Are "Express" services worthwhile?

[M1104]

By chance does the 607 usually run along the same roads as the 207, or is it like the X68 which in recent years has partially drifted off the 68 routing (via Brixton) ?

[l1group]

Jul 21, 2013 4:28:04 GMT M1104 said:

By chance does the 607 usually run along the same roads as the 207, or is it like the X68 which in recent years has partially drifted off the 68 routing (via Brixton) ?

Except for Park Road in Uxbridge, 607 follows the exact same roads as 207 and 427.

[daveb0789]

I think they should have express night buses. They could mirror train or tube routes providing night shift / very late and early workers a fast alternative once the tube / trains stop running.

[Deleted]

Jul 22, 2013 0:32:01 GMT daveb0789 said:

I think they should have express night buses. They could mirror train or tube routes providing night shift / very late and early workers a fast alternative once the tube / trains stop running.

I'm inclined to agree to that to an extent, obviously it all comes down to patronage at the end of the day. That said, there's plenty of people travelling at all sorts of unsightly hours of the morning, so if there's express services in the daytime why not of the evening with perhaps a drop in frequency to reflect demand.

I know cross-city bus routes aren't always beneficial perhaps in the daytime as it only takes something small to cause havoc with the latter part of the route reaching the other side of the city. I think maybe a cross-London express night bus service stopping at limited places with one or two stops at each town or key amenity might work with routes from east to west (forgive my vagueness) and north to south and the like.

[sw11simon]

Jul 22, 2013 1:37:03 GMT @r557aba said:

Jul 22, 2013 0:32:01 GMT daveb0789 said:

I think they should have express night buses. They could mirror train or tube routes providing night shift / very late and early workers a fast alternative once the tube / trains stop running.

I'm inclined to agree to that to an extent, obviously it all comes down to patronage at the end of the day. That said, there's plenty of people travelling at all sorts of unsightly hours of the morning, so if there's express services in the daytime why not of the evening with perhaps a drop in frequency to reflect demand.

I know cross-city bus routes aren't always beneficial perhaps in the daytime as it only takes something small to cause havoc with the latter part of the route reaching the other side of the city. I think maybe a cross-London express night bus service stopping at limited places with one or two stops at each town or key amenity might work with routes from east to west (forgive my vagueness) and north to south and the like.

Sorry disagree about express night buses:
1. Night buses generally move quite quickly anyway
2. If you are going add them to the existing network, i.e. make limited stop additions to current stopping routes, then there is cost to a network trying to save money.
3. How long before someone gets attacked walking to their their tube station in the early hours when there was a bus stop passed without stopping near their house.

Personally, if the N44 amended to stop only at stations (I use my local route as an example) I'd be rather miffed to say the least and I live relatively close to Wandsworth Town

[Deleted]

Urbanite, the 207 (and other routes) were routed via Lime Grove and so meant that they got on their normal routing before Adelaide Grove (Just after Shepherd's Bush Market) and so missed 2 stops.
The 607 was routed through Askew Road as it would miss the same amount of stops (2: Shep' Bush Market and Adelaide Grove)

[daveb0789]

Jul 22, 2013 7:33:02 GMT sw11simon said:

Jul 22, 2013 1:37:03 GMT @r557aba said:

I'm inclined to agree to that to an extent, obviously it all comes down to patronage at the end of the day. That said, there's plenty of people travelling at all sorts of unsightly hours of the morning, so if there's express services in the daytime why not of the evening with perhaps a drop in frequency to reflect demand.

I know cross-city bus routes aren't always beneficial perhaps in the daytime as it only takes something small to cause havoc with the latter part of the route reaching the other side of the city. I think maybe a cross-London express night bus service stopping at limited places with one or two stops at each town or key amenity might work with routes from east to west (forgive my vagueness) and north to south and the like.

Sorry disagree about express night buses:
1. Night buses generally move quite quickly anyway
2. If you are going add them to the existing network, i.e. make limited stop additions to current stopping routes, then there is cost to a network trying to save money.
3. How long before someone gets attacked walking to their their tube station in the early hours when there was a bus stop passed without stopping near their house.

If I may offer my opinion on your points :

1) A friend of mine commutes from Eltham to Cannon Street and has to be there for 6am. He says the night bus takes over an hour and stops at virtually every stop picking up people going to work. In the evening his train home takes 20 minutes.

2) These services could be run by a private company a bit like Thames Clippers with a discount for Oyster card holders.

3) These services are additional and should not impact on conventional night bus services.

As a test case when I drove for national express some passengers would travel from Eltham into London by coach

[Deleted]

Night buses serving the outer boroughs should run as limited stop services through inner London.

Before the N159 was changed I always thought the Streatham services should have been renumbered as a 24-hour 159, and the New Addington ones renumbered as N109 but between County Hall and Streatham Station only stop at Brixton Station and Telford Avenue, maybe also Kennington Oval and Becmead Avenue. Those stops being because they provide connections to other night buses while central Streatham and Brixton are major centres that people may need to get to in their own right.

The obvious problem with converting routes like that is the cost, you would need extra buses running over the limited stop section to replace the lost capacity. But buses are supposed to be a public service and not run on a purely commercial cost basis, especially at night when there are no alternatives without the railways running.

