Bus stations

[CircleLineofLife]

Sept 3, 2022 0:47:08 GMT borneobus said:

Apologies in advance that this is a long post…I recently posted a list of London ‘Bus Stations’ and have subsequently undertaken some analysis that I hope is of some interest to forum members.

There are a number of questions that I’m attempting to answer:

• Bus station with greatest number of operators
• Bus station with the greatest number of routes
• Bus station where in a day you could expect to see the greatest number of individual buses (based on PVR)
• Bus station where you could see buses from the most different garages
• Bus station that is the busiest in terms of bus departures (based on frequency and expressed as “Bus departures per hour”)
• Bus station that has the greatest number of passengers – obviously I don’t have data for this so I’ll attempt to do this subjectively which may initiate a healthy debate!

SCOPE, DATA & METHODOLOGY

• Scope is TfL operated routes (excluding Night and School routes) where the route departs from a bus stop that TfL have designated as “XXX Bus Station”
• Using Bus Stop name as rationale has resulted in the inclusion of some routes where the bus doesn’t physically enter the bus station e.g. 235 at Hounslow and 213 at Kingston (Cromwell Road)
• Above rationale has resulted in the exclusion of routes where the bus does physically enter the bus station but departs without passengers e.g. 222 and others at Hounslow
• Rightly or wrongly, I have included Brent Cross Shopping Centre even though it is not designated by TfL as a “bus station” in terms of bus stop name
• Only bus stations with FIVE or more routes are included, a total of 26: Beckton, Brent Cross, Canada Water, Canning Town, East Croydon, Edgware, Edmonton Green, Hammersmith (consolidation of both levels), Harrow, Heathrow Central, Hounslow, Kingston (Cromwell Road), Kingston (Fairfield Road), North Finchley, Orpington, Peckham, Richmond, Stratford, Stratford City, Tottenham Hale, Turnpike Lane, Vauxhall, Walthamstow, West Croydon, White City & Wimbledon
• Source for PVR, Garage and Frequency is the excellent www.londonbusroutes.net/garages.htm
• “Bus departures per hour” is based on Mon-Sat daytime frequency
• Buses operating non-terminating routes that only operate in one direction via a bus station e.g. 308 at Stratford are counted once
• Buses operating non-terminating routes that operate in both directions via a bus station e.g. 36 at Vauxhall are counted twice
• “Busiest Route” passenger number data from TfL (52 weeks 2020/2021)
• Routes formerly operated by HCT are included as Stagecoach

BUS STATION WITH GREATEST NUMBER OF OPERATORS

The following have four operators:

Brent Cross (Arriva, Go-Ahead, Metroline & RATP)
Heathrow Central (Abellio, Go-Ahead, Metroline & RATP)
Turnpike Lane (Arriva, Go-Ahead, Metroline & Sullivan)
Vauxhall (Abellio, Arriva, Go-Ahead & RATP)
West Croydon (Abellio, Arriva, Go-Ahead & Stagecoach)

Of the remaining 21 bus stations, 13 have three operators and 8 have two operators
If this survey had been conducted just a few weeks ago, Walthamstow at that point had five operators (Arriva, Go-Ahead, HCT, Stagecoach and Tower Transit).

BUS STATION WITH GREATEST NUMBER OF ROUTES

Bus Stations with 10 or more routes are listed below:

