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Post by sid on Jun 19, 2017 19:17:19 GMT
I think it is fair to say that the 13 has been poorly operated since TT took it over. I suspect if it had gone to Metroline it would be fine.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 19, 2017 21:07:48 GMT
I think it is fair to say that the 13 has been poorly operated since TT took it over. I suspect if it had gone to Metroline it would be fine. I've been nowhere near it myself but there has been enough info here to support your (and Mr Dismore's) view about the service. Seems all a bit unfortunate the way it's turned out.
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Post by abc on Jun 20, 2017 8:58:24 GMT
I think it is fair to say that the 13 has been poorly operated since TT took it over. I suspect if it had gone to Metroline it would be fine. I've been nowhere near it myself but there has been enough info here to support your (and Mr Dismore's) view about the service. Seems all a bit unfortunate the way it's turned out. One would expect it to be at the same level as 82.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 20, 2017 10:32:12 GMT
I've been nowhere near it myself but there has been enough info here to support your (and Mr Dismore's) view about the service. Seems all a bit unfortunate the way it's turned out. One would expect it to be at the same level as 82. Well yes and no. In theory yes any bus company should be able to run the service. The reality is that Metroline (and London Sovereign) have many many years of accumumlated experience of running services on the Finchley Road corridor. They know the foibles, the pitfalls, what goes well, what not so well so can be more adept and "fleet of foot" in managing disruption and implementing new timetables. Tower Transit don't have that knowledge yet and were at the bottom of their learning curve on the 13 (82). They also have a fleet of new buses to bed in plus a new set of drivers and different crew relief arrangements. I have not compared timetables and schedules but TT may have taken a slightly more aggressive stance on the PVR and schedule which allowed them to win the contract. We have seen this time and again and the new insurgent then battles to get to grips with their schedule's assumptions when put against the reality of day to day running. We shall see how long it takes before things improve and stabilise or they are forced to put in a new schedule, possibly with extra resource at their own cost. The other factor here, of course, is the much higher political profile because of the botched consultation process. Therefore the entire operation of the 13, 139, 113 and 189 is under scrutiny and given it's Mr Dismore we can pretty much guarantee this will rumble on until 2020.
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Post by sid on Jun 20, 2017 13:11:49 GMT
I've been nowhere near it myself but there has been enough info here to support your (and Mr Dismore's) view about the service. Seems all a bit unfortunate the way it's turned out. One would expect it to be at the same level as 82. Yes and ideally it would have stayed with Metroline and only the number changes from 82 to 13. I can't help wondering whether TT have bitten off a bit more than they can chew? X is obviously some way off the line of route.
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Post by Ted Barclay on Jun 20, 2017 13:41:36 GMT
One would expect it to be at the same level as 82. Well yes and no. In theory yes any bus company should be able to run the service. The reality is that Metroline (and London Sovereign) have many many years of accumumlated experience of running services on the Finchley Road corridor. They know the foibles, the pitfalls, what goes well, what not so well so can be more adept and "fleet of foot" in managing disruption and implementing new timetables. Tower Transit don't have that knowledge yet and were at the bottom of their learning curve on the 13 (82). They also have a fleet of new buses to bed in plus a new set of drivers and different crew relief arrangements. I have not compared timetables and schedules but TT may have taken a slightly more aggressive stance on the PVR and schedule which allowed them to win the contract. We have seen this time and again and the new insurgent then battles to get to grips with their schedule's assumptions when put against the reality of day to day running. We shall see how long it takes before things improve and stabilise or they are forced to put in a new schedule, possibly with extra resource at their own cost. The other factor here, of course, is the much higher political profile because of the botched consultation process. Therefore the entire operation of the 13, 139, 113 and 189 is under scrutiny and given it's Mr Dismore we can pretty much guarantee this will rumble on until 2020. Operation of the 13 isn't being helped at the moment by the closure of the H&C/Circle between Wood Lane and Edgware Road, due to the Grenfell Tower fire. I believe the drivers use that line between the garage and Baker Street. Ted B
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Post by redbus on Jun 20, 2017 15:02:49 GMT
Now is a good time to look at the changes and give some thoughts, particularly as I am a bit closer to them than many.
