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Post by busaholic on Apr 26, 2019 17:08:31 GMT
The problem with imposing 1975's bus network on 2019 is that loads of people would be without buses. The network was much less dense back then with many local suburban areas without bus services. Locally to me there'd be no W11, W12 or W15. What is now the W16 was about every 20 mins if you were lucky - now every 12 mins. I expect the same would be true of parts of Harrow, Bexleyheath, Kingston, Bromley, Orpington etc. I am sure it was lovely if you were on or near a main road with frequent radial routes but that was about it. 1975 was also in the backwash of the Miners strike with all the shortages that ensued. I doubt service reliability was anywhere near as good then as now. Yes buses may have been faster but they were more than likely much less frequent in many areas and far less reliable because of crew shortages and vehicles breaking down / being unserviceable. There would also have been far fewer bus lanes so buses would get bogged down in traffic in many places because of indiscriminate parking and people just driving because they could. Look at any 1970s telly programme shot in London - you can see what it was like. In 1975 I'd just moved to Hither Green, a 3 minute walk from the station,, but on the Lee side. If I wanted to get some supermarket shopping on a Saturday, my nearest one was in Lewisham's Riverdale Centre and I had no car. My nearest bus route was the trunk 36, on the other side of HG Station, so a 6 minute walk. It went to Lewisham, but via Catford, and was notoriously unreliable as many journeys got cut back to Catford. In practice, my wife and I lugged shopping back on foot, which took nearly half an hour from leaving the store. Now there are two direct links, the 181 and 225, from HG to Lewisham via Hither Green Lane, utterly busless in those days despite the presence of Hither Green Hospital. In addition, and it would have been a boon for us, is the 273, a success from the word go, which would have dropped us a 2 or 3 minute walk from our house. Train travel was almost useless for that journey too: fine from HG to Charing Cross with 4 tph offpeak ( SE Londoners regarded this as nirvana  ) but only 2 tph stopped at Lewisham on the way, and by the time you'd negotiated the roads etc it really wasn't worth it.I'm talking about an area crowded with housing, most of which had been there for decades, but London Transport's attitude was that you should be grateful, and satisfied, if you had a bus route within a mile. If I'd not been young, and working in Central London, it wouldn't have been viable to live there. |
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Post by redbus on Apr 26, 2019 18:38:53 GMT
It is an interesting comparison between 1975 and today. Some key differences I would like to highlighted, some as mentioned by others :-
- For historic reasons the bus network was more limited, often with frequent services being only on main roads. You often had to walk much further to get on any bus and there were far fewer routes, although that is part was down to the fact they were longer.
- iBus did not exist in 1975. Leaving aside the question of regulation and getting to buses wait at stops, what iBus delivered was something that would have been considered remarkable in 1975, the ability to know where every bus on a route is. Take bus 13 as an example. You would have an inspector at Golders Green who would be the regulation for the whole service, if a bus was late he would give the turn, otherwise it was down to timetable. This resulted in long gaps in service at times, with a far less reliable service than today.
- Staff shortages. Back in 1975 LT as was could not recruit enough people to man the buses, both drivers and conductors. This resulted in many timetabled buses not running. I think it was 1976 when lots of routes had frequency cuts simply to match the service to the actual number of staff!
- Peak hours had many more buses than daytime, so peak time frequencies were often much better than today. On the other hand evening / Sunday frequencies were worse.
- Night buses back in 1975 were few and far between. You simply cannot compare the night bus network today with what existed then
- Ohhh and back in 1975 there was limited service on Christmas Day
- Routes were much longer as traffic was considerably less. Sundays had many extensions or special Sunday services going long distances, eg 15 went to Kew Gardens in Summer. The 59 went from Old Coulsdon to West Hampstead. Bus crews did two complete rounders on the 59 with a meal relief in between. Try that one today!
If you lived on / near a main road and the bus took you to where you wanted to go, 1975 was almost certainly better than today. If all the routes introduced in the intervening period are what you use or are not on that main road, or on an infrequent service, the service is much better today. The one thing that was much better then was the traffic and bus speeds. It was so much quicker to get around town by bus and that I do miss.
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Apr 27, 2019 4:46:45 GMT
In 1975 there were fares increases around 33% in March and 25% in November. This was partly due to the fares freeze since 1972 but the rampant inflation across the country at that time, especially fuel costs.
As this preceded Busplan '78 there were many weekend variations to routes, and routes even if cosmetically no different running from different garages.
