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Post by wivenswold on May 30, 2014 17:43:18 GMT
I've noticed that most of my local operators in Essex have virtually no "turnaround break" at the end of each route. It would explain why reliability out here is so bad if they've got less than 5 minutes' slack on each journey.
I remember back in the day that Route 15 crew used to have ages at The White Horse in East Ham. Certainly enough time to have a chat with the other drivers, grab a cup of tea or have a read of the paper. Are there minimum standards for this on TfL routes nowadays? I have a feeling the long stop-overs of yesteryear may have had more to do with unions than reliability.
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Post by M1104 on May 30, 2014 18:02:36 GMT
I've noticed that most of my local operators in Essex have virtually no "turnaround break" at the end of each route. It would explain why reliability out here is so bad if they've got less than 5 minutes' slack on each journey. I remember back in the day that Route 15 crew used to have ages at The White Horse in East Ham. Certainly enough time to have a chat with the other drivers, grab a cup of tea or have a read of the paper. Are there minimum standards for this on TfL routes nowadays? I have a feeling the long stop-overs of yesteryear may have had more to do with unions than reliability. When I was at London General if you were late for your next journey you were still granted five minutes for toilet breaks at the turnaround points. I believe this is still the case, but I don't know if all firms abide by this. From my experience stand times vary from as little as 2 minutes to as much as 45 minutes, the later in my experience being catered for Saturday home games at Stamford Bridge, where the 295 would be delayed/diverted because of the football. Basically any Stand time is considered also as recovery time. Stand times are considered when bus schedules are organized and discussed between TfL and the firms. I would imagine the union would be involved.
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Post by jay38a on May 30, 2014 18:24:51 GMT
At Metrobus we call it Recovery Time, theres one journey on the 233s on a Saturday where your given a minute at Swanley, which is not enough as its the first journey when they cut the times down, and your still collecting the same amount of passengers, and theres no way your catch time up towards Eltham cause theres hardly any slack in it, then your late off for your meal break too.
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Post by vjaska on May 30, 2014 19:05:09 GMT
The P4's stand time in Brixton is maximum 15 minutes normally - before the St. Matthews one way system was reconfigured, most P4's would be late before reaching the first stop.
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Post by guybowden on May 30, 2014 19:43:48 GMT
Between about 7am to 7pm the 108 stand time is normally 15 minutes. 321 is anything from 5 to 12 minutes which IMO is useless because you are tight on running time. The 36 is anything between 5 and 20 minutes, but the 20 minutes is late at night. 436 is between 5 and 18 IIRC and 171 is between 5 and 25 minutes, the 25 minutes is in the daytime!
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Post by snoggle on May 30, 2014 22:15:36 GMT
There seems to be a lot of variation these days as to stand times. Some TfL routes have fairly generous allowances but others have had whatever flex they once had ripped away to save costs on tenders. It's a minor miracle that TfL have maintained their overall network target for Excess Wait Time given some routes can see buses "chasing their tale" all day long. Having grown up away from London I was used to seeing bus timetables with a few mins turnround time in them and lots of interworking between routes. Arriving in London it was quite a shock to see (almost) every route have its own standalone allocation of vehicles, no interworking and much longer stand times.
Outside London the commercial pressures are such that recovery and stand times are minimal in many cases with buses very prone to delays. I see that the industry seems to have achieved some concessions from the Chief Traffic Commissioner who had proposed very tight definitions of lateness and early running and had proposed no leeway at all for late running. It looks like sanity may have prevailed so operators do not have to programme in vast amounts of recovery / running time to make it impossible for a bus service to run late.
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Post by londonbusboy on May 30, 2014 23:21:52 GMT
The 75 varies sometimes you can only have 5 minutes stand times others 20 minutes but the later is done i presume to allow for lateness so you can leave on time. Your very lucky to get the 20 minutes
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Post by thesquirrels on May 31, 2014 7:53:35 GMT
The 62 can have as little as two minutes at the Barking end in the evenings. How much of that is to do with efficient timetabling and how much is to minimise the risk of driver assaults/vehicle damage from the Gascoigne cherubs I can't say with authority.
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Post by sid on May 31, 2014 10:27:50 GMT
It varies a lot from route to route, obviously a very short route (the W7 for example) doesn't really need a lot of stand time at both ends or you can end up with a situation where drivers spend almost as much time on stand as they do driving, nice for them but not very cost effective. On the other hand cutting recovery time to an absolute minimum can be a false economy as the route in question can soon become unreliable with the financial penalties that entails.