Kingston (Cromwell Road) 22 (57/65/71/85/111/131/213/216/281/285/371/406/411/418/465/481/K1/K2/K3/K4/K5)
West Croydon 20 (60/64/75/109/154/157/166/194/198/250/264/289/367/403/407/410/450/455/X26/X68)
Harrow 18 (114/140/182/183/186/223/258/340/395/483/H9/H10/H11/H14/H17/H18/H19/X140)
Edgware 15 (32/79/107/113/142/186/204/221/240/251/288/292/303/340/384)
Hammersmith 15 (9/23/27/72/110/190/211/218/220/267/283/295/306/533/H91)
Stratford 14 (25/69/86/104/158/238/241/257/262/276/308/425/473/D8)
Walthamstow 14 (20/34/55/58/69/212/215/230/257/275/W11/W12/W15/W19)
Brent Cross 13 (102/112/142/143/182/186/189/210/232/266/324/326/C11)
Richmond 13 (33/65/110/190/337/371/419/490/493/969/H37/R68/R70)
Vauxhall 12 (2/36/77/87/88/156/185/196/344/360/436/452)
Edmonton Green 11 (102/144/149/191/192/259/279/349/491/W6/W8)
Hounslow 11 (110/111/117/120/235/237/281/E8/H22/H28/H37)
Orpington 11 (51/358/B14/R1/R3/R4/R5/R6/R8/R9/R10)
Turnpike Lane 10 (121/123/144/184/217/221/231/232/329/444)
White City 10 (31/49/148/207/228/237/260/316/607/C1)

BUS STATION WHERE IN A DAY YOU COULD EXPECT TO SEE THE GREATEST NUMBER OF INDIVIDUAL BUSES

West Croydon (299)
Kingston (Cromwell Road) (284)
Stratford (234)
Vauxhall (228)
Brent Cross (215)
Harrow (213)
Walthamstow (209)
Hammersmith (207)
Edmonton Green (197)
Edgware (192)
Richmond (180)
Hounslow (179)
White City (175)
Turnpike Lane (159)
Canning Town (134)
Canada Water (129)
Peckham (119)
Wimbledon (109)
Heathrow Central (101)
Tottenham Hale (98)
Beckton (97)
East Croydon (97)
North Finchley (88)
Kingston (Fairfield Road) (82)
Stratford City (72)
Orpington (67)

BUS STATIONS WHERE YOU COULD SEE BUSES FROM THE MOST DIFFERENT GARAGES

Hammersmith 9 (AH/AV/QB/RP/S/TF/V/WJ/X)
Stratford 9 (BW/DS/EC/LI/NS/RR/T/SI/WH)
West Croydon 8 (A/BC/C/N/Q/TC/TH/TL)
White City 8 (AC/AH/G/GW/S/W/WJ/X)

Orpington (BX/MB/TB) & Wimbledon (A/AL/QB) routes are operated by just three garages

BUSIEST BUS STATION (BUS DEPARTURES PER HOUR)

Vauxhall (144)
Harrow (132)
West Croydon (124)
Stratford (120)
Hammersmith (112)
Walthamstow (112)
Kingston (Cromwell Road) (107)
Hounslow (104)
Edgware (96)
Edmonton Green (95)
Brent Cross (88)
Canning Town (71)
Richmond (69)
Canada Water (67)
Turnpike Lane (67)
White City (62)
Beckton (61)
Tottenham Hale (54)
Wimbledon (40)
East Croydon (39)
North Finchley (39)
Peckham (38)
Orpington (36)
Heathrow Central (35)
Kingston (Fairfield Road) (31)
Stratford City (28)

BUS STATION THAT IS BUSIEST (PASSENGERS)

These are my thoughts and rationale re Top 10 busiest bus stations (greatest number of passengers) – it’s subjective and included for fun, start a debate and hopefully we can all learn something! Here’s my thoughts for what it’s worth and in my defence I have visited all 26 bus stations at least once in the last couple of years.