Overcrowding There is some overcrowding at peak times, but for the vast majority of time there isn't a capacity issue. For example take today, I was at Finchley Road station at around 9:00 am and two 113's came along heading to Oxford Circus (the busier direction at that time of day), and there were about 20 passengers on each bus, not exactly overcrowded. Indeed when I look how busy buses are, if anything the perception I get is that the buses in the Finchley Road corridor are either less busy or no busier most of the time than prior to the changes (when there were more buses). Having said that there are definitely some busy times when the buses struggle. I will look with interest at the passengers figures for these routes when published to see if there has been a noticeable reduction in passengers (as I suspect).
Reliability Without doubt the reliability of bus 13 has not been as good as the 82 before it. This isn't that surprising and would agree entirely with the comments made by snoggle about TT being newbies to the Finchley Road etc. Hopefully as TT gain experience matters will improve. Some of the lack of reliability is also down to perception. In the period prior to the changes when Metroline ran the 82, the 82 was not actually that reliable and had many gaps in service and / or turns as I recollect. These issues with the 82 were largely hidden by how well RATP ran bus 13 which effectively provided cover for it. With just one route now, all the problems are magnified in impact. In terms of service gaps on the new 13 I have seen only too often a gap of up to 20 mins daytime and even longer in the evenings / Sunday. Bunching of buses on the new 13 is way too common. As for turns and waiting to regulate the service, don't get me started on those! Suffice to say I have seen the new bus 13 doing turns I have never ever seen before on the Finchley Road corridor.
As for when the CS11 works start, all bets are off as to what will happen to reliability and headway.
I would point out that there are also reliability issues with the 139. Although better now than in April, issues nevertheless remain. I suspect it probably won't get much better given the nature of the route. When the route does work normally in terms of reliability all the buses seem to be dawdling, not a great outcome.
Interestingly Metroline are doing better with the 113 / 189 than the 13 / 139 manage. Prior to the changes when Metroline ran both the 139 and 189, one thing they did quite well considering the problems in so doing, was creating a relatively even headway between the 139 / 189 on their common section. Nowadays only too often the 139 and 189 come together.
Loss of service through to Aldwych This might be the elephant in the room. I have no idea what those passengers who used bus 13 to get into the West End are now doing. The 113 doesn't seem as busy as I would expect as a result of the re-routing of the 13 from the West End to Victoria, whilst the 139 doesn't seem to have any meaningful transfer of passengers to it north of Baker Street going to the West End. The hopper ticket appears to have failed to persuade ex old 13 passengers to take two buses, but I'd be interested to see if the figures bear this out. If as I fear these passengers are now lost to the buses, this is a really bad thing and could explain a loss of passengers on the corridor.
As a result of the Finchley Road changes, bus 113 has an enhanced frequency, and once the route splits from the 13 at Platts Lane and heads to Edgware I cannot see any need for that frequency enhancement, the Platts Lane - Edgware section seems by and large overbussed. Likewise the 139 extension to Golders Green is not exactly busy, most passengers are effectively transfers from the 328. If everything here I have said is proven correct, this really begs the question why TfL are expending resources on the 113 / 139 which could have been better used keeping the 13 going to Aldwych. Let's see what happens and what the figures say, but if this is right, TfL in my opinion will have some answering to do and perhaps a re-think.
Finally I shall watch with interest the replies TfL give to Mr Dismore. Hopefully this will run and run until it is right, and we are a long way from that.
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Post by ian on Jun 20, 2017 18:45:03 GMT
i don't think that is quite correct about 113. The sheer massive scale of development, not just of Beaufort Park, but also of the new site on the old Police College which is now underway and which is right next to the line of route, means that a frequency enhancement on that section was almost inevitable. That pair of stops is already very busy and the development of the Police site is hardly underway.
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Post by ben on Jun 20, 2017 19:49:31 GMT
It must be fascinating to pour over the details of what actually makes a schedule possible or not. As alluded to earlier, it seems hands on experience with any one particular corridor is necessary to gauge its idiosyncrasies. These cant just be remembered by word of mouth or years served though, surely? Isn't there some sort of digital repository describing the flow of various roads (and how rubbish that may be!)?
