BX work on and off the 321. But it can happen on trunk routes as well, like BX have a 401 on Monday - Friday that changes to a 229 at Thamesmead for the evening peak. However that is also technically a school bus as that particular 401 performs an extra working to cater for the schools traffic.

Even in Bexleybus days, Interworking was common, in particular with the routes in the Woolwich Area that operated from BX. Buses would originate from BX as 422's then change to either 244's or 272's etc at Woolwich. This elivated the dead runs for driver changes or the need for remote changes etc. At the time all three routes were operated using LS class Nationals.

Another quite recent example of a major interworking was when ensignbus were operating the Gravesend - Strood Rail Repllacement via Higham, when the Higham tunnel was closed for flood releif works. The cost of running the dead buses over to and from Purfleet was going to be astronimical as the Dartfod Crossing Toll Fees needed to be added to the cost of fuel. But Registered bus services can use the crossing for free so Thats hwere the X80 was born. Buses would run from Lakeside of Chafford Hundred all the way to Strood via Bluewater and Gravesend, whereb y the buses picked up their Gravesend - Strood Duties, with the rest of the X80 workings being releif journeys etc.

and to this day the X80 still proves popular albeit it now only runs from Bluewater - Chafford Hundred via Lakeside, but if it werent for the Rail Work, the X80 would probably not have been born.

[Deleted]

Only interworking I'm actually aware of is the 406/418 - swap over as the 418 runs past EB for meal reliefs.

Any other ones in London?

[eggmiester]

There is quite a lot of interworking between day and night routes like for instance:

5's becoming N15's at Romford, 15's Becoming N15's at Regent St.
1's Becoming N1's at TCR, 180's changing to N1's at BV then starting from Thamesmead.

There also unusual intwerworking like:
87 running light from Aldwych to Liv St then becoming an N11.

Daytime wise, yest theres the 406/418 interworking, probably the most noticable as well TBH. I know theres minor interworking between the X68 and the 68/468 as well.

But the mainstay of daytime interworking in london happens between School and Trunk routes.

[beaver14uk]

The Bexleybus interworking was a disaster for example I believe the 96 and 272 (yes 272) were linked and delays would spread from one route to another.

Dec 28, 2011 17:46:21 GMT eggmiester said:

I did reply to this earlier, but i dont think it posted.

Anyway, yes outside london in the Provinces, Interworking between routes is very common. A lot of operators do so to reduce dead mileage as in most cases these services operate commercially and or with little sponosrship or subsidy, so the cost of getting buses to and from the start of a route is usually met by the operator.

It does happen in London though, but only on a few occasions, Mainly with School buses working on and off a main routes, Like the 661 and 669 buses out of BX work on and off the 321. But it can happen on trunk routes as well, like BX have a 401 on Monday - Friday that changes to a 229 at Thamesmead for the evening peak. However that is also technically a school bus as that particular 401 performs an extra working to cater for the schools traffic.

Even in Bexleybus days, Interworking was common, in particular with the routes in the Woolwich Area that operated from BX. Buses would originate from BX as 422's then change to either 244's or 272's etc at Woolwich. This elivated the dead runs for driver changes or the need for remote changes etc. At the time all three routes were operated using LS class Nationals.

Another quite recent example of a major interworking was when ensignbus were operating the Gravesend - Strood Rail Repllacement via Higham, when the Higham tunnel was closed for flood releif works. The cost of running the dead buses over to and from Purfleet was going to be astronimical as the Dartfod Crossing Toll Fees needed to be added to the cost of fuel. But Registered bus services can use the crossing for free so Thats hwere the X80 was born. Buses would run from Lakeside of Chafford Hundred all the way to Strood via Bluewater and Gravesend, whereb y the buses picked up their Gravesend - Strood Duties, with the rest of the X80 workings being releif journeys etc.

and to this day the X80 still proves popular albeit it now only runs from Bluewater - Chafford Hundred via Lakeside, but if it werent for the Rail Work, the X80 would probably not have been born.

[twobellstogo]

Dec 28, 2011 19:08:05 GMT beaver14uk said:

The Bexleybus interworking was a disaster for example I believe the 96 and 272 (yes 272) were linked and delays would spread from one route to another.

Dec 28, 2011 17:46:21 GMT eggmiester said:

I did reply to this earlier, but i dont think it posted.

Anyway, yes outside london in the Provinces, Interworking between routes is very common. A lot of operators do so to reduce dead mileage as in most cases these services operate commercially and or with little sponosrship or subsidy, so the cost of getting buses to and from the start of a route is usually met by the operator.

It does happen in London though, but only on a few occasions, Mainly with School buses working on and off a main routes, Like the 661 and 669 buses out of BX work on and off the 321. But it can happen on trunk routes as well, like BX have a 401 on Monday - Friday that changes to a 229 at Thamesmead for the evening peak. However that is also technically a school bus as that particular 401 performs an extra working to cater for the schools traffic.

