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Post by cl54 on Oct 15, 2024 6:18:57 GMT
Smart blinds are significantly cheaper over the London life of a bus IF a maintenance contract is taken out. This covers updates and repairs. Unfortunately most operators have chosen not to take out the contract and McKenna has been forced to reduce the number of maintenance crews which has impacted the service. But in reality how often does a bus stay at one garage for its entire London life? Yes bus blinds can be left in bus when they move and have inserts added (Like they did with the SL2 at DX) but the reality buses need frequent blind updates.
I do struggle to see how blinds can work out cheaper but will have to take your word on this.
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) |
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Oct 15, 2024 6:36:27 GMT
But in reality how often does a bus stay at one garage for its entire London life? Yes bus blinds can be left in bus when they move and have inserts added (Like they did with the SL2 at DX) but the reality buses need frequent blind updates.
I do struggle to see how blinds can work out cheaper but will have to take your word on this.
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) McKenna's however would have overinflated the cost of a Smartblind as they were the only manufacturer. |
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Post by greenboy on Oct 15, 2024 6:48:03 GMT
But in reality how often does a bus stay at one garage for its entire London life? Yes bus blinds can be left in bus when they move and have inserts added (Like they did with the SL2 at DX) but the reality buses need frequent blind updates.
I do struggle to see how blinds can work out cheaper but will have to take your word on this.
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) Whether that figure is correct or not the fact that the rest of the country switched to LED displays long ago really says it all. |
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Post by cl54 on Oct 15, 2024 7:11:03 GMT
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) McKenna's however would have overinflated the cost of a Smartblind as they were the only manufacturer. That doesn't affect the calculation. LED displays are much more expensive and haven't been without problems. |
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Post by greenboy on Oct 15, 2024 7:19:11 GMT
McKenna's however would have overinflated the cost of a Smartblind as they were the only manufacturer. That doesn't affect the calculation. LED displays are much more expensive and haven't been without problems. What problems? They work fine everywhere else. |
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Post by WH241 on Oct 15, 2024 8:43:05 GMT
But in reality how often does a bus stay at one garage for its entire London life? Yes bus blinds can be left in bus when they move and have inserts added (Like they did with the SL2 at DX) but the reality buses need frequent blind updates.
I do struggle to see how blinds can work out cheaper but will have to take your word on this.
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) But if say a bus moves from WH to BK they wouldn’t add inserts to the existing set, they would instead remove the blinds and fit a BK set. Inserts only really work like with the DX garage example where they added the SL2 to an older blind set that was in the HAs when they moved. |
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Post by cl54 on Oct 15, 2024 16:09:35 GMT
As I said the maintenance contract covers updates so garage moves are included. The cost of the LED displays is roughly 4 times the cost of smart blinds with a maintenance contract over the London life of a bus. (McKenna's do both so they know the figures.) But if say a bus moves from WH to BK they wouldn’t add inserts to the existing set, they would instead remove the blinds and fit a BK set. Inserts only really work like with the DX garage example where they added the SL2 to an older blind set that was in the HAs when they moved. Changing the blind sets comes under maintenance. |
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Post by matthieu1221 on Oct 15, 2024 16:36:32 GMT
I'd say they also had their own LED product (they are even doing a colour version now on their site) and want to move away from being the face of outdated London tech. A bit like how Matt Le Blanc wanted to shake off the "Joey from Friends" tag when he fronted Top Gear a few years ago. (could also draw parallels with Sir David Jason and Del Boy)  Even Leon Daniels experimented with E-Paper on TE1224 at Metroline around 2015 which was the forerunner to what we have now. When you've been on a bus with torn blinds or faded ones, you'll appreciate LED's. Granted, some fail (see the 276 and W7 batch) but overall, it's crisp and easy to see. The buses on the 204 are far superior to the regulars on Wembley High Road, for instance  I think the first LED's that Stagecoach had on the Smarts were good, although initially the destinations were a little large but it all looks good now Faded Smart blinds look dreadful. The 486s Es were the worst offenders some of the buses on the 118 as well. Example when driving today two buses were chasing each other down Norwood Road the one with LEDs I could see what route it was from a distance the smart blind bus I could not until it was closer. Phasing LEDs in slowly is a good move as these will also come with regular maintenance required so Hanover & McKennas will be regularly visiting garages. Overall LEDs should have been introduced a long time ago… Maintenance of smart blinds across operators seems to have taken a nosedive recently... couldn't believe it on Oxford Street this weekend that every 94 I saw with smart blinds had the misfortune of not being lit up (bulb broken?) -- night and day, literally, with the ones running with LEDs. I know it's been 4 years since the BYDs were introduced to the route, but that's still decently new and deserves to be kept maintained... used to be a common occurrence on the 476's B9TLs towards the very end but well... that was towards the very end of them on the route.