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Post by snoggle on Jun 20, 2017 21:02:50 GMT
It must be fascinating to pour over the details of what actually makes a schedule possible or not. As alluded to earlier, it seems hands on experience with any one particular corridor is necessary to gauge its idiosyncrasies. These cant just be remembered by word of mouth or years served though, surely? Isn't there some sort of digital repository describing the flow of various roads (and how rubbish that may be!)? We have some former or current schedulers on the forum so they can shout "rubbish" if I what I say next is .... rubbish! I've done some learning about scheduling of routes, vehicles and crews but never done it in practice. From what I learnt and others have told me there is a mix of knowledge needed. You need to understand the network or relevant part of it. You need to know the legislative and company agreements governing staff deployment plus have an awareness of the engineering set up in the company. You also need to understand a particular route or routes. These days there are loads of resources available that companies can use. However nothing beats walking and riding a route. When I did a placement with Tyne and Wear PTE I was asked to plan a small network revision - the first thing the planners did was kick me out of the office and told me to ride the routes in question, see what went on and talk to the drivers and passengers. That was prior to deregulation and obviously a competitive environment makes things different - even in London. Nonetheless if I was planning on bidding for route 82 I would want to do plenty of "on the ground" research at different places, different times, days of the week etc. TfL provide a lot of info to bidders anyway but watching and looking counts for a lot. Being able to spot ways of creating a more cost efficient schedule is a key skill but one which these days needs to be tempered with it being "operable" on a consistent basis within average traffic conditions. You can't legislate for every event that can affect a route so a balance around a robust vs an extravagant schedule has to be struck. That's why you have route controllers - they manage the exceptions. Most London routes are not interworked so those opportunities for resource savings don't exist. They do exist on many other networks where vehicles / drivers work over several routes to save on stand time and thus vehicles if run times are highly variable and don't give "neat" round trip times with low stand times. These days many commercial operators don't have resources to cope with extended run times in the peaks which is peak frequencies are often worse than off peak - that's quite a change from the 1980s when I did my placement. I dare say computers have automated a lot of the above and can "search and identify" efficiency opportunities but I suspect scheduling remains a balance between "mathematics and numbers" and "art".
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Post by redbus on Jun 21, 2017 18:57:00 GMT
i don't think that is quite correct about 113. The sheer massive scale of development, not just of Beaufort Park, but also of the new site on the old Police College which is now underway and which is right next to the line of route, means that a frequency enhancement on that section was almost inevitable. That pair of stops is already very busy and the development of the Police site is hardly underway. It's a good point about the various Colindale developments. The 113 nevertheless as far as I can see has plenty of excess capacity and I am unsure there will be that many more people who will use the 113 to get into Town to merit enhancement. More useful will be enhancements to other local bus routes to give connections to local shopping centres and stations. If you look at the TfL Network Development papers for Colindale, and that includes both Beaufort Park and the Police station developments amongst others, TfL are thinking of enhancing several bus routes in the area to cater for the developments, only the 113 isn't one of the routes that TfL think should be enhanced.
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Post by snoggle on Jul 11, 2017 19:45:05 GMT
Shock horror, TfL admit to a "cock up" TfL have yet to respond to his questions about the actual operation of the revised routes.
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Post by sid on Jul 11, 2017 20:24:12 GMT
Shock horror, TfL admit to a "cock up" TfL have to respond to his questions about the actual operation of the revised routes. Just ridiculous that the service didn't continue as the 82.
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Post by southlondonbus on Jul 11, 2017 20:34:27 GMT
I agree. I understand that the number 13 was long established along the Finchley Road but in the end the route was withdrawn as should the number have been and the replacement advertised as more buses on route 82.
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Post by redbus on Jul 15, 2017 13:42:34 GMT
I agree. I understand that the number 13 was long established along the Finchley Road but in the end the route was withdrawn as should the number have been and the replacement advertised as more buses on route 82. It's six of one, or half a dozen of the other, there are arguments on both sides. Sure, there's impeccable logic that the 82 number should have been kept and the 13 withdrawn as the route is that of the 82, and indeed the first consultation was to do just that. On the other hand bus services are there for passengers, and if passengers express the view that they want the number 13 to remain (as we are told they did in the original consultation), who am I to criticise. Arguably TfL can show that they listen and make changes as a result of comments by calling the route number 13. Also don't forget that go back in time and it was the 13 that ran onto Finchley, whilst the 82 only ran to Golders Green, so there's plenty of history of bus 13 going to North Finchley.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the real message behind the comments was that passengers wanted to keep the 13 going through the West End to Aldwych. After several months of the changes, I am far from convinced TfL got this one right. If TfL needed to make some savings it would have been better to extend the old 13 to North Finchley at it's old frequencies and have had the 82 go back to its original routing of Golders Green - Victoria at a lower frequency. No changes to the 113 or 139 would have been needed and a lot more passengers would have their needs met by direct buses than do today.
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