Although with the N159 changes seeing the N109 frequency increased to every 20 minutes, when it used to be only half-hourly beyond Streatham, and the N64 created as a separate route I wonder whether my idea would have cost much more. There were two buses an hour between Thornton Heath Pond and Croydon on the N159, there are now five on the N109 and N64, those in addition to the half-hourly 250 so almost doubling the capacity.

[sw11simon]

Jul 22, 2013 10:58:53 GMT daveb0789 said:

Jul 22, 2013 7:33:02 GMT sw11simon said:

Sorry disagree about express night buses:
1. Night buses generally move quite quickly anyway
2. If you are going add them to the existing network, i.e. make limited stop additions to current stopping routes, then there is cost to a network trying to save money.
3. How long before someone gets attacked walking to their their tube station in the early hours when there was a bus stop passed without stopping near their house.

If I may offer my opinion on your points :

1) A friend of mine commutes from Eltham to Cannon Street and has to be there for 6am. He says the night bus takes over an hour and stops at virtually every stop picking up people going to work. In the evening his train home takes 20 minutes.

2) These services could be run by a private company a bit like Thames Clippers with a discount for Oyster card holders.

3) These services are additional and should not impact on conventional night bus services.

As a test case when I drove for national express some passengers would travel from Eltham into London by coach

Run these suggested extra services commercially and it is a different matter all together - if a company can make money, do it. But let's analyse it a bit first. On Saturday I paid £3.90 on First Berkshire to travel basically from Old Windsor to Windsor at about 17.30. That's a commercial rate. Eltham to Cannon Street on a express service at night, maybe £10.00 single, £6.00 with Oyster discount (bearing in mind the company running it needs a profit. They will only give a discount if it is part subsidized or if the basic advertised cash fare is terribly inflated. If it is part subsidized TfL is already paying extra as a service already runs.) A commercial fare will be nothing like £1.40. Will your friend use it? A previous commercial express night service to Dartford failed years ago. In London people take bus services and low fares (by UK standards) for granted. I don't think they would pay more as a rule. A coach instead of a bus could help to overcome that.

If operated as a TfL service, the quick express service your friend was on would be driving past a lot of people who use it currently by the sound of it. You would need to provide another bus for the inner London passengers. Two drivers, two buses replacing the one currently operated. That's not going to happen.

[Deleted]

Eltham to Charing Cross on the N21 is timed for 40 minutes end to end. If the journey did genuinely take over an hour, the timetable generally would be in chaos. Perhaps the friend was exaggerating. Any train would obviously be quicker as it follows a more direct route and has much fewer stops

[l1group]

Jul 22, 2013 1:37:03 GMT @r557aba said:

I think maybe a cross-London express night bus service stopping at limited places with one or two stops at each town or key amenity might work with routes from east to west (forgive my vagueness) and north to south and the like.

I don't know why, but there is a straight-ish corridor that can be done: N9/N15 west-east

N9 takes almost an hour to get from Central London to Heathrow, but then again, it's just a case of leaving earlier and also it is very much faster than the day versions. It does not stop at quite a number of stops as there are obviously less people, but the N9 itself can be a tad crowded, mainly with luggage. However, the N9 have SPs, which don't have that much luggage space. So if there was the unlikely wheelchair, quite a bit of luggage would need to be moved. So buses with more luggage would be used - like 111.

However, previous express night routes haven't been that successful (including the night buses to Gillingham by London Central...).


As a note, cross-border night routes oddly were present in LT days, but not so much today, yet the reverse is true for day routes?

[snoggle]

Some interesting comments and observations.

Interesting to read about a West End to Greenwich link being asked for but doesn't this just point up a real gap in how people understand (or not) the bus network? It is hardly a long way from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych to pick up the 188 but clearly people can't work this out or view changing buses as an insurmountable task. There obviously needs to be something that can persuade / reassure people that they won't get lost if they need to change buses!

I think we can forget about express night buses or cross boundary ones. There is no prospect of TfL granting licences for commercial night bus services and certainly no chance of TfL subsidising fares on them. Local authorities have no money to support them nor for cross boundary night buses. I have not yet watched the full webcast where TfL responded to the "bus services inquiry" that the London Assembly Transport Committee is running. However I did listen to the first 10 minutes where Leon Daniels made sure he got out his proverbial "bucket of cold water" and immediately threw the "cold water" all over any ideas of any meaningful expansion or improvement of the bus network. No money / wonga / moolah / dosh / spondoolics (delete as applicable) is available. Anything requiring more buses or more mileage instantly means more subsidy in TfL land. This means no meaningful improvements unless something else gets cut or TfL can screw the tender price down in return for a better service level. I know I keep going on and on about this but people appear to be ignoring what the reality is. People should watch the webcast!

The person who cited the First Berkshire fare of £3.90 to pop down the road shows the ridiculous disparity there is between TfL's subsidised network and a commercial one. Most Londoners have no idea that they have a fabulous bus network and ridiculously good value fares (on Oyster). They would die of shock if they suddenly had a commercial bus network and commercial fares imposed on them. Sir Peter Hendy has made this point lots of times - I think TfL should actually create and publish a commercial bus network and indicative fare level to show Londoners what the alternative would be like. That might make people appreciate what they have even if it would not necessarily be able to reflect what effect "on the road" competition would have to service levels and fares in some places.