Long route -v- short route. Which is more economic?

[Deleted]

Using three present day routes simply as an example
187 Finchley Road o2 Centre - Central Middlesex Hospital
487 Willesden Junction - South Harrow Station
H12 South Harrow Station - Stanmore
What advantages and disadvantages would there be in combining these three short consecutive routes into one long route
Finchley Road o2 Centre - Stanmore via Willesden Junction Station, Central Middlesex Hospital and South Harrow Station.
I am a person of a certain age with fond memories of an immensely long 73 route which ran
Stoke Newington-King's Cross-Oxford Street-Knightsbridge-Hammersmith-Barnes-East Sheen-Twickenham-Richmond-Hounslow Bus Garage
without any significant problem whatsoever.
Since those days, many miles of Bus Lane have been implemented and the birth of Oyster had made boarding a modern bus almost as quick as boarding a traditional bus.

[DT 11]

I personally think that reliability comes First, because what is the point of having such long services that are difficult for operators to maintain a decent service. Don't get me wrong there are quite a lot of Long routes in London running with a decent service. Plus to add to that who will be actually motivated to drive them?

One time I read an opinion of utter foolishness to withdraw the 13 & extend the 139 to Golders Green. Is it really worth it? The first thing that would probably arise is a petition to bring back the 13. That would really annoy people who regularly use the 13 because they will actually loose their link, plus annoy the people who drove it as they will loose their jobs! Once a route has been introduced and it is popular withdrawing is difficult.

With the amount of traffic on the streets today it is actually good to have short & long routes around. Some short single decker & double decker services are actually useful for the elderly who may not wish to get on London's busiest routes.

To add to this if there are short & long routes routes around with little problems that disturb the service then why not extend them to other places that will not affect the reliability of the services.

[snoggle]

Aug 1, 2013 7:11:58 GMT @harlesden said:

Using three present day routes simply as an example
187 Finchley Road o2 Centre - Central Middlesex Hospital
487 Willesden Junction - South Harrow Station
H12 South Harrow Station - Stanmore
What advantages and disadvantages would there be in combining these three short consecutive routes into one long route
Finchley Road o2 Centre - Stanmore via Willesden Junction Station, Central Middlesex Hospital and South Harrow Station.
I am a person of a certain age with fond memories of an immensely long 73 route which ran
Stoke Newington-King's Cross-Oxford Street-Knightsbridge-Hammersmith-Barnes-East Sheen-Twickenham-Richmond-Hounslow Bus Garage
without any significant problem whatsoever.
Since those days, many miles of Bus Lane have been implemented and the birth of Oyster had made boarding a modern bus almost as quick as boarding a traditional bus.

Where is the demand for a bus from Finchley Road to Stanmore via the wilds of NW London? I'd take the Jubilee Line between those two locations.

You say there was no problem with the old 73 - oh really? So every journey was scheduled and ran from end to end did it? I don't think so. It is a myth that buses ran through - as already said in another reply to you these routes ran in sections and were not especially reliable. There are plenty of routes that might have been long but which ran in sections and were operated by multiple garages. The current tendered operation pushes towards there being relatively few big routes because of the scale of operation that is required. Only a few operators and garages can resource big PVRs and it's rare that such routes change operator upon retendering. Mixed operation involving more than one operator's garage also doesn't happen these days. I guess now that Metroline virtually controls West London it could tender for and operate your proposed mega route. However a few months back this was not the case so could First or Metroline have found garage space to reliably operate your combined 187/487/H12? I think they would have struggled. What is the point of creating services that the market will struggles to bid for in an effective way? TfL has to keep an eye on the market to ensure it remains competitive so that there is a prospect of multiple bids for routes. This is to ensure value for money in contract costs.

Other issues are commonality of frequency? Do all your routes run to the same frequency? - no! Therefore what gets cut back and what gets overbussed? One of the routes is double deck suggesting big or peaked loadings, the others are single deck. What type of vehicle do you provide? Do you use double decks on the whole route thereby increasing fuel consumption and carrying round fresh air on the quieter bits of route? What is the make up of passengers on each route? Would some prefer to keep single decks as there are more seats on a single level?

There are some small differences in routing in the Harlesden area so which route is taken and what links are lost?

While bus lanes and Oyster have helped those efficiencies have been "banked" within the schedules that apply today. It doesn't mean that buses are now instantly reliable. There are still argumentative passengers, road works, accidents, badly parked vehicles, variable driver and vehicle performance - all these cause delays. The longer a route the greater the risk that you'll encounter these issues. Therefore you need to "pad" out the schedules with recovery time which at certain times of the day can have buses dawdling along which makes passengers cross. The counter side of this argument is that a combined route only needs two turnround times whereas three routes need six turnround times. There is a possible resource saving from combining routes.

In case you can't tell I'm not convinced that citing "the good old days" is justification for returning to those days. If there was demonstrable demand for a through service - e.g. lots of people changing bus at South Harrow or Central Middlesex Hosp - then by all means consider creating a through service. Don't do it just because joining lines on a map looks good.

[Volvo]

The 187 Imo isn't that short of a route, I haven't done the full route all at once but I have done it from Central Middlesex Hospital to Maida Vale and that was long enough took about 50mins including light traffic and I have also done it from Kensal Rise to Finchley Road and that was about 25mins with light traffic. When you get the heavy traffic especially at Swiss Cottage and Harlesden then your in for problems.

Also whilst the 487 is a relatively short route it can take a long time from end to end and it hits alot of traffic hot spots especially around the Hanger Lane/Alperton area.

The H12 the many times I have used it between Stanmore and Hatch End there hasn't really been much traffic to slow things down but again I wouldn't say the H12 was that short of a route.

None of these routes should be combined, that would just be utter chaos you'll probbaly end up with a route that is longer than (journey time wise)the X1 or X4 routes up north.

[Tangy]

Let's not forget pre 1999, the 187 was a through route from South Harrow- Queen's Park, with through working (albeit via Standard Road in Park Royal and missing out Willesden Junction). When the route got split up into its current sections, this allowed the 187 to be extended from Queen's Park to Finchley Road in order to shorten the 46 back to its then current terminus at Warwick Avenue (it used to terminate at Kensal Rise).