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Post by M1199 on Jan 23, 2018 15:18:45 GMT
I tweeted them fools over the route 350 error but of course conveniently no response Well they won't get rid of me as I'll be sending a formal complaint anyway. Pathetic, I think secondary school kids could have organized this better. I emailed them last night (with photographic evidence!) to complain about this. I await their response (if I get one!) As others have said, heads should roll over this cock up! You can kind of get away with the errors on the 140, E6 & U4 branding but the 350’s, totally unacceptable! If I’d of made such a balls up in my line of work, I’d be hauled across the coals! I hope TfL realise that Lake Farm isn’t the country park adjoined to Stockley Business Park, you go to Lake Farm, your likely to spend your day dodging the used needles or fending off the muggers! I was eagerly awaiting the Hayes scheme, to see if they could improve on the Barkingside scheme, what a disappointment! At least the stop flags haven’t been messed around with yet. People like Ray Stenning must be laughing at this feeble and frankly pathetic attempt at branding!
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Post by sid on Jan 23, 2018 15:38:38 GMT
I agree that heads should roll over the frequency errors........unbelievable!!
Whilst I'm very much in favour of route branding in principle this really is a half hearted effort. It almost seems that having had instructions from the mayor to implement route branding TfL have thought (rather like when you ask the kids to make a cup of tea ) "lets make a bad job of it and then he won't ask us to do it again......................we'll advertise the wrong frequencies................we'll make no effort to keep buses on the correct routes.................and we'll make it look as ugly as possible". The 90 and 350 don't look too bad, but they could certainly be a lot better, but the 140, oh dear . And it's being withdrawn from Heathrow if the Crossrail proposal goes ahead. I suppose the green sticker in the top deck window (although front upper deck window views are poor enough as it is on 'frog faces' ) does make it easier to identify from a distance but why put a green '140 sticker' on the rear next to the route number?
If a jobs worth doing it's wort doing well, get Ray Stenning or whoever in to do the job properly! I'm not convinced that branding came from the Mayor. There was the rather pathetic "Bus Action Plan" which was a TfL creation to presumably take some heat off the Mayor's lack of obvious policies for buses. It was a classic "we must do something" type of initiative. The Mayor put his name to the plan but he sort of has to do that as Chair of TfL. The big change is that patronage has not recovered so the plan is now completely out of date and irrelevant given the massive mileage cuts being planned. No one has said that of course but the reality is that life has moved on. My sense of things is that TfL did this "in house" to save money (Leon Daniels said as much) but also as a "we can do it as well but cheaper" than those fancy designers who cost a fortune. I also think someone decided that Hayes had to be different in approach to Barkingside to provide a differentiation so that if there are different levels of increased patronage between the two trial areas that some of the difference can be identified with the different branding styles. I think we are all agreed that errors related to frequencies on the branding are unacceptable. Does anyone know if the bus stop flags been colour coded for the Hayes trial? Also have the spider maps been changed in style? If they haven't then that's another difference between the trial areas. I had just assumed that it was the mayors idea. If somebody has set out to make a pigs ear of the whole thing they've done a pretty good job so far.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2018 16:42:33 GMT
Leon Daniels stated last year that the branding was at the request of the Mayor. Mr Daniels will have been towing the party line as he did throughout his time at TfL. As I said before I don't believe that the detail of the bus action plan emanated from City Hall. The idea to have a plan might well have done so as someone in his team will have spotted there was a gaping hole in his manifesto to deal with what was a small fall in bus usage when he became Mayor. TfL will have done the detailed work on what is a transport issue, not a political concept. I don't see how the Mayor would even think about bus branding. He's a lawyer by training and experience - like many MPs. The Mayor's request was to use colours for bus routes so that people could identify routes as easily as on the Tube map.
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Post by ServerKing on Jan 23, 2018 17:29:18 GMT
Somehow I don't think they will learn but will just keep banging away with attempt after attempt until they admit defeat and bring in a professional (excerpt from From Buses Mag, April 2021)
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 23, 2018 18:43:35 GMT
Somehow I don't think they will learn but will just keep banging away with attempt after attempt until they admit defeat and bring in a professional (excerpt from From Buses Mag, April 2021) Hmmm ... Reading this ain't!
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 23, 2018 18:44:05 GMT
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Post by galwhv69 on Jan 24, 2018 21:14:17 GMT
Is TLN 8194 on the 130 route branded as it is showing as branded on LVF
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Post by YY13VKP on Jan 24, 2018 21:14:51 GMT
Is TLN 8194 on the 130 route branded as it is showing as branded on LVF Its a mistake I believe for 8894
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Post by galwhv69 on Jan 24, 2018 21:17:15 GMT
Is TLN 8194 on the 130 route branded as it is showing as branded on LVF Its a mistake I believe for 8184 thanks for the clarification,i was just about to think that some sort of south London trial was starting
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Post by YY13VKP on Jan 24, 2018 21:22:20 GMT
Its a mistake I believe for 8184 thanks for the clarification,i was just about to think that some sort of south London trial was starting Its been corrected now by Jack
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Post by M1199 on Feb 4, 2018 22:09:29 GMT
Well I got a response from TfL after complaining about the 350's branding!
