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Post by snoggle on Dec 14, 2016 12:49:36 GMT
Yep it's time for the Transport Committee to get their teeth stuck into the topic of London's Buses again. They are starting an investigation in the New Year and have just issued a request for evidence. There are two main topics this time - Network Design and Safety. Info pageCall for evidenceIt looks like there will be at least one session of the Committee in the New Year where various "worthy people" are dragged in front of the Committee for discussion / to answer questions.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2016 16:11:12 GMT
The only thing I can say about safety is my concern for the driver having to monitor three sets of doors on the LTs, particularly during heavy loadings. Might not seem much to some but drivers are responsible for enough already.
My observations on the first 15 questions:
1. Depends how much TfL intend to change it, and where it stops. Given recent central London consultation, I'd suggest it won't be for too long.
2. Cuts to inner London services and capital saved here apparently not being invested (as yet) on outer busy outer London routes. Cuts being made to outer London services too (eg recent 384 tender)
3. The same challenges they always face... patronage to PVR balance, bus priority areas and times of operation, and how pinch-points affect reliability and how they can be better managed.
4. TfL tend, IMO, to plan routes well and make some good arguments, it's the hacking of routes that lacks foresight.
5. I'd imagine so, though I lack proper knowledge of this. Using Battersea development as an example, it appears TfL look at the developments and plan for these but sometimes can result in other, prominent areas being neglected (436)
6. Well people have slated the expressway in south east London although I can't give a personal opinion. Bus lanes do a job but the time has probably come to look at changing (in many cases extending) the enforcement times
7. The hopper ticket will save some money but as the question appears to relate to services I can only say negatively... TfL has already made consultations and changes (cuts) to services citing this reason, which unfortunately means overall inconvenience to passengers
8. TfL, IMO, will elect to introduce suburban routes or extend existing routes in outer London areas where demand requires, providing it doesn't impact too heavily on cost. Inner London services will be cut as TfL consistently claim more people are using more reliable and more frequent tube services.
9. People standing on streets with hi vis and clipboards?
10. All of the listed items should be explored. People have different requirements... whether it be most direct journey, lack of changes onto other buses/transport modes or quickest journey time. Services should reflect these different user needs. With Oxford street being pedestrianised, TfL should look to see what they can do about installing major hubs in an already dense, built up area (particularly to the east)
11. They need to clarify what they mean but 'networks' and what they entail.
12. Very. As per response to question 10, people use these services well because they want the option of faster journeys, or skipping certain stops with high general demand en route. TfL should investigate the possibility of introducing further (parallel) express routes, particularly where routes often utilise bus lanes
13. I'd think others can provide a better explanation than I. However I do remember visiting areas like Perth Australia and Los Angeles USA and remember many routes with common overlaps. They are well used but perhaps due to lower frequencies en route. Tfl seem to be on a 'phase out' exercise with common routes.
14. Again TfL should indicate what it means by "large-scale changes". The only noticeable change is the hopper ticket. Other major changes are in consultation phase, so is this a sign of things to come?
15. TfL need to consult on more planned changes, for example the cut of route 384 from 9bhp to 5. Some proofreading wouldn't go amiss. More transparency would also help, some people feel that changes are merely to save money under the guise of improvements (new links, quicker journeys etc)
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Post by snoggle on Dec 15, 2016 16:40:52 GMT
I submitted evidence to the last investigation on buses. However I doubt I will do so this time. The network planning stuff is a waste of time. The Committee are trying to demonstrate that TfL don't do it properly so they can find an explanation as to why patronage has slumped. There is very little that TfL don't do properly in terms of the planning aspect - they're probably more thorough than any other authority in the UK given the sheer scale of the transport task they have to cope with. Where there is the disconnect is between the reality of operation and what that then says about planning updates or changes. The Cttee seem to want to show that other "network concepts" may have a place in London but I don't think they do unless we want to see what a commercial network is like in London and suffer the consequences of that. The alternative is some mad hub and spoke system on the buses which is daft when the rail network is the hub and the buses are the spokes for many journeys. Obviously there are exceptions where buses give key links. However the Cttee remains obsessed with categorising routes ("orbitals" yet again!) when the point is surely - is the network *effective*? Does it take people where they want to go in a reasonably quick time with decent reliability and without too many inconvenient changes. By and large the network currently is comprehensive but it is too slow and too unreliable and there are significant gaps that TfL refuse / cannot afford to fill.