1 STATFORD - Passenger feed from busiest UK Rail station in 2021 + additional feed from LU/DLR – local shopping centre + Westfield - 6th & 7th busiest routes (86 & 25) – solely DD except 276
2 HARROW – UK Rail, LU, St Ann’s Shopping Centre, key interchange for all routes in area e.g. X140 feeding local routes to north and west of Harrow - operating to/from here are 15th busiest route (140), 16th busiest route (182), 19th busiest route (183) and 25th busiest route (114)
3 WEST CROYDON – UK Rail and Tram Stop / 9th busiest route (109) stops northbound serving Thornton Heath, Streatham and Brixton on busy High Road
4 VAUXHALL – UK Rail, LU and interchange into Central London and South London – many through routes - 10th busiest route (36) and 20th busiest route (185) – solely DD except 360
5 EDMONTON GREEN – UK Rail / 2nd & 4th busiest routes (149 & 279) - bus station key transportation hub in area 
6 CANNING TOWN – Busy LU & DLR station that feeds Stratford, Canary Wharf, Waterloo and London City Airport (LCY) – 5th busiest route (5)
7 HAMMERSMITH – LU – Key west London interchange feeding both Hammersmith LU stations and vice versa
8 KINGSTON (Cromwell Road) – Proximity to UK Rail and hub for all bus services north to Ealing and Putney, east to Wimbledon and south into Surrey
9 BRENT CROSS – Sole public transport option for Brent Cross Shopping Centre (employees and shoppers)
10 WALTHAMSTOW – LU and London Overground connections and location near to busy High Road

AND FINALLY..

For context I list below comparable data for two of my favourite locations to watch buses in London which I also think are the busiest namely Elephant and Castle (by the LU station) and Aldwych (by Pret next to the road that heads south to Waterloo Bridge)

Elephant & Castle
Operators 6
Routes 28
PVR 537
Garages 13
Bus Dep per Hour 303

Aldwych
Operators 6
Routes 19
PVR 359
Garages 15
Bus Dep per Hour 227

If you’ve got this far – will done!

Hello, very interesting read. I was at Uxbridge the other day, the bus station is having works done to it. TfL have labelled Uxbridge a bus station and would therefore count it in the this.

I believe only metroline and abellio routes run there. RATP used to as well until the 222 changed. It was also great to see that the U5 have the same bus model as the 63. The garages that oerate are the Hayes, Southall, Greenford and Uxbridge and Uxbridge industrial estate, where the overflow buses are stored. There are non-tfl routes but have not included them.

Then we got the routes: 222, 331, 427, 607, A10, U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U7, U9, U10. Most buses in the Hillingdon borough usually go to Uxbridge. U1 was the only bus connecting the north and south of the borough until 278 came in. The transport hub of the borough, with Heathrow and Hatton Cross bus stations serving different purposes.

[ronnie]

After having used North Greenwich extensively in the past year and half (ever since I moved south of the river), I can’t help but feel that this was a lost opportunity

- there was literally a clean slate to start with. Instead, I find the layout quite cramped and user unfriendly
- for starters, the exit / entry onto Edmund Halley way is an unnecessary bottleneck. Why have a 3-way signal with tight left / right turns when you could have easily made a better entry / exit using the big mini roundabout? Just leads to a long queue at exit
- overall very tight with barely enough space for a bus to squeeze through between parked buses and any bus dropping passengers at stop E (the alighting only point); or for that matter buses driving past stops A, B, C when a bus is picking up passengers. As often happens you get multiple buses entering at the same time leading to a queue of buses waiting to reach stop E, thus delaying buses which want to depart. The turn itself is very tight if there are buses already at stop E
- limited space for parking. If the stands near stop E (both sides) are already full then a bus has to leave the station and re-enter. Unfortunately the U-turn at the exit / entry is too tight, and buses have to reverse (do a 3-point turn) to re-enter
- the curved nature of the road means you can’t see any of the stops when you exit the tube station (barring stop D which is only used by the 132 which gets rammed during peaks). Somehow I find the layout very annoying as if you miss one you just can’t figure out if it’s worthwhile going to stop or not (esp for me I have a choice between the 132 and 335 and you can’t see one from the other). A straight line would have made life so much easier

Frankly the entrance from millennium way is under used and should probably become entry only with the other exit becoming exit only

[wirewiper]

Sept 7, 2022 9:02:56 GMT ronnie said:

After having used North Greenwich extensively in the past year and half (ever since I moved south of the river), I can’t help but feel that this was a lost opportunity