"Dear Mr Campbell
Thanks for your online form of 22 January about the trial route branding on bus routes in Hayes.
I’m sorry that the frequency of bus route 350 is listed incorrectly on the branding, with it stating that it currently operates at a 12 minute frequency. I appreciate that this must be very concerning to see, and it’s causing unnecessary confusion for customers.
We have been trialling route branding on routes in the Hayes area of west London to encourage more people to use the bus in this area where population is steadily growing. Due to the recent alterations to routes to better match their frequency to demand, the frequency shown on the sides of buses operating on route 350 are no longer correct.
On other routes, this is much less pronounced and frequencies are similar to their schedules. However we do appreciate that this is not the case with route 350. As a result of this, we will be adjusting the new vehicle branding in the next few weeks to reflect the current frequency of the bus. Going forwards, we will also ensure that further branding initiatives reflect the short-term changes in bus service regularity.
I’m sorry again for the misleading information on some vehicles. However, please be assured that this is currently being dealt with.
Thanks for contacting us. If there is anything else I can help you with, please reply to this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234, and we’ll be happy to help you.
Kind regards
***"
Make of it what you will, sounds like a typical corporate response to me. One thing that makes me laugh though, is that they know that other route frequencies are also wrong, but it would seem they aren't going to alter them!
Other things I've noticed over the last few days is the stop tiles have gained a coloured strip and new colour coded timetables have been posted.
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Post by snoggle on Feb 5, 2018 1:05:11 GMT
Well I got a response from TfL after complaining about the 350's branding! "Dear Mr Campbell Thanks for your online form of 22 January about the trial route branding on bus routes in Hayes. I’m sorry that the frequency of bus route 350 is listed incorrectly on the branding, with it stating that it currently operates at a 12 minute frequency. I appreciate that this must be very concerning to see, and it’s causing unnecessary confusion for customers. We have been trialling route branding on routes in the Hayes area of west London to encourage more people to use the bus in this area where population is steadily growing. Due to the recent alterations to routes to better match their frequency to demand, the frequency shown on the sides of buses operating on route 350 are no longer correct. On other routes, this is much less pronounced and frequencies are similar to their schedules. However we do appreciate that this is not the case with route 350. As a result of this, we will be adjusting the new vehicle branding in the next few weeks to reflect the current frequency of the bus. Going forwards, we will also ensure that further branding initiatives reflect the short-term changes in bus service regularity. I’m sorry again for the misleading information on some vehicles. However, please be assured that this is currently being dealt with. Thanks for contacting us. If there is anything else I can help you with, please reply to this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234, and we’ll be happy to help you. Kind regards ***" Make of it what you will, sounds like a typical corporate response to me. One thing that makes me laugh though, is that they know that other route frequencies are also wrong, but it would seem they aren't going to alter them! Other things I've noticed over the last few days is the stop tiles have gained a coloured strip and new colour coded timetables have been posted. I'll now do my "non PC" internal speak translation of the above. "Oh dear that pest Campbell has written to us again. Not another "you've got it wrong again" letter. We really hate letters like that. Doesn't he understand there used to be 20 people in this department and now there are only 4? None of us have a bleedin' clue what's going on anymore - is it any wonder the bus frequencies are wrong on those buses? Anyway it's just a trial and no one pays any attention to what's on the front or side of buses anyway. Thanks for writing to us and wasting even more of our time which we haven't got to waste." Interesting to see the colour strips and "co-ordinated" timetable panels have appeared. I did wonder if they were going to make the effort.
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Post by ak121 on Feb 5, 2018 21:20:22 GMT
DE1911 (the Metroline YX11CNY Enviro 200 that has the blue E6 route branding) is mostly on it's allocated route: the 95. Metroline should've carefully chosen that the bus they were selecting to go for the route branding, was actually allocated to the E6 and stays on the E6.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Feb 5, 2018 21:28:41 GMT
DE1911 (the Metroline YX11CNY Enviro 200 MMC that has the blue E6 route branding) is mostly on it's allocated route: the 95. Metroline should've carefully chosen that the bus they were selecting to go for the route branding, was actually allocated to the E6 and stays on the E6. I don't get why the operators in the West seem to be struggling, or not bothering to keep branded buses to allocated routes. Stagecoach and Arriva have been very good keeping branded buses on their allocated routes, especially considering prior to the branded BK and T both mixed and matched their Enviro400s all over the garage.
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Post by sid on Feb 5, 2018 21:40:40 GMT
DE1911 (the Metroline YX11CNY Enviro 200 MMC that has the blue E6 route branding) is mostly on it's allocated route: the 95. Metroline should've carefully chosen that the bus they were selecting to go for the route branding, was actually allocated to the E6 and stays on the E6. I don't get why the operators in the West seem to be struggling, or not bothering to keep branded buses to allocated routes. Stagecoach and Arriva have been very good keeping branded buses on their allocated routes, especially considering prior to the branded BK and T both mixed and matched their Enviro400s all over the garage. With only a few buses branded in West London surely it cannot be that difficult to keep them on the correct route? I know it sounds daft but if an E6 branded bus is regularly appearing on the 95 it almost seems it's being done deliberately?
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