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Post by snoggle on Apr 6, 2013 8:03:46 GMT
What are these problems with Tramlink that people are mentioning, is it something to do with the cutting back of the 54 & 353? Various routes were reconfigured for the introduction of Tramlink, though the 54 and 353 were two of the major victims. I'm not quite sure the full extent of what happened but there were a lot of changes. From memory the main whinges were losing the 130 and the cut to the 54. There were other moans too but I am not sure I see what the problem is although I am not a local. New Addington is the only part of London with through ticketing between trams and buses so people pay once for a through trip. It's evident that the trams are popular given they're so full and TfL have had to enhance services. The 54 was botched because the stop arrangements at Elmers End prevented a simple transfer and there's no through ticketing. The interchange was eventually improved but so many years later that any potential interchange traffic will have been lost. New Addington has retained several bus links to Croydon so has an alternative if there are problems with the trams - you wouldn't get that on the continent! I suspect there were lots of moans if someone said "let's close the Tramlink service and give you back the 130 bus"! |
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Post by DT 11 on Apr 6, 2013 8:06:51 GMT
Various routes were reconfigured for the introduction of Tramlink, though the 54 and 353 were two of the major victims. I'm not quite sure the full extent of what happened but there were a lot of changes. From memory the main whinges were losing the 130 and the cut to the 54. There were other moans too but I am not sure I see what the problem is although I am not a local. New Addington is the only part of London with through ticketing between trams and buses so people pay once for a through trip. It's evident that the trams are popular given they're so full and TfL have had to enhance services. The 54 was botched because the stop arrangements at Elmers End prevented a simple transfer and there's no through ticketing. The interchange was eventually improved but so many years later that any potential interchange traffic will have been lost. New Addington has retained several bus links to Croydon so has an alternative if there are problems with the trams - you wouldn't get that on the continent! I suspect there were lots of moans if someone said "let's close the Tramlink service and give you back the 130 bus"! The opening of Elmers End Interchange was the best thing that happened to the 54. |
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Post by vjaska on Apr 6, 2013 9:21:23 GMT
The 466 covers most of the old 130 - only the New Addington to Addington Village & West Croydon to East Croydon sections went though you've got the 64 & the tram which serve West Croydon & New Addington. The new 130 also opened up new links between Norwood Junction & the rest of the route and is well used. As for the 54, the 289 duplicated it as far as Cherry Orchard Road & the cut back of the 54 allowed its reliability to improve at the Woolwich end of the route. Very few people seem to change from tram to the 54 - they either seem to live local or get the overhead train. The old 354 should of been left to run alongside Lloyd Park though.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2013 10:28:09 GMT
What are these problems with Tramlink that people are mentioning, is it something to do with the cutting back of the 54 & 353? That is exactly it and the loss of a direct service between Croydon and Orpington/Woolwich |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2013 11:11:36 GMT
Various routes were reconfigured for the introduction of Tramlink, though the 54 and 353 were two of the major victims. I'm not quite sure the full extent of what happened but there were a lot of changes. From memory the main whinges were losing the 130 and the cut to the 54. There were other moans too but I am not sure I see what the problem is although I am not a local. New Addington is the only part of London with through ticketing between trams and buses so people pay once for a through trip. It's evident that the trams are popular given they're so full and TfL have had to enhance services. The 54 was botched because the stop arrangements at Elmers End prevented a simple transfer and there's no through ticketing. The interchange was eventually improved but so many years later that any potential interchange traffic will have been lost. New Addington has retained several bus links to Croydon so has an alternative if there are problems with the trams - you wouldn't get that on the continent! I suspect there were lots of moans if someone said "let's close the Tramlink service and give you back the 130 bus"! I don't think anybody is suggesting closing Tramlink but people who used to have a direct bus to Croydon are unimpressed at having to change at Addington Village, particularly in the wind and rain and a longer overall journey time as well. The T32 is due for withdrawl because of poor useage. Extending the 466 into New Addington to replace the T32 would solve most of the complaints. The revamped 130 now gives a useful link to Norwood Junction or at least it will do if the problem with Spring Lane bridge is ever sorted out, the long winded diversion must put a lot of people off using it? |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2013 11:19:14 GMT