- there was literally a clean slate to start with. Instead, I find the layout quite cramped and user unfriendly
- for starters, the exit / entry onto Edmund Halley way is an unnecessary bottleneck. Why have a 3-way signal with tight left / right turns when you could have easily made a better entry / exit using the big mini roundabout? Just leads to a long queue at exit
- overall very tight with barely enough space for a bus to squeeze through between parked buses and any bus dropping passengers at stop E (the alighting only point); or for that matter buses driving past stops A, B, C when a bus is picking up passengers. As often happens you get multiple buses entering at the same time leading to a queue of buses waiting to reach stop E, thus delaying buses which want to depart. The turn itself is very tight if there are buses already at stop E
- limited space for parking. If the stands near stop E (both sides) are already full then a bus has to leave the station and re-enter. Unfortunately the U-turn at the exit / entry is too tight, and buses have to reverse (do a 3-point turn) to re-enter
- the curved nature of the road means you can’t see any of the stops when you exit the tube station (barring stop D which is only used by the 132 which gets rammed during peaks). Somehow I find the layout very annoying as if you miss one you just can’t figure out if it’s worthwhile going to stop or not (esp for me I have a choice between the 132 and 335 and you can’t see one from the other). A straight line would have made life so much easier

Frankly the entrance from millennium way is under used and should probably become entry only with the other exit becoming exit only

A possible issue is that North Greenwich Bus Station may be handling more passengers and buses than it was designed for, based on passenger numbers and frequencies of the early 1990s, and assumptions at the time about future population growth and travel patterns. 

I also suspect that abolishing fare zones on buses, and poor rail services in the surrounding area, has driven some modal shift towards buses feeding into North Greenwich. 

[borneobus]

Sept 6, 2022 14:00:57 GMT CircleLineofLife said:

Sept 3, 2022 0:47:08 GMT borneobus said:

Apologies in advance that this is a long post…I recently posted a list of London ‘Bus Stations’ and have subsequently undertaken some analysis that I hope is of some interest to forum members.

There are a number of questions that I’m attempting to answer:

• Bus station with greatest number of operators
• Bus station with the greatest number of routes
• Bus station where in a day you could expect to see the greatest number of individual buses (based on PVR)
• Bus station where you could see buses from the most different garages
• Bus station that is the busiest in terms of bus departures (based on frequency and expressed as “Bus departures per hour”)
• Bus station that has the greatest number of passengers – obviously I don’t have data for this so I’ll attempt to do this subjectively which may initiate a healthy debate!

SCOPE, DATA & METHODOLOGY

• Scope is TfL operated routes (excluding Night and School routes) where the route departs from a bus stop that TfL have designated as “XXX Bus Station”
• Using Bus Stop name as rationale has resulted in the inclusion of some routes where the bus doesn’t physically enter the bus station e.g. 235 at Hounslow and 213 at Kingston (Cromwell Road)
• Above rationale has resulted in the exclusion of routes where the bus does physically enter the bus station but departs without passengers e.g. 222 and others at Hounslow
• Rightly or wrongly, I have included Brent Cross Shopping Centre even though it is not designated by TfL as a “bus station” in terms of bus stop name
• Only bus stations with FIVE or more routes are included, a total of 26: Beckton, Brent Cross, Canada Water, Canning Town, East Croydon, Edgware, Edmonton Green, Hammersmith (consolidation of both levels), Harrow, Heathrow Central, Hounslow, Kingston (Cromwell Road), Kingston (Fairfield Road), North Finchley, Orpington, Peckham, Richmond, Stratford, Stratford City, Tottenham Hale, Turnpike Lane, Vauxhall, Walthamstow, West Croydon, White City & Wimbledon
• Source for PVR, Garage and Frequency is the excellent www.londonbusroutes.net/garages.htm
• “Bus departures per hour” is based on Mon-Sat daytime frequency
• Buses operating non-terminating routes that only operate in one direction via a bus station e.g. 308 at Stratford are counted once
• Buses operating non-terminating routes that operate in both directions via a bus station e.g. 36 at Vauxhall are counted twice
• “Busiest Route” passenger number data from TfL (52 weeks 2020/2021)
• Routes formerly operated by HCT are included as Stagecoach

BUS STATION WITH GREATEST NUMBER OF OPERATORS

The following have four operators:

Brent Cross (Arriva, Go-Ahead, Metroline & RATP)
Heathrow Central (Abellio, Go-Ahead, Metroline & RATP)
Turnpike Lane (Arriva, Go-Ahead, Metroline & Sullivan)
Vauxhall (Abellio, Arriva, Go-Ahead & RATP)
West Croydon (Abellio, Arriva, Go-Ahead & Stagecoach)

Of the remaining 21 bus stations, 13 have three operators and 8 have two operators
If this survey had been conducted just a few weeks ago, Walthamstow at that point had five operators (Arriva, Go-Ahead, HCT, Stagecoach and Tower Transit).

BUS STATION WITH GREATEST NUMBER OF ROUTES

Bus Stations with 10 or more routes are listed below:

Kingston (Cromwell Road) 22 (57/65/71/85/111/131/213/216/281/285/371/406/411/418/465/481/K1/K2/K3/K4/K5)
West Croydon 20 (60/64/75/109/154/157/166/194/198/250/264/289/367/403/407/410/450/455/X26/X68)
Harrow 18 (114/140/182/183/186/223/258/340/395/483/H9/H10/H11/H14/H17/H18/H19/X140)
Edgware 15 (32/79/107/113/142/186/204/221/240/251/288/292/303/340/384)
Hammersmith 15 (9/23/27/72/110/190/211/218/220/267/283/295/306/533/H91)
Stratford 14 (25/69/86/104/158/238/241/257/262/276/308/425/473/D8)
Walthamstow 14 (20/34/55/58/69/212/215/230/257/275/W11/W12/W15/W19)
Brent Cross 13 (102/112/142/143/182/186/189/210/232/266/324/326/C11)
Richmond 13 (33/65/110/190/337/371/419/490/493/969/H37/R68/R70)
Vauxhall 12 (2/36/77/87/88/156/185/196/344/360/436/452)
Edmonton Green 11 (102/144/149/191/192/259/279/349/491/W6/W8)
Hounslow 11 (110/111/117/120/235/237/281/E8/H22/H28/H37)
Orpington 11 (51/358/B14/R1/R3/R4/R5/R6/R8/R9/R10)
Turnpike Lane 10 (121/123/144/184/217/221/231/232/329/444)
White City 10 (31/49/148/207/228/237/260/316/607/C1)

BUS STATION WHERE IN A DAY YOU COULD EXPECT TO SEE THE GREATEST NUMBER OF INDIVIDUAL BUSES

West Croydon (299)
Kingston (Cromwell Road) (284)
Stratford (234)
Vauxhall (228)
Brent Cross (215)
Harrow (213)
Walthamstow (209)
Hammersmith (207)
Edmonton Green (197)
Edgware (192)
Richmond (180)
Hounslow (179)
White City (175)
Turnpike Lane (159)
Canning Town (134)
Canada Water (129)
Peckham (119)
Wimbledon (109)
Heathrow Central (101)
Tottenham Hale (98)
Beckton (97)
East Croydon (97)
North Finchley (88)
Kingston (Fairfield Road) (82)
Stratford City (72)
Orpington (67)

BUS STATIONS WHERE YOU COULD SEE BUSES FROM THE MOST DIFFERENT GARAGES

Hammersmith 9 (AH/AV/QB/RP/S/TF/V/WJ/X)
Stratford 9 (BW/DS/EC/LI/NS/RR/T/SI/WH)
West Croydon 8 (A/BC/C/N/Q/TC/TH/TL)
White City 8 (AC/AH/G/GW/S/W/WJ/X)

Orpington (BX/MB/TB) & Wimbledon (A/AL/QB) routes are operated by just three garages

BUSIEST BUS STATION (BUS DEPARTURES PER HOUR)