On the safety aspect then the Cttee have missed the biggest issue in their scope - that is that the slower and more ponderous you make the network the more it costs to run and the less attractive it is. There is no point spending money to use a bus if an averagely fit person can walk faster than the bus. That is where we are at today - I walked back from the Doctors this morning (nearly a 20 min walk) and a 123 only just caught me up as I got near the top of my road. No 275s overtook me either and I don't walk as fast as I used to do. I had a 25 min wait for a W11 back from Sainsburys. In all it took over 40 mins door to door - I could have walked it in less. The safety investigation is just another opportunity for Mr "Comadad" and the cycling lobby to rant about unsafe buses and for politicians to agree with them. They'll be saying buses should have someone with a red flag walking in front of them next. The more kit and systems and monitoring and intervention you put on vehicles the harder it is for drivers to exercise their skills and the more costly vehicles are to buy and maintain. All that does is mean you get less bus network for your money and a demotivated, deskilled workforce that won't stay with the job. In the end you will push people away from safe public transport to other modes with far higher casualty rates. What a rip roaring success that will be for everyone - NOT!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2016 22:16:07 GMT
Id like to say at least they are doing an investigation but I'm not exactly holding my breath that anything useful will come out of it
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Post by snoggle on Jan 6, 2017 16:50:56 GMT
The Transport Cttee are holding their first meeting on buses next week. This one seems to be covering the network design issues. Unfortunately they appear to have invited the same organisations as have been present before - TfL (no surprise!), London Borough of Enfield (arrrrrgh!), Transport for All, London Councils, Transport Focus plus Professor White from UoW and a rep from an unnamed bus operator. Interestingly Leon Daniels is not appearing - Gareth Powell is attending instead. www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s61239/Bus%20network.pdfI suspect we will get a tedious retread of the tired old moans we got last time these same organisations were assembled.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 6, 2017 17:27:04 GMT
The Transport Cttee are holding their first meeting on buses next week. This one seems to be covering the network design issues. Unfortunately they appear to have invited the same organisations as have been present before - TfL (no surprise!), London Borough of Enfield (arrrrrgh!), Transport for All, London Councils, Transport Focus plus Professor White from UoW and a rep from an unnamed bus operator. Interestingly Leon Daniels is not appearing - Gareth Powell is attending instead. www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s61239/Bus%20network.pdfI suspect we will get a tedious retread of the tired old moans we got last time these same organisations were assembled. Although I disagreed with Enfield's proposed bus network, it would be interesting to see other councils ideas on buses be they pro bus like Lambeth or anti bus like Bromley.
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Post by snoggle on Jan 6, 2017 19:24:51 GMT
The Transport Cttee are holding their first meeting on buses next week. This one seems to be covering the network design issues. Unfortunately they appear to have invited the same organisations as have been present before - TfL (no surprise!), London Borough of Enfield (arrrrrgh!), Transport for All, London Councils, Transport Focus plus Professor White from UoW and a rep from an unnamed bus operator. Interestingly Leon Daniels is not appearing - Gareth Powell is attending instead. www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s61239/Bus%20network.pdfI suspect we will get a tedious retread of the tired old moans we got last time these same organisations were assembled. Although I disagreed with Enfield's proposed bus network, it would be interesting to see other councils ideas on buses be they pro bus like Lambeth or anti bus like Bromley. Lambeth - "remove all cars, all streets to be served by a bus service" Bromley - "buses are evil, cars are wonderful, kill the red boxes on wheels". My worry about Enfield being wheeled out again is that nothing has come of their past plans which, to be frank, were rubbish. Giving them the "oxygen of a public forum" risks more rubbish being spouted coupled with a load of whingeing. That takes the debate precisely nowhere.
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Post by danorak on Jan 8, 2017 22:33:03 GMT
The Transport Cttee are holding their first meeting on buses next week. This one seems to be covering the network design issues. Unfortunately they appear to have invited the same organisations as have been present before - TfL (no surprise!), London Borough of Enfield (arrrrrgh!), Transport for All, London Councils, Transport Focus plus Professor White from UoW and a rep from an unnamed bus operator. Interestingly Leon Daniels is not appearing - Gareth Powell is attending instead. www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s61239/Bus%20network.pdfI suspect we will get a tedious retread of the tired old moans we got last time these same organisations were assembled. Interesting if Transport Focus has been invited (the link won't open at the moment) as they have no locus for bus services within London: the equivalent function is carried out by London TravelWatch. I wonder if it's to ask about how these things are done outside London (in which case the Assembly is in for a shock...)
