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Post by ServerKing on Feb 25, 2020 22:26:41 GMT
My personal view is London don't need fancy liveries, WIFI and leather seats (Most journeys are short, even more so since TfL decided to cut long routes such as the 25). All most people want is a reliable bus service not being regulated every two minutes. As for messy buses did they not start cleaning buses at terminals at one stage or am I making that up. Even if we had fancy buses they would still get dirty just because of the volume of usage. I am old fashion but think these cheap cab fares much like internet shopping are good in the short term but long term won't be able to sustain the prices. The cab stuff is unsustainable, already Ola is looking to get in on Uber's patch if it goes under, but sad to say, it's the young they need to appeal to, and surprisingly the young aren't so keen to buy a car and might car share or get taxis instead. Buses don't need fancy liveries, but the early 2000s and the liveries of the likes of Stagecoach and Metroline at least added something to the blandness we see. TfL think branding is covering everything in their font with Word97 Clipart, lol... whereas the likes of Stagecoach, Arriva, GoAhead have been doing professional branding for years. I guess the operators are handicapped by TfL who wouldn't want too much competition through the branding, so red and naff blinds it is. Unless TfL let go of the reins and allow a smattering of creativity, either with presentation, branding, seating etc., they can't expect the rest of Londoners to give a monkey's... their clinging to nostalgia, prefixed routes with gaps, no advertising of services, no printable brochures or timetables, leaflets is a reason the rot has set in. I hope they lose bus funding and it gets de regulation like elsewhere. They are the BBC of transport... there is too much control, it all started in 2013 with the fixation of WOB blinds, before the speed limits were lowered and it all went to pot
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Post by vjaska on Feb 25, 2020 23:10:48 GMT
I'm afraid there are parts of the day where the bus is a last resort. Purely for convenience, I'll pay £5-£6 using one of the PHV cab apps to get home than wait for a delayed bus. Afternoons around 3.15-4.15pm are another bad time to get a bus thanks to school children using them, not to mention the 20mph speed limit. I'd agree that the TfL £1.50 off-peak rail fare has played its part in decreasing passengers as well. Why would you spend an hour on a bus crawling just to go 5 miles or go on the Tube/Overground? I don't disagree that things need to be done but still think to call it, "last resort" is overdoing it IMO - I still certainly wouldn't pay £5-6 unless it was something of upmost emergency like A&E or an important engagement. Now I'd call using a black cab a last resort if I needed to go somewhere and pay the extortionate price.
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Post by overgroundcommuter on Feb 25, 2020 23:21:31 GMT
I'm afraid there are parts of the day where the bus is a last resort. Purely for convenience, I'll pay £5-£6 using one of the PHV cab apps to get home than wait for a delayed bus. Afternoons around 3.15-4.15pm are another bad time to get a bus thanks to school children using them, not to mention the 20mph speed limit. I'd agree that the TfL £1.50 off-peak rail fare has played its part in decreasing passengers as well. Why would you spend an hour on a bus crawling just to go 5 miles or go on the Tube/Overground? Ola recently has gained a lot of traction with its cheap introductory fares, I only had to pay £6 from Barking to Greenwich. When this sort of thing is really picking up it's a real rival to the bus which is just getting slower and longer with the amount of links that are being broken. Yes, I used Ola a week ago and paid just over £1 for a 1.5 mile local journey. Those cheap introductory fares can undercut all TfL modes and get you to your destination faster than the bus.
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Post by greenboy on Feb 26, 2020 10:38:20 GMT
My personal view is London don't need fancy liveries, WIFI and leather seats (Most journeys are short, even more so since TfL decided to cut long routes such as the 25). All most people want is a reliable bus service not being regulated every two minutes. As for messy buses did they not start cleaning buses at terminals at one stage or am I making that up. Even if we had fancy buses they would still get dirty just because of the volume of usage. I am old fashion but think these cheap cab fares much like internet shopping are good in the short term but long term won't be able to sustain the prices. The cab stuff is unsustainable, already Ola is looking to get in on Uber's patch if it goes under, but sad to say, it's the young they need to appeal to, and surprisingly the young aren't so keen to buy a car and might car share or get taxis instead. Buses don't need fancy liveries, but the early 2000s and the liveries of the likes of Stagecoach and Metroline at least added something to the blandness we see. TfL think branding is covering everything in their font with Word97 Clipart, lol... whereas the likes of Stagecoach, Arriva, GoAhead have been doing professional branding for years. I guess the operators are handicapped by TfL who wouldn't want too much competition through the branding, so red and naff blinds it is. Unless TfL let go of the reins and allow a smattering of creativity, either with presentation, branding, seating etc., they can't expect the rest of Londoners to give a monkey's... their clinging to nostalgia, prefixed routes with gaps, no advertising of services, no printable brochures or timetables, leaflets is a reason the rot has set in. I hope they lose bus funding and it gets de regulation like elsewhere. They are the BBC of transport... there is too much control, it all started in 2013 with the fixation of WOB blinds, before the speed limits were lowered and it all went to pot The comparison with the BBC is spot on, two organisations stuck in the dark ages and totally out of touch with today's society. The crazy thing is how many ex London buses are modernised by their new owners, seating, WiFi, USB chargers and LED displays. And what happened to the route branding trials in Barkingside and Hayes? If TfL can't get their act together deregulation should be considered, let's have bus people running the show and not politicians.