Vauxhall (144)
Harrow (132)
West Croydon (124)
Stratford (120)
Hammersmith (112)
Walthamstow (112)
Kingston (Cromwell Road) (107)
Hounslow (104)
Edgware (96)
Edmonton Green (95)
Brent Cross (88)
Canning Town (71)
Richmond (69)
Canada Water (67)
Turnpike Lane (67)
White City (62)
Beckton (61)
Tottenham Hale (54)
Wimbledon (40)
East Croydon (39)
North Finchley (39)
Peckham (38)
Orpington (36)
Heathrow Central (35)
Kingston (Fairfield Road) (31)
Stratford City (28)

BUS STATION THAT IS BUSIEST (PASSENGERS)

These are my thoughts and rationale re Top 10 busiest bus stations (greatest number of passengers) – it’s subjective and included for fun, start a debate and hopefully we can all learn something! Here’s my thoughts for what it’s worth and in my defence I have visited all 26 bus stations at least once in the last couple of years.

1 STATFORD - Passenger feed from busiest UK Rail station in 2021 + additional feed from LU/DLR – local shopping centre + Westfield - 6th & 7th busiest routes (86 & 25) – solely DD except 276
2 HARROW – UK Rail, LU, St Ann’s Shopping Centre, key interchange for all routes in area e.g. X140 feeding local routes to north and west of Harrow - operating to/from here are 15th busiest route (140), 16th busiest route (182), 19th busiest route (183) and 25th busiest route (114)
3 WEST CROYDON – UK Rail and Tram Stop / 9th busiest route (109) stops northbound serving Thornton Heath, Streatham and Brixton on busy High Road
4 VAUXHALL – UK Rail, LU and interchange into Central London and South London – many through routes - 10th busiest route (36) and 20th busiest route (185) – solely DD except 360
5 EDMONTON GREEN – UK Rail / 2nd & 4th busiest routes (149 & 279) - bus station key transportation hub in area 
6 CANNING TOWN – Busy LU & DLR station that feeds Stratford, Canary Wharf, Waterloo and London City Airport (LCY) – 5th busiest route (5)
7 HAMMERSMITH – LU – Key west London interchange feeding both Hammersmith LU stations and vice versa
8 KINGSTON (Cromwell Road) – Proximity to UK Rail and hub for all bus services north to Ealing and Putney, east to Wimbledon and south into Surrey
9 BRENT CROSS – Sole public transport option for Brent Cross Shopping Centre (employees and shoppers)
10 WALTHAMSTOW – LU and London Overground connections and location near to busy High Road

AND FINALLY..

For context I list below comparable data for two of my favourite locations to watch buses in London which I also think are the busiest namely Elephant and Castle (by the LU station) and Aldwych (by Pret next to the road that heads south to Waterloo Bridge)

Elephant & Castle
Operators 6
Routes 28
PVR 537
Garages 13
Bus Dep per Hour 303

Aldwych
Operators 6
Routes 19
PVR 359
Garages 15
Bus Dep per Hour 227

If you’ve got this far – will done!

Hello, very interesting read. I was at Uxbridge the other day, the bus station is having works done to it. TfL have labelled Uxbridge a bus station and would therefore count it in the this.

I believe only metroline and abellio routes run there. RATP used to as well until the 222 changed. It was also great to see that the U5 have the same bus model as the 63. The garages that oerate are the Hayes, Southall, Greenford and Uxbridge and Uxbridge industrial estate, where the overflow buses are stored. There are non-tfl routes but have not included them.

Then we got the routes: 222, 331, 427, 607, A10, U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U7, U9, U10. Most buses in the Hillingdon borough usually go to Uxbridge. U1 was the only bus connecting the north and south of the borough until 278 came in. The transport hub of the borough, with Heathrow and Hatton Cross bus stations serving different purposes.

Thanks and interesting about UX - I didn't include Uxbridge as TfL have designated the bus stops as 'Uxbridge Station'. Re your comments "TfL have labelled Uxbridge a bus station and would therefore count it in the this." I have just checked the TfL website and they quote "It is also responsible for around 50 bus stations and more than 19,000 bus stops." but I cannot find a list of the 50 bus stations - am I looking in the wrong place?! Have taken a ride on the 63 from KX to Peckham and a number of U5 rides and really impressed with the customer experience on these new Abellio electrics.