helps when you aren't paying attention, and when the visability is low... it also helps when you don't know an area and you have been directed to a specific stop... if i had friends who didn't know where i lived i'd tell them to get off at my local stop which is now announced, simple... sort of like how you tell someone which train station to get off at...
Bighat why are you so negative about it... it's a useful device and worthwhile even if it only benefits 20% of London's bus users...
Funny that, when it is ME expressing an
opinion (and I DID make it VERY clear it WAS an opinion), I am accused of being negative. I will give my reasons further on.
When it is ME criticising, not negativity, but often downright ignorance or stupidity, I am vilified. One member even frequently resorts to personal abuse, both by PM and posts!
Mind you, that merely proves that he is incapable of defending or explaining what he posts, sad!
However, you have asked a question, courteously, so I will be more than happy to explain WHY I take the stance that I do over iBus.
Over the years, I have seen numerous, and no doubt expensive, attempts by TfL (and before it LTE) to provide a better 'service' to the travelling public on our buses.
I think it is generally agreed that certainly before 1970 (when the Central Area/Country area concept was dismantled), LT was considered as doing a 'good job' in the standardised way it kept the public informed.
This meant in the presentation on information ON vehicles (informative destination blinds, in-bus route information advertising), standardised vehicles specific to the needs of London, publicity material (bus maps, bus stop information, press advertising) and the like.
It wasn't perfect, but it DID get the message out, and was reasonably cost effective.
Then came one person operation and fare collection. Suddenly, LT and its masters decided that conductors HAD to go, and started ordering huge fleets of off-the-peg vehicles, many fitted with space consuming fare collection devices, without consulting the representatives of the people most affected by all this, the operating staff, and of greater importance (at the time), the unions.
The fiasco that followed is well documented. The fare collection equipment was untried and untested, turned out to be causing the delays which it was 'designed' to eliminate, and was soon ripped out. The financial loss as a result of this 'experiment' must have been horrendous.
Then, after purchasing 700 odd single deck vehicles for OPO, an agreement WAS reached with the unions for OPO in double deck vehicles, whereas previously it had only been agreed for single deck.
Suddenly, 700 vehicles were now 'surplus' to requirement. These were hurriedly withdrawn and stored on an old airfield north of London (Radlett, former home of the government bankrupted Handley Page Aircraft, but THAT is another story!).
No Ensignbus in those days (who disposed of the Daimler double deckers at Purfleet some years later), so ANOTHER huge loss to LT, having to dispose of 700 vehicles not fit for purpose, and many only a couple of years old.
So now we see the entry into service of the Titan and Metro 'deckers, all originally fitted with the pay driver/pay conductor 'flaps' on the front.
Probably relatively not a great cost here, but again an indication of the indecision and failure to plan ahead, let alone think through what was happening, and was was intended to happen.
Result, bemusement and confusion to the travelling public, yet again!
Then we come to privitisation. Accepting that it was inevitable (and many, including myself, did not), I think it is fair to say that the model here was the best possible in the circumstances, and has worked reasonably well so far.
With the advent of TfL, we have another (unwanted?) managerial level imposed, and during the stewardship of TfL have seen standards fall, not only as a general concept, but also because TfL do not seem to be able to make their mind up in the first place, or change it so often, and idea implemented one day is changed a few months later.
To cite a couple of examples, destination blinds and colour schemes.
Destination blinds had for fifty years been in Johnson (spelling?)font, known, cheap (invented in-house), clear and informative. Suddenly all that goes out of the window. Firstly, we suddenly see a shift to final destination only displays, then we move to lower case, try out 'new Johnson', then back to 'with' via points.
No sooner had one system been introduced, TfL then allowed another! Result, total confusion, and more important, total lack of standardisation.
Colour schemes, here immediately after privitisation, we had a free-for-all. It produced some interesting and varied (and to the enthusiast anyway) colours on the streets of London. Probably the most publicised was the delicate scheme of Grey Green on the route 24 in central London.
Then TfL come under pressure from Government, and introduce a 80% red rule. This does not happen overnight, as it only applies to 'new' vehicles. So we now see red with 'cow horns' or coloured skirts, stripes and swirls and so on.
Result, after a couple of years NOTHING matches or fits, result (except to the enthusiast), total confusion. Then we go up to 90% red, all change once again.
During all this we hear of 'Countdown', and bus shelters (where provided) start to sprout Undergound style frequency displays.
Never seemed to get off the ground in my part of London, but now seems to be dead elsewhere. At what cost I wonder?
And now iBus. Excuse my cynicism, but given all the other failings of TfL and its masters enumerated above, I fear the worst.
Leaving out all the 'fantasy' posts on this forum, it is becoming alarmingly clear that, in its present for at least, it is not (yet) fully fit for purpose.
I have seen
nothing about the cost of it either, and where ultimately the cost will fall. Yes, I know it will eventually be paid by the passenger, but in the meantime, is it funded by TfL, or do the operating companies have to shell out too.
The down time, float vehicles and movement costs surely ARE bourne by the latter, and if that is coming off the bottom line of their operating costs, will they endeavour to recoup it elsewhere? Will it effect maintenance expenditure, pay settlements and so on.
So to sumarise, basically I do not TRUST to rely on TfL to have thought this through fully, to ensure that the product now being introduced is fit for purpose.
Given the myriad of reported faults thus far, IS it fixable, and if so, at what cost?
We have not even got 100% roll out yet either, so given the problems, too much too soon?
Finally, you YOURSELF suggest it will only be of use to 20% of the travelling public. Is that 20% a statistic, an educated guess, a figure pulled out of the air, or what?
Me, I have given multiple reasons WHY I am concerned that this will become ANOTHER
white elephant, another financial burden based on no more than a TfL 'whim', but most of all, I DO NOT LIKE THE INTRUSION it causes to me as a passenger. And THAT is a personal opinion!
Hope that answers your question! ;D