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Post by danorak on Apr 27, 2019 14:37:00 GMT
As others have pointed out, the network was much less dense in 1975. Some might not like all buses being cashless but it's better than being on a DMS (if it hadn't broken down) with malfunctioning Pay as you Enter equipment. Many buses still had conductors but you'd never have got a wheelchair on board. And you couldn't necessarily rely on them to tell you the stop. Fares were graduated unlike today's simple flat fare. There was no integration between bus and tube ticketing - Travelcard didn't come along until 1983 - and train wasn't added until some time after that. So separate tickets and payments for each leg.
Today's bus network might not be perfect - it may not be as good as a few years ago - but it's better than 1975's.
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Post by redbus on Apr 27, 2019 15:57:04 GMT
In 1975 there were fares increases around 33% in March and 25% in November. This was partly due to the fares freeze since 1972 but the rampant inflation across the country at that time, especially fuel costs. As this preceded Busplan '78 there were many weekend variations to routes, and routes even if cosmetically no different running from different garages. You are right, after the 'fares fare' fare reduction by the Greater London Council, (GLC), which was the predecessor to the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Mayor, Bromley Council took the GLC to court and won forcing these fare increases. Soon after the GLC was abolished as there was no overall London local government for many years until the GLA.
I remember those crippling fare increases and many central London fares literally doubled. What was interesting was that while there was a fair passenger loss as a result of the fares increases, it wasn't catastrophic and overall income went up significantly. This is of interest nowadays, for those who think that the current fares freeze has prevented a large passenger loss need to look back at what happened to passenger numbers then and during fare increases in the period 2000-2016. The lesson is quite clear that small yearly increases will increase income, yet won't lead to meaningful passenger loss.
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Post by busaholic on Apr 27, 2019 16:22:19 GMT
In 1975 there were fares increases around 33% in March and 25% in November. This was partly due to the fares freeze since 1972 but the rampant inflation across the country at that time, especially fuel costs. As this preceded Busplan '78 there were many weekend variations to routes, and routes even if cosmetically no different running from different garages. You are right, after the 'fares fare' fare reduction by the Greater London Council, (GLC), which was the predecessor to the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Mayor, Bromley Council took the GLC to court and won forcing these fare increases. Soon after the GLC was abolished as there was no overall London local government for many years until the GLA.
I remember those crippling fare increases and many central London fares literally doubled. What was interesting was that while there was a fair passenger loss as a result of the fares increases, it wasn't catastrophic and overall income went up significantly. This is of interest nowadays, for those who think that the current fares freeze has prevented a large passenger loss need to look back at what happened to passenger numbers then and during fare increases in the period 2000-2016. The lesson is quite clear that small yearly increases will increase income, yet won't lead to meaningful passenger loss.
I think you're confusing the dates and sequence of events a bit. In 1975 the GLC was very much a toy of the Conservatives, who'd hardly intervened in London Transport matters since their notional control of it had passed to them in 1970. Huge increases in oil prices and rampant inflation were much more likely to have led to those fare increases. I don't remember exactly when Horace Cutler deposed his predecessor as Tory leader of the GLC, but a figurehead was replaced by an ideologue then. 'Fares fair' was under Ken Livingstone's stewardship, which came in 1981, and the GLC was wound up in 1986, I believe, fuelled by Margaret Thatcher's hatred of Livingstone and all he stood for. Bromley Council's High Court action was as a result of the precept that Bromley's ratepayers were required to pay in their 1981-2 rate bills, imposed by the GLC. i followed it all with great interest at the time! |
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Post by redbus on Apr 27, 2019 16:28:11 GMT
You are right, after the 'fares fare' fare reduction by the Greater London Council, (GLC), which was the predecessor to the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Mayor, Bromley Council took the GLC to court and won forcing these fare increases. Soon after the GLC was abolished as there was no overall London local government for many years until the GLA.
I remember those crippling fare increases and many central London fares literally doubled. What was interesting was that while there was a fair passenger loss as a result of the fares increases, it wasn't catastrophic and overall income went up significantly. This is of interest nowadays, for those who think that the current fares freeze has prevented a large passenger loss need to look back at what happened to passenger numbers then and during fare increases in the period 2000-2016. The lesson is quite clear that small yearly increases will increase income, yet won't lead to meaningful passenger loss.