And that's without mentioning the side, and more often, back blinds on LTs which have been mentioned frequently here as of late.
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Post by ServerKing on Oct 15, 2024 17:30:03 GMT
McKenna's however would have overinflated the cost of a Smartblind as they were the only manufacturer. That doesn't affect the calculation. LED displays are much more expensive and haven't been without problems. All tech has problems. Smartblinds are very limited, they jam and tear... but LEDs can break too as they are essentially custom made monitors / screens, pixellation (interface and software driver glitches)... but aside from the off missing LED dot in commonplace matrix type LEDs outside London, the tech is quite robust and versatile, all programmed via a USB thumb drive. "Expensive" LEDs would allow a bus to come off shift for instance from the 294 and following transfer or "cheeky borrow", to coin a W4/318 phrase, go out on the 145 with no faff of swapping out smart blind sets (which still need setting via USB drive)  |
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Post by adl on Oct 15, 2024 19:17:39 GMT
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Post by exbox on Oct 16, 2024 1:38:09 GMT
Do Stagecoach EV's need to have a break or something on Sundays ? Notice on Sundays there are more Diesels/Hybrids out on EV routes , 173 always has a few see today the 86 has a Evoseti out on it and 323 usually has a real E200 running and the 174 is nearly full Diesel today ? As you say Sundays are really bad which always seems a little odd to me. I have read a few different things here such as the 173 has more diesels out on Sundays so that electric buses are charged for the Monday run out, that don't make sense to me as they manage fine the rest of week unless I am missing something?
The Sunday issue seems to really only affect Stagecoach unless this happen at other operators?
My hunch is that it’s something to do with parking and buses being blocked in on Sundays - a problem which wouldn’t occur Mon-Sat. |
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Post by garagesupervisor on Oct 16, 2024 8:24:38 GMT
Any dates for when the electrics are going to move from ash Grove to Romford and Catford?
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Post by capitalomnibus on Oct 16, 2024 9:31:55 GMT
Hardly shocking the 86 uses a different O’Licence to the rest of the routes so could potentially get fined so shouldn’t be on the route… LI could put in some signs over the windows that this bus is on hire to (Insert garage/operator) like LI did on the Scanias that was on loan from WH for the first few days of the 97 at LI. I do not think there is a requirement to have the on hire signs anymore even though some operators still do this. |
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Post by capitalomnibus on Oct 16, 2024 9:39:56 GMT
47 getting Electroliner for temporary what's going happened to E400mmc B5LH buses. Been better 128 to use Electroliner inter mix with 128 and 247 86 at NS Maybe 128 was not used as it does not directly go past the garage, easier to sub the bus on the 247 for this reason. |
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Post by capitalomnibus on Oct 16, 2024 9:44:37 GMT
The Screens on Route 199 are now showing more useful information never seen this before. It's nice to see that the ibus is moving to a more train/tube style of notices on the board. My only question is if its stuck in traffic would it update live time or go by how the standard journey would take to get to the next stop. I believe it takes its feed from ibus so would update timings as what controllers would see on estimated prediction on what the bus would do in terms of traffic and how the bus ahead went. |
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