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Post by snoggle on Jan 9, 2017 0:16:29 GMT
The Transport Cttee are holding their first meeting on buses next week. This one seems to be covering the network design issues. Unfortunately they appear to have invited the same organisations as have been present before - TfL (no surprise!), London Borough of Enfield (arrrrrgh!), Transport for All, London Councils, Transport Focus plus Professor White from UoW and a rep from an unnamed bus operator. Interestingly Leon Daniels is not appearing - Gareth Powell is attending instead. www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s61239/Bus%20network.pdfI suspect we will get a tedious retread of the tired old moans we got last time these same organisations were assembled. Interesting if Transport Focus has been invited (the link won't open at the moment) as they have no locus for bus services within London: the equivalent function is carried out by London TravelWatch. I wonder if it's to ask about how these things are done outside London (in which case the Assembly is in for a shock...) I doubt they are in for much of a shock. Transport Focus are a total and utter waste of space. I am astonished the government have not abolished them as a waste of time and money.
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Post by snoggle on Jan 11, 2017 20:46:48 GMT
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Post by snoggle on Jan 11, 2017 23:16:57 GMT
Having endured nearly three hours of webcast a few headlines. - Bendy buses not coming back although Leon D apparently joked with Boris, days before he ceased to be Mayor, that if he was Mayor again in 2020 he could abolish bendy buses twice. - TfL are, though, considering vehicle designs where there are "capacity challenges". This rather backs up the possibility of E500s being used. - An acceptance from Leon that "where the boarding is more open then so is the fare evasion". Sensing he might be in a "trap" he then added "but the evasion level on NB4Ls is not high enough to justify the use of conductors". - Loads of "oh we are sorry, we must do better" crocodile tears over the disaster of Archway gyratory and bus stop positions. Seems the locals are "revolting" over the revised layouts and TfL are going to come back and review it all again. - TfL acknowledged that buses have been sidelined by cycling works and CSHs. "Trying to redress the balance" says Leon. It's a bit late! - Lots of contradictory remarks which are odds with what is being said in consultations. E.g "The Hopper ticket is not being used as justification to cut bus services". Err go and bl**dy read what your own consultation documents are saying!!!!!!! - Loads of the standard flannel from TfL which we've heard before time and time again. - Arriva London had two people there. They came across reasonably well. - Quite a lot of subtle criticism of the borough councils where buses have been pushed to the back of consideration when things like urban realm redesign has happened. Mr D cited Twickenham Town Centre where long established convenient interchange between routes has been destroyed. Also concern about the ability of the boroughs to support and implement new bus priority schemes - too much conflict of interest with other local voter issues like road space, parking etc. - Acceptance that bus interchange has got worse over recent years and that may have been the "last straw" for some passengers who have not stopped travelling. You don't say! - No money for more Countdown signs anywhere. - London Councils rep did a nice job of saying "equality impact assessments" should be used on large scale changes. She also said the information, logic and justification for the Central London bus changes was very poor and in some cases missing. This has prevented councillors and officials explaining the changes to residents in areas affected by the changes. She also said that while TfL had improved their communication with councils (since the last Assembly report in 2013) it still had much more to do. Unfortunately many of the questions were rather poor and lacking in focus which allowed (IMO) TfL to "get away with murder" in their responses to some questions. I suspect that is why Leon opted to attend (wasn't on the list originally) as he's done this several times before so knows how to get round the issue when needed. I dread to think what the meeting on Bus Safety will be like next month.
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Post by busman on Jan 13, 2017 12:18:30 GMT
Reliability is a huge issue for passengers and operators. I didn't watch the full 4 hour slog, but I did note one interesting comment which was that buses should be given the same level of priority as trams. Whilst this is not always possible, I do think that wherever possible more thought should be given to bus prioritisation at traffic lights, increased prevalence of bus lanes and reducing delays caused by parked vehicles in urban areas.
With regard to countdown it's a shame that this is not being rolled out further. Live times should be available at every stop - not every passenger has a smartphone to tell them when the next bus is due. I've seen a few stops that actually have a real time bus arrival display and light within the timetable panel. I suspect that the sheer size of the London Network makes this cost prohibitive.
Interesting to hear more anecdotal evidence of how taxpayers money was wasted on the stupid NB4L. It's a commercial failure as no one wants to buy them. They didn't secure IP on any features that have proven to be financially useful. They have no IP rights to a 3 door, 2 staircase design and any variations of configuration. So Leon and Boris went to Singapore with the NB4L which inspired the Singapore government to commission a 3 door 2 staircase Enviro 500 from Alexander Dennis. Oh dear. I have to say that Alexander Dennis appear to have done a very nice job and the 3 door Enviro 500 looks amazing.