I think you're confusing the dates and sequence of events a bit. In 1975 the GLC was very much a toy of the Conservatives, who'd hardly intervened in London Transport matters since their notional control of it had passed to them in 1970. Huge increases in oil prices and rampant inflation were much more likely to have led to those fare increases. I don't remember exactly when Horace Cutler deposed his predecessor as Tory leader of the GLC, but a figurehead was replaced by an ideologue then. 'Fares fair' was under Ken Livingstone's stewardship, which came in 1981, and the GLC was wound up in 1986, I believe, fuelled by Margaret Thatcher's hatred of Livingstone and all he stood for. Bromley Council's High Court action was as a result of the precept that Bromley's ratepayers were required to pay in their 1981-2 rate bills, imposed by the GLC. i followed it all with great interest at the time! You are right I had my dates confused......the 1975 fare increases were separate and down to factors such an the rampant inflation at the time. Fares Fare as you say came in the early 1980s and if I remember correctly led to a doubling of fares when it was unwound. I am obviously suffering from old age in my memory!!!!!  |
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Post by ServerKing on Apr 27, 2019 16:35:55 GMT
The problem with imposing 1975's bus network on 2019 is that loads of people would be without buses. The network was much less dense back then with many local suburban areas without bus services. Locally to me there'd be no W11, W12 or W15. What is now the W16 was about every 20 mins if you were lucky - now every 12 mins. I expect the same would be true of parts of Harrow, Bexleyheath, Kingston, Bromley, Orpington etc. I am sure it was lovely if you were on or near a main road with frequent radial routes but that was about it. 1975 was also in the backwash of the Miners strike with all the shortages that ensued. I doubt service reliability was anywhere near as good then as now. Yes buses may have been faster but they were more than likely much less frequent in many areas and far less reliable because of crew shortages and vehicles breaking down / being unserviceable. There would also have been far fewer bus lanes so buses would get bogged down in traffic in many places because of indiscriminate parking and people just driving because they could. Look at any 1970s telly programme shot in London - you can see what it was like. Uptight residents in Alexandra Park won't be happy with Arriva if they put a Fleetline or Atlantean on the 184 School journeys instead of the usual Merlin or Swifts - what with the Leyland O680 roar on pullaway - especially if those on the upper deck can look into their bedroom windows  |
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Post by busaholic on Apr 27, 2019 16:51:15 GMT
I think you're confusing the dates and sequence of events a bit. In 1975 the GLC was very much a toy of the Conservatives, who'd hardly intervened in London Transport matters since their notional control of it had passed to them in 1970. Huge increases in oil prices and rampant inflation were much more likely to have led to those fare increases. I don't remember exactly when Horace Cutler deposed his predecessor as Tory leader of the GLC, but a figurehead was replaced by an ideologue then. 'Fares fair' was under Ken Livingstone's stewardship, which came in 1981, and the GLC was wound up in 1986, I believe, fuelled by Margaret Thatcher's hatred of Livingstone and all he stood for. Bromley Council's High Court action was as a result of the precept that Bromley's ratepayers were required to pay in their 1981-2 rate bills, imposed by the GLC. i followed it all with great interest at the time! You are right I had my dates confused......the 1975 fare increases were separate and down to factors such an the rampant inflation at the time. Fares Fare as you say came in the early 1980s and if I remember correctly led to a doubling of fares when it was unwound. I am obviously suffering from old age in my memory!!!!! The trouble with old age is that things that happened in 1975, say, remain clear, but where you went yesterday, and more importantly why, is a great mystery. |
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Post by snoggle on Apr 27, 2019 17:10:42 GMT
You are right I had my dates confused......the 1975 fare increases were separate and down to factors such an the rampant inflation at the time. Fares Fare as you say came in the early 1980s and if I remember correctly led to a doubling of fares when it was unwound. I am obviously suffering from old age in my memory!!!!! Yep the first Fares Fair cuts were on 4th October 1981. You then had the Law Lords decision which resulted in fare increases and huge service cuts in 1982. The GLC then came back with "Just the Ticket" that brought in simpler fully zonal fares on buses and tubes (except outer bits of the Met / Central / Bakerloo) and, of course, Travelcard on 22 May 1983. I have copes of the leaflets for Fares Fair and also Just the Ticket. What I don't have is a leaflet for the 1982 increases. The 1983 initiative was very clever because it allowed a complete fares revision and reductions but brought in a ticket that would lead to growth but also operational efficiencies like faster ticket issuing, faster bus boarding etc. Obviously not a huge revolution but the start of one that brings us to today. I scanned the Fares Fair leaflet and it's on Flickr so people can see what the fares were cut to 1981. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2019 17:47:45 GMT
I wonder what has been the most successful bus route launched since 1975 and also one that was thriving in 1975 but maybe not so now or was made redundant like the 48 for eg.