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Post by vjaska on Feb 26, 2020 12:36:10 GMT
The cab stuff is unsustainable, already Ola is looking to get in on Uber's patch if it goes under, but sad to say, it's the young they need to appeal to, and surprisingly the young aren't so keen to buy a car and might car share or get taxis instead. Buses don't need fancy liveries, but the early 2000s and the liveries of the likes of Stagecoach and Metroline at least added something to the blandness we see. TfL think branding is covering everything in their font with Word97 Clipart, lol... whereas the likes of Stagecoach, Arriva, GoAhead have been doing professional branding for years. I guess the operators are handicapped by TfL who wouldn't want too much competition through the branding, so red and naff blinds it is. Unless TfL let go of the reins and allow a smattering of creativity, either with presentation, branding, seating etc., they can't expect the rest of Londoners to give a monkey's... their clinging to nostalgia, prefixed routes with gaps, no advertising of services, no printable brochures or timetables, leaflets is a reason the rot has set in. I hope they lose bus funding and it gets de regulation like elsewhere. They are the BBC of transport... there is too much control, it all started in 2013 with the fixation of WOB blinds, before the speed limits were lowered and it all went to pot The comparison with the BBC is spot on, two organisations stuck in the dark ages and totally out of touch with today's society. The crazy thing is how many ex London buses are modernised by their new owners, seating, WiFi, USB chargers and LED displays. And what happened to the route branding trials in Barkingside and Hayes? If TfL can't get their act together deregulation should be considered, let's have bus people running the show and not politicians. Because deregulation went so well outside London didn’t it?
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Post by greenboy on Feb 26, 2020 12:41:42 GMT
The comparison with the BBC is spot on, two organisations stuck in the dark ages and totally out of touch with today's society. The crazy thing is how many ex London buses are modernised by their new owners, seating, WiFi, USB chargers and LED displays. And what happened to the route branding trials in Barkingside and Hayes? If TfL can't get their act together deregulation should be considered, let's have bus people running the show and not politicians. Because deregulation went so well outside London didn’t it? Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 26, 2020 13:02:14 GMT
Because deregulation went so well outside London didn’t it? Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working. The thing with deregulation is that companies make money by getting bums on seats. To to that they either need to do it on price or make you desire to travel with them. Currently TfL have no strategy as to how to attract customers to the network, and other than long term potential earnings, there is no incentive for the companies to invest in customer enhancements ... in fact it would be better for them to disincentivise passengers getting on their services. As per rail franchising, the current TfL bus tendering process is broken. Honestly don't know what the answer is to get us out the current stalemate, but if the current regulated environment continues to fail Londoners, then maybe deregulation is something that has to be looked at ... but not something I would be looking to rush into delivering.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2020 13:02:42 GMT
Because deregulation went so well outside London didn’t it? Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working. Maybe in the major cities but other areas have suffered cuts where routes are not profitable. Would be a disaster in London with operators all chasing the profitable routes and fares would have to rise. Cant imagine operators all rushing to run the minor routes like the 549 for example.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 26, 2020 13:07:38 GMT
Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working. Maybe in the major cities but other areas have suffered cuts where routes are not profitable. Would be a disaster in London with operators all chasing the profitable routes and fares would have to rise. Cant imagine operators all rushing to run the minor routes like the 549 for example. You have said that maybe deregulation has been a success in major cities, but would be a disaster for London. London is the major major city of the UK ... so on your original statement it should be a huge success. Other major cities have tendered services, so if the 549 is deemed necessary, there are powers to offer it out as a tendered service. Personally I would like to see services tendered by borough, with TfL, the local borough, and the operator all parties to the contract, with financial incentives to increase passenger numbers. Where routes go through multiple boroughs, the route would go to which one had the largest proportion of the route.