Even in Bexleybus days, Interworking was common, in particular with the routes in the Woolwich Area that operated from BX. Buses would originate from BX as 422's then change to either 244's or 272's etc at Woolwich. This elivated the dead runs for driver changes or the need for remote changes etc. At the time all three routes were operated using LS class Nationals.

Another quite recent example of a major interworking was when ensignbus were operating the Gravesend - Strood Rail Repllacement via Higham, when the Higham tunnel was closed for flood releif works. The cost of running the dead buses over to and from Purfleet was going to be astronimical as the Dartfod Crossing Toll Fees needed to be added to the cost of fuel. But Registered bus services can use the crossing for free so Thats hwere the X80 was born. Buses would run from Lakeside of Chafford Hundred all the way to Strood via Bluewater and Gravesend, whereb y the buses picked up their Gravesend - Strood Duties, with the rest of the X80 workings being releif journeys etc.

and to this day the X80 still proves popular albeit it now only runs from Bluewater - Chafford Hundred via Lakeside, but if it werent for the Rail Work, the X80 would probably not have been born.

The 96/272 interworking in Bexleybus days was such a disaster that it soon had to be change to a 99/272 working. Certainly for a time in Bexleybus days, the 178 and 229 were also interworked, in the days when the 178 went to Thamesmead East.

[jay38a]

also outside london theres also interworking on routes where routes have been split to avoid using tachographs for example Route 51 from Swindon to Cirencester interworks with the 151 from Cirencester to Cheltenham, with through fares and the bus working through, the desintation also shows this for example "151 Cirencester for Swindon".

[eggmiester]

I knew there was a serious amount of interworking in Bexleybus, and as evident in those cases it obviously didnt work.

[john]

I know Plymouth Citybus would do alot of interworking on routes. I remember quite a few times when I would be on a 44/44A coming into Plymouth city centre yet when I got off it had already changed to say a 42 or another route.

As Egg has mentioned, it's also common between night routes and day routes. The 5/15/N15 is the most common one over here as I believe has been mentioned in the odd turns thread too. I know there's one 294 duty that later runs from Noak Hill on a short 5 min trip to Dagnam Park Square and turns into an N86. I also believe there's one 86 duty that later turns into an N86 but at the Stratford end.

[greeny253]

Jan 2, 2012 14:36:31 GMT john said:

I know Plymouth Citybus would do alot of interworking on routes. I remember quite a few times when I would be on a 44/44A coming into Plymouth city centre yet when I got off it had already changed to say a 42 or another route.

As Egg has mentioned, it's also common between night routes and day routes. The 5/15/N15 is the most common one over here as I believe has been mentioned in the odd turns thread too. I know there's one 294 duty that later runs from Noak Hill on a short 5 min trip to Dagnam Park Square and turns into an N86. I also believe there's one 86 duty that later turns into an N86 but at the Stratford end.

There's a 294 duty that also finishes at Havering Park then disappears off to become a night bus

[Deleted]

Dec 24, 2011 21:37:55 GMT @harlesden said:

Two adjacent towns in North Lincolnshire, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Several bus services (7, 8, 9, 9A) between the two with varying routes.
As the No. 7 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns from Cleethorpes as a No. 9.
As the No. 9 bus from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 7
As the No. 8 from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 9A
As the No. 9A from Grimsby reaches Cleethorpes, it returns as a No. 8
I just wondered if this changing of route number at the terminus is common among provincial operators.

To answer the original post, though without knowing what the timetable looks like, this form of interworking is usually about reducing stand time.

If you have a route that runs say hourly, and it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to complete the route, you could end up with a lot of stand time at one end of the route until the next departure is due. To alleviate this, the timetable is arranged so that two routes terminate in the same place where there's a lot of stand time.........then, by pushing the vehicle onto the second route (and vice versa), you actually reduce the stand time on both routes and get more out of your vehicles.

Whilst this can be used in London - in fact it was done in Romford on the 370/373 when I worked at County Bus - its not widely used as frequencies of 10, 15 or 20 minutes mean its not usually required. Also as mentioned above, this form or working can see a delay on one route transfer to another - not such an issue outside London but it can cause more problems than it solves in high density traffic areas like London.

[M1199]

Carousel Buses do this on their A30/A40 routes. For example, Bus X arrives at Heathrow Central on the A40 and its next outward journey would be on the A30.

[6HP502C]

R5/R10 uses the same bus - number changes at Orpington Station.

389/399 use the same bus - number changes at The Spires. That was a surprise, as the 389 turned up and the driver only changed numbers after leaving the stop. Nice little route that was, houses similar to those found in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

[Deleted]

The 498 school bus. Does a 498 then the 265 then 498 and the hands over to a 365 3 routes in 1 day lol