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Post by busaholic on Apr 28, 2019 19:55:26 GMT
I wonder what has been the most successful bus route launched since 1975 and also one that was thriving in 1975 but maybe not so now or was made redundant like the 48 for eg. Answering the second part of your question first, and noting your use of the word 'redundant', then almost the entirety of various routes, some of an express nature, that connected the New Addington estate with East and West Croydon became superfluous in May 2000 on the opening of Croydon Tramlink. Thus the C prefix routes and the 130 group of routes were abolished at a stroke, except for a mealy-mouthed 4 bph that LT grudgingly allowed to continue on the 130 after protests, thus ensuring a direct service to Croydon was maintained from a small section of the New Addington estate.I've not got a figure to hand on how many buses were culled (and, of course, new 'feeder' routes came into play at the same time) but it must have been at least 30, maybe even 50? Regarding successful new launches, the 148 would be my pick: then, of course, the 'new' C2, as opposed to the Croydon version, was an instant success, and became even more useful when extended to Victoria, then TfL in their infinite wisdom  decided to ruin it, with the inevitable result, so its history never encompassed either end of the period in question! |
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Post by sid on Apr 28, 2019 20:02:54 GMT
I wonder what has been the most successful bus route launched since 1975 and also one that was thriving in 1975 but maybe not so now or was made redundant like the 48 for eg. Answering the second part of your question first, and noting your use of the word 'redundant', then almost the entirety of various routes, some of an express nature, that connected the New Addington estate with East and West Croydon became superfluous in May 2000 on the opening of Croydon Tramlink. Thus the C prefix routes and the 130 group of routes were abolished at a stroke, except for a mealy-mouthed 4 bph that LT grudgingly allowed to continue on the 130 after protests, thus ensuring a direct service to Croydon was maintained from a small section of the New Addington estate.I've not got a figure to hand on how many buses were culled (and, of course, new 'feeder' routes came into play at the same time) but it must have been at least 30, maybe even 50? Regarding successful new launches, the 148 would be my pick: then, of course, the 'new' C2, as opposed to the Croydon version, was an instant success, and became even more useful when extended to Victoria, then TfL in their infinite wisdom decided to ruin it, with the inevitable result, so its history never encompassed either end of the period in question! The C routes to and from New Addington were abolished on September 4th 1982 and replaced by a peak hour only 130/B express. The 130B was withdrawn in 1987 when the 64 was extended to New Addington and the express service renumbered X30. The post Tramlink 130 service to Croydon didn't last long, it carried little more than fresh air, and was rerouted to Norwood Junction. |
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Post by redbus on Apr 29, 2019 21:34:29 GMT
I wonder what has been the most successful bus route launched since 1975 and also one that was thriving in 1975 but maybe not so now or was made redundant like the 48 for eg. Although introduced a few years earlier in 1972, the C11 is a good example of what has become a successful route. Although only single deck today it was introduced as 16 seater minibus and links up places which were never linked directly before. |
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Post by busaholic on Apr 29, 2019 21:55:57 GMT
I wonder what has been the most successful bus route launched since 1975 and also one that was thriving in 1975 but maybe not so now or was made redundant like the 48 for eg. Although introduced a few years earlier in 1972, the C11 is a good example of what has become a successful route. Although only single deck today it was introduced as 16 seater minibus and links up places which were never linked directly before. A success from Day One! It followed on from the introduction of the 268, linking Swiss Cottage and Hampstead Village for the first time, in 1968. East-west routes in that part of Camden were quite bad at the time, even the 31 was completely unreliable in the early/mid 1970s and the 187A to Hampstead Heath was one of those routes that rivalled the yeti for actual appearances! Even the 68 terminated at Chalk Farm Station and there was much resistance to providing an obvious link 'up the hill' to Hampstead Heath, some of it from operating staff and some from residents, which had to wait for 'localisation' in the form of the 168 many years later. |
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) but only 2 tph stopped at Lewisham on the way, and by the time you'd negotiated the roads etc it really wasn't worth it.I'm talking about an area crowded with housing, most of which had been there for decades, but London Transport's attitude was that you should be grateful, and satisfied, if you had a bus route within a mile. If I'd not been young, and working in Central London, it wouldn't have been viable to live there.
decided to ruin it, with the inevitable result, so its history never encompassed either end of the period in question!