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Post by greenboy on Feb 26, 2020 13:41:18 GMT
Maybe in the major cities but other areas have suffered cuts where routes are not profitable. Would be a disaster in London with operators all chasing the profitable routes and fares would have to rise. Cant imagine operators all rushing to run the minor routes like the 549 for example. You have said that maybe deregulation has been a success in major cities, but would be a disaster for London. London is the major major city of the UK ... so on your original statement it should be a huge success. Other major cities have tendered services, so if the 549 is deemed necessary, there are powers to offer it out as a tendered service. Personally I would like to see services tendered by borough, with TfL, the local borough, and the operator all parties to the contract, with financial incentives to increase passenger numbers. Where routes go through multiple boroughs, the route would go to which one had the largest proportion of the route. Yes there is no reason why deregulation would be any different in London than it is in other major cities, whether that is the ideal solution is another matter but unless somebody can come up with a better option then the spiral of declining bus usage will just continue.
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Post by vjaska on Feb 26, 2020 14:17:42 GMT
Because deregulation went so well outside London didn’t it? Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working. Yet it was London who had roughly 14 years of patronage growth whilst deregulation has seen the rest of the UK's bus travel shrink greatly. Sorry but it's very clear it hasn't worked whilst the London model worked until TfL dropped the ball and the subsidy was messed with. I'd suggest you do a google search where you'll find plenty of articles about the decline outside London - here's one for you to start you off: www.citymetric.com/transport/why-are-britain-s-buses-crisis-falling-passenger-numbers-4130
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Post by greenboy on Feb 26, 2020 14:21:18 GMT
Yes, generally it has and what we've got in London clearly isn't working. Yet it was London who had roughly 14 years of patronage growth whilst deregulation has seen the rest of the UK's bus travel shrink greatly. Sorry but it's very clear it hasn't worked whilst the London model worked until TfL dropped the ball and the subsidy was messed with. I'd suggest you do a google search where you'll find plenty of articles about the decline outside London - here's one for you to start you off: www.citymetric.com/transport/why-are-britain-s-buses-crisis-falling-passenger-numbers-4130And the exact same thing is now happening in London so what's the solution?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2020 14:29:49 GMT
Maybe in the major cities but other areas have suffered cuts where routes are not profitable. Would be a disaster in London with operators all chasing the profitable routes and fares would have to rise. Cant imagine operators all rushing to run the minor routes like the 549 for example. You have said that maybe deregulation has been a success in major cities, but would be a disaster for London. London is the major major city of the UK ... so on your original statement it should be a huge success. Other major cities have tendered services, so if the 549 is deemed necessary, there are powers to offer it out as a tendered service. Personally I would like to see services tendered by borough, with TfL, the local borough, and the operator all parties to the contract, with financial incentives to increase passenger numbers. Where routes go through multiple boroughs, the route would go to which one had the largest proportion of the route. Sorry I wasn't very clear! I was referring more to inner London being attractive and the outer London suburbs left with poor services.
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Post by SILENCED on Feb 26, 2020 14:47:59 GMT
You have said that maybe deregulation has been a success in major cities, but would be a disaster for London. London is the major major city of the UK ... so on your original statement it should be a huge success. Other major cities have tendered services, so if the 549 is deemed necessary, there are powers to offer it out as a tendered service. Personally I would like to see services tendered by borough, with TfL, the local borough, and the operator all parties to the contract, with financial incentives to increase passenger numbers. Where routes go through multiple boroughs, the route would go to which one had the largest proportion of the route. Sorry I wasn't very clear! I was referring more to inner London being attractive and the outer London suburbs left with poor services. But outer London boroughs are bigger than some of the large cities where it has been a success and is not bordered by large rural areas. 14 boroughs have in excess of 300,000 people living in them ... and population density wise, believe they probably exceed virtually every other UK city. Just checked all the top 20 districts with the highest population density are London Boroughs according to 2018 stats.
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Post by snowman on Nov 12, 2020 22:21:56 GMT
Diamond Geezer has analysed routes 18 is busiest, followed by 149, 29, 207, 243, 25, 140, 86, 38, 36, 5, 109, 279, 43 399 least busy, followed by 389, 15H, H3, R10, W10, R5, 385, diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/
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