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Post by greeny253 on May 31, 2014 12:05:56 GMT
At Metrobus we call it Recovery Time, theres one journey on the 233s on a Saturday where your given a minute at Swanley, which is not enough as its the first journey when they cut the times down, and your still collecting the same amount of passengers, and theres no way your catch time up towards Eltham cause theres hardly any slack in it, then your late off for your meal break too. Having got off the buses I can say this freely now: drag it out! Take your 5 minutes at the stand, leave late and do the job by the book. No manager will have a leg to stand on if they try to GDE you for driving safely...
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on May 31, 2014 12:15:56 GMT
The 62 can have as little as two minutes at the Barking end in the evenings. How much of that is to do with efficient timetabling and how much is to minimise the risk of driver assaults/vehicle damage from the Gascoigne cherubs I can't say with authority. Being a ,'Gascoigne Estate Cherub' I agree with the point. It's not the safest of places, especially in the dark but the 62 does terminate on the main Road so there isn't as much danger as it may seem. Similar happens on the Marks Gate end, as it's a really lonely area in the night and not the safest of places.
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Post by thesquirrels on Jun 1, 2014 11:30:16 GMT
The 62 can have as little as two minutes at the Barking end in the evenings. How much of that is to do with efficient timetabling and how much is to minimise the risk of driver assaults/vehicle damage from the Gascoigne cherubs I can't say with authority. Being a ,'Gascoigne Estate Cherub' I agree with the point. It's not the safest of places, especially in the dark but the 62 does terminate on the main Road so there isn't as much danger as it may seem. Similar happens on the Marks Gate end, as it's a really lonely area in the night and not the safest of places. Yes, I can remember looking at previous timetables for the 62 which seemed to show >5 minutes stand times in the evenings at both ends.. Marks Gate gets longer now. But I'm not sure how that worked out in practice! The 368 has similar turnaround times in Harts Lane.. not as lively as the Gascoigne Estate, but the stand is right in the middle of the estate rather than on the edge.
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Post by VPL630 on Jun 1, 2014 11:47:54 GMT
I've noticed that most of my local operators in Essex have virtually no "turnaround break" at the end of each route. It would explain why reliability out here is so bad if they've got less than 5 minutes' slack on each journey. I remember back in the day that Route 15 crew used to have ages at The White Horse in East Ham. Certainly enough time to have a chat with the other drivers, grab a cup of tea or have a read of the paper. Are there minimum standards for this on TfL routes nowadays? I have a feeling the long stop-overs of yesteryear may have had more to do with unions than reliability. The 498 varies from 17 mins to 5 mins but at night if you have a slow bus or have to pick anyone up, you have had it What routes in Essex do you mean ? for example the 9 Basildon to Warley get's about 10 mins at each end, it also sit's in Brentwood High street for 5 mins going both ways and the timetable is so slack I will agree them are some routes that just have impossible timetables and a min of stand time,
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Post by lc1 on Jun 1, 2014 22:10:55 GMT
At Metrobus we call it Recovery Time, theres one journey on the 233s on a Saturday where your given a minute at Swanley, which is not enough as its the first journey when they cut the times down, and your still collecting the same amount of passengers, and theres no way your catch time up towards Eltham cause theres hardly any slack in it, then your late off for your meal break too. Having got off the buses I can say this freely now: drag it out! Take your 5 minutes at the stand, leave late and do the job by the book. No manager will have a leg to stand on if they try to GDE you for driving safely... Don't go telling people that!!!! Now I'm on the over side of the fence so to speak I want you back out as quick as I can lol On the 191 we have some duties that only have 3 minutes stand at Brimsdown!!!!!!
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Post by jay38a on Jun 1, 2014 22:55:36 GMT
Having got off the buses I can say this freely now: drag it out! Take your 5 minutes at the stand, leave late and do the job by the book. No manager will have a leg to stand on if they try to GDE you for driving safely... Don't go telling people that!!!! Now I'm on the over side of the fence so to speak I want you back out as quick as I can lol On the 191 we have some duties that only have 3 minutes stand at Brimsdown!!!!!! Bet that is a problem for controllers when the timetable is set up like that, makes your job harder too, What also doesnt help is if you have an unworkable timetable plus a short turn around time. We have one at MB, at night theres only 2 buses out on the 353s so no turns are given, your given 1 mins at Ramsden Estate and 3 mins at Addington Village but your always late, so are going in and out each end, and your only eventually catch it up on your last rounder when hardly anyone uses you.
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