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Post by snoggle on Jan 13, 2017 13:33:44 GMT
Reliability is a huge issue for passengers and operators. I didn't watch the full 4 hour slog, but I did note one interesting comment which was that buses should be given the same level of priority as trams. Whilst this is not always possible, I do think that wherever possible more thought should be given to bus prioritisation at traffic lights, increased prevalence of bus lanes and reducing delays caused by parked vehicles in urban areas. With regard to countdown it's a shame that this is not being rolled out further. Live times should be available at every stop - not every passenger has a smartphone to tell them when the next bus is due. I've seen a few stops that actually have a real time bus arrival display and light within the timetable panel. I suspect that the sheer size of the London Network makes this cost prohibitive. Interesting to hear more anecdotal evidence of how taxpayers money was wasted on the stupid NB4L. It's a commercial failure as no one wants to buy them. They didn't secure IP on any features that have proven to be financially useful. They have no IP rights to a 3 door, 2 staircase design and any variations of configuration. So Leon and Boris went to Singapore with the NB4L which inspired the Singapore government to commission a 3 door 2 staircase Enviro 500 from Alexander Dennis. Oh dear. I have to say that Alexander Dennis appear to have done a very nice job and the 3 door Enviro 500 looks amazing. Leon Daniels said he was far more worried about actually getting bus priority done rather than the budget of £200m. In other words TfL can identify scheme after scheme but local opposition kills them off or makes them less effective. This does rather miss the point that some TfL schemes have been appallingly designed in terms of getting buses through junctions (cough Elephant and Castle cough) Leon carefully avoided giving a long detailed explanation on Countdown signs. There are two main issues as I understand it. Firstly TfL prioritise electronic info over everything else and in particular via third party apps using standard data feeds. This is policy because it is cheaper. Secondly TfL are trying to unbundle I-Bus as a system into separate "chunks" which can be competitively supplied. This is because they are tied into a sole supplier who has refused to release system info. TfL will therefore not want to add any more signs at stops as it increases the tie in to the supplier. Finally given that TfL have axed a lot of IT projects and contracted IT staff in recent months it is possible (but I don't know for certain) that a load of initiatives like electronic paper displays, alternative stop displays and other things have all fallen by the wayside. If this is true then don't expect to see much innovation around bus arrival time info any time soon. It is clearly impossible to register IPR for something like "a bus with three doors and two staircases". Anyone could build such a thing if they wanted to do (as has happened in Singapore but also those mock Routemasters built by the Chinese for Skopje). Multi doored and multi staircases buses are nothing new and the NB4L brings NOTHING unique to the field of bus design. Even its visual appearance is highly derivative if you have even the most rundimentary knowledge of bus designs back to the 1960s.
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Post by snoggle on Jul 17, 2017 7:06:58 GMT
Well after 7 months we now have the first of two reports from the London Assembly. The first one is on bus safety. I didn't particularly follow this part of the investigation as I was concerned that my blood pressure would rise so high that I'd need hospital treatment. Inevitably the Transport Cttee have concluded that TfL are not doing enough and that safety should override everything else. Report and summary info via this link www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/driven-to-distraction-safety-on-london-busesUnfortunately what I expected would happen has happened. Here is a key part of the preamble in the report. While I have no great issue with drivers having more sensible shifts and breaks there is a massive problem with making journeys even slower. What is the point of a bus network that is so slow and unattractive to use that people stop using it? A bus network that has to be cut and cut and cut due to fewer passengers and ever more cost does nothing for London as a whole nor bus drivers if they lose their jobs as a result of the cuts. Forcing people on to potentially more dangerous modes of transport does nothing for safety at an aggregate level. The safety bus network is one that carries no one and where the buses sit inside bus garages all day. Is that what we want? The report does touch on vehicle maintenance (a notorious subject on this forum) plus the stress drivers encounter. That's fair game AFAIAC. It will be interesting to see how TfL respond to the recommendations. No indication as to when the Bus Network Planning report will emerge from the Committee. Possibly not until September as there are no meetings in August due to holidays etc.
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Post by danorak on Jul 17, 2017 11:06:53 GMT
A slight tangent and I'm about to do what I complain about others doing - grinding the same old axe - but I'm deeply worried about the future of buses in London. There seems to be no-one who actively stands up for them in the face of the various cycling, safety and air quality pressure groups. The bus seems to be everyone's enemy at the moment and we need to find a way of giving the London bus user a voice that actually gets heard.
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