The 466 covers most of the old 130 - only the New Addington to Addington Village & West Croydon to East Croydon sections went though you've got the 64 & the tram which serve West Croydon & New Addington. The new 130 also opened up new links between Norwood Junction & the rest of the route and is well used. As for the 54, the 289 duplicated it as far as Cherry Orchard Road & the cut back of the 54 allowed its reliability to improve at the Woolwich end of the route. Very few people seem to change from tram to the 54 - they either seem to live local or get the overhead train. The old 354 should of been left to run alongside Lloyd Park though. The northern end of the route has support from the 53 and 422. The southern section, however, is fairly unique. There's now no door-to-door link from Beckenham and surrounding areas to Croydon, you have to wander down and get on the tram. Bellingham similarly lost a link to Croydon, and everything north of Lewisham was no longer linked to Croydon. The 289 uses single deckers and can sometimes have trouble coping. As for the 353 I can't see why that was cut at all. Orpington - Croydon link would be very useful, and was established for that reason. A change in the middle of nowhere (Addington Village, essentially a floating interchange surrounded by main roads) is not ideal. Yes as you say the single deck 289 often struggles to cope and why it wasn't double decked on retender only TfL will know. Far better to have axed the 289 and left the 54 as it was, Woolwich to West Croydon. Whilst the 75 still links Catford/Lewisham to Croydon but many areas lost their direct link to Croydon and as somebody mentioned very few people seem to change from bus to tram and vice versa at Elmers End because it is too long winded. Likewise the 353, Metrobus established the very useful link between Orpington and Croydon but all their good work was undone when it was cut back to Addington Village. Apart from the time consuming inconvenience of changing the 353 took a more direct route than Tramlink does into Croydon so it would have been generally quicker anyway. |
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Post by vjaska on Apr 6, 2013 12:07:41 GMT
The northern end of the route has support from the 53 and 422. The southern section, however, is fairly unique. There's now no door-to-door link from Beckenham and surrounding areas to Croydon, you have to wander down and get on the tram. Bellingham similarly lost a link to Croydon, and everything north of Lewisham was no longer linked to Croydon. The 289 uses single deckers and can sometimes have trouble coping. As for the 353 I can't see why that was cut at all. Orpington - Croydon link would be very useful, and was established for that reason. A change in the middle of nowhere (Addington Village, essentially a floating interchange surrounded by main roads) is not ideal. Yes as you say the single deck 289 often struggles to cope and why it wasn't double decked on retender only TfL will know. Far better to have axed the 289 and left the 54 as it was, Woolwich to West Croydon. Whilst the 75 still links Catford/Lewisham to Croydon but many areas lost their direct link to Croydon and as somebody mentioned very few people seem to change from bus to tram and vice versa at Elmers End because it is too long winded. Likewise the 353, Metrobus established the very useful link between Orpington and Croydon but all their good work was undone when it was cut back to Addington Village. Apart from the time consuming inconvenience of changing the 353 took a more direct route than Tramlink does into Croydon so it would have been generally quicker anyway. Even if the 54 was brought back, I still wouldn't axe the 289 but maybe a diversion elsewhere could work instead. The only reason I say this is that the 289 would still be overloaded west of West Croydon and currently provides a unique east to west link along with the 410 and there are a serious lack of east to west links across South London - the 37, 157 & 410 probably being the only true ones. I agree though, why it did not gain DD's is anybody's guess - I even emailed TfL way before the tender about the 289, 355 & P4. I also agree about the 353 being cut was wrong - when the tram goes belly up, there should be a proper route running along there. Also, the 353 in its current form is a little short and an extension back to Croydon wouldn't harm it all. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2013 16:51:14 GMT
The 289 could be rerouted to Norwood Junction replacing the 312 if the bridge in Spring Lane is ever sorted out.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 6, 2013 19:38:58 GMT
The 289 could be rerouted to Norwood Junction replacing the 312 if the bridge in Spring Lane is ever sorted out. Personally, I'd prefer the 312 to merge with the 412 and converted to deckers. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2013 20:32:03 GMT
Back on subject - I've managed to pull together these figures from Travel to Work Flows data from the 2001 census (Travel to Work Flows for 2011 isn't out yet)
1155 people from Tower Hamlets commute by bus to Westminster or Camden, out of a total of 13384 who do this commute across all modes, giving a bus modal share of 9%.
543 people from Newham commute by bus to Westminster or Camden, out of a total of 12420 across all modes, giving a bus modal share of 4%.
It's quite telling that bus modal share drops by half when you go east just one borough. What we don't know though is how concentrated those 543 people are towards the west side of the borough, and exactly what the distribution along the Stratford - Little Ilford corridor is like.
We can probably conclude cautiously that very few residents east of Stratford use the bus to commute to the West End, but it would be premature to take the 'very few' to mean insignificant. Mind you this is 2001 data and a lot could have changed since 2011. Let's hope there are people within TfL playing with Oyster data which could tell us a lot, lot more ...
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Post by snoggle on Apr 7, 2013 22:18:06 GMT
Back on subject - I've managed to pull together these figures from Travel to Work Flows data from the 2001 census (Travel to Work Flows for 2011 isn't out yet) 1155 people from Tower Hamlets commute by bus to Westminster or Camden, out of a total of 13384 who do this commute across all modes, giving a bus modal share of 9%. 543 people from Newham commute by bus to Westminster or Camden, out of a total of 12420 across all modes, giving a bus modal share of 4%. It's quite telling that bus modal share drops by half when you go east just one borough. What we don't know though is how concentrated those 543 people are towards the west side of the borough, and exactly what the distribution along the Stratford - Little Ilford corridor is like. We can probably conclude cautiously that very few residents east of Stratford use the bus to commute to the West End, but it would be premature to take the 'very few' to mean insignificant. Mind you this is 2001 data and a lot could have changed since 2011. Let's hope there are people within TfL playing with Oyster data which could tell us a lot, lot more ... Bus ridership in London has increased hugely since 2001 and probably disproportionately in East London for reasons set out in another post. I accept you are being cautious so I'm not being critical. I am sure the planners will be using Oyster data to look at flows and journey patterns. For obvious reasons the data is rather more meaningful on the rail network than on the buses given the lack of exit validation on buses. There is one problem though - the volume of data is so high that I can't imagine very detailed analysis being possible. It all depends on how powerful an analytical tool they have. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2013 22:27:59 GMT
Yeah, population in Newham went up by 26% between 2001 and 2011. How that translates to changes in commuter patterns remains to be seen.
Regarding the lack of exit validation, I imagine a lot of trip destinations can be 'implied' by journey history of each card, e.g. repeated entries at Mile End in the morning and at Oxford Circus in the evening. Granted you can't work out every single trip but you can probably recover the vast majority of work trips which are regular in their nature. Writing such a program to do this job would be quite straightforward.
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Post by westhamgeezer on Apr 8, 2013 10:00:55 GMT
The 289 could be rerouted to Norwood Junction replacing the 312 if the bridge in Spring Lane is ever sorted out. Personally, I'd prefer the 312 to merge with the 412 and converted to deckers. VERY good Idea |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2013 10:21:39 GMT
Personally, I'd prefer the 312 to merge with the 412 and converted to deckers. VERY good Idea That idea has been considerded although it seems unlikely to happen at least until the Spring Lane weight restriction is removed. Going back to the Tramlink issue if the 54 was returned to Croydon it would be difficult to justify keeping both the 289 and 312. |
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Post by vjaska on Apr 8, 2013 13:40:26 GMT
That idea has been considerded although it seems unlikely to happen at least until the Spring Lane weight restriction is removed. Going back to the Tramlink issue if the 54 was returned to Croydon it would be difficult to justify keeping both the 289 and 312. Not really, 312 can just merge with the 412 whilst the 289 can be diverted at West Croydon away from Addiscombe & Elmers End - the western section of the 289 is extremely used and removing that would create a massive gap. |
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