Stance Or Stand?
I was surprised at the use of stance for where I would use stand at Buchanan Street bus station.
Stance Or Stand?
I’ve always felt that signs like these need an International or European standard.
London rarely makes any difference between an ordinary bus stop or a stand, where they wait before perhaps returning along the route. Londoners probably call every one a bus stop, but then they’ve had the same sign all my life.
A Lost Ulster Bus
The title says it all.
A Lost Ulster Bus
Just as London brought in buses from Scotland for the Olympics, I suspect Glasgow needs all the buses it can scrounge
A Dog Of A Film
The Times today gave the film Pudsey: The Movie, the score of zero stars. The review included this paragraph.
Given the half-chewed dog’s dinner of a movie that resulted, it seems likely that makers of Pudsey the Dog: The Movie decided to maximise their investment by getting Pudsey to write the screenplay as well
No wonder, it’s being advertised on a high proportion of buses. The busometer is never wrong.
Behaviour On New Routemasters
I am a people watcher, as was my late wife, C, and now that the 38 route, I use regularly is a route that uses only new Routemasters, it is fascinating to see how the self loading cargo use the buses.
I’ve spoken before about the friendly behaviour on these buses! Especially in the bay seats, although today when I returned from shopping, these seats were free.
Bay Seats On A New Routemaster
Although empty today, these bay seats are popular and often you’ll see families and groups travelling together using them.
The buses are ideal for shoppers, as you can get the average bag amongst your feet on a standard seat.
My Shopping Bag By My Feet
Regularly you’ll see someone sitting there, with their shopping trolley sharing the space.
I was actually sitting in one of the four rearward-facing seats, which seem to be popular with passengers.
As I rode today, these seats opposite were occupied by a mother and her baby, who she was amusing, by showing her things out the back of the bus.
I like to sit in these seats and have taken pictures and videos out of the back of the bus.
This post was prompted by two things that you’d never see on other buses in London.
A lady, who was certainly older than me, got up and walked down the bus swinging from hand to hand on the various hand holds in perfect safety along the flat floor, to the middle door, to prepare to leave the bus.
The designer would have probably been very happy, as when I went to a presentation of the bus in 2011, as he said then, he’d designed the bus so that passengers could move about easily with totally flat floors and easy to reach hand holds.
The other piece of behaviour was unusual.
An Asian lady about thirty, had forgot to touch in and after sitting in the bay seat on the other side of the aisle to where I was sitting, opened her hand bag and proceeded to look for her Oyster card. When she found it, she walked to the back platform to touch in, leaving her handbag fully open for anyone to help themselves.
No-one did, but surely few ladies would do this on a bus. Perhaps she did, as with a tail-gunner loaded, she felt very secure it would be unlikely she’d suffer a theft.
So do passengers generally feel more secure on new Routemasters?
More And Better Wi-Fi For Trains
There are reports like this one from the BBC, which say that a Network Rail fine is going to be used to improve wi-fi on trains.
I believe that Chiltern Railways have got wi-fi right, with free access on their Mainline trains to Birmingham. Virgin appear to be going the same way too.
So lets hope that in a few years all trains have free wi-fi in all classes!
I must admit that if GreaterAnglia had free wi-fi in all carriages, then I wouldn’t bother to book First Class when I go to football at Ipswich, which would save me money.
I would think that it could be a good marketing tool for train companies, as it might be the service that will tempt people out of their cars and onto the trains.
And if trains can be wi-fi enabled how about more buses. I had hoped that London’s new Routemasters would be enabled, but they are not.
What Will Be The Effects Of Cashless Buses?
When London’s buses go cashless on the sixth of July, London and the passengers on its buses, will submit themselves to a big experiment.
But as I said in this post, nearly all of the staff and passengers seem to be strongly in favour.
The average London bus driver isn’t stupid, as what employer would allow an imbecile to have control of any £200,000 machine. The biggest problem they have with cash, other than the security one, is the inevitable delay, when passengers go searching for small change. London buses are timed to the minute and drivers seem not to like to miss their schedule.
I haven’t found any actual data on what passengers think about going cashless, but I have seen or heard no complaints in the media. I have heard the odd moan though, when a bus is delayed by passengers searching for small change. Although, that seems to have happened less since it was announced buses were going cashless and contactless bank cards could be used.
There will obviously be some troubles on the sixth, but I suspect TfL will put a lot of extra staff on the buses to smooth things through.
Remember though that according to Wikipdeia, London’s buses are used by six million riders a day and that every touch-in is registered on TfL’s ticketing system. That will generate an enormous amount of data.
When it has all settled down, just by examining before and after data will give conclusions, that will help with the planning of London’s transport system.
Will going cashless speed the buses?
Will the buses be carrying more or less passengers?
Will we be seeing a new group of passengers using a bus for the first time?
Would visitors to London, use their bank card or an Oyster?
Will we see a long term decline in the use of Oyster on buses?
I will not speculate, but let the data do the talking!
But the biggest effects will be felt, if the scheme works well and increases the revenue and profitability of London’s buses.
How many cities seeing how the London system works, would decide to go to a similar system? Many bus systems like Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow are not very comprehensible to a visitor without a guide, but London’s simple touch-in once with your bank card system, is probably understandable to everybody familiar with a contactless bank card.
I would also see London using the same system on the Underground, Overground and railways within London.
As Oyster now works on train journeys around London and many stations like Cambridge, Watford and Brighton are gated, would we see pressure to allow the Oyster/bankcard ticketing on journeys around the broader South East of England. Yesterday, when I went to Salisbury, I paid £24.60 for my walk-up Off Peak ticket, which was the same price as if I’d bought it earlier in the day on-line. It would have been so much more convenient to have touched-in at Waterloo and touched-out at Salisbury with a contactless bank card. Especially, as I just missed the previous train to Salisbury, so with a contactless bank card ticket, I’d have got there thirty minutes earlier.
So will we see the creeping of Oyster/bank card ticketing out from London? One problem is Railcards, but I’m sure one could be associated with a particular bank card.
Would it increase the resolve of TfL to introduce cashless ticketing all over the Underground, Overground and trains in the London area?
London’s new ticketing regime is going to provide a lot of answers to questions, some of which haven’t even been thought up yet. It is also going to ask a lot of politicians to bury some of their views. A lot of money will have been proven to have been wasted on systems that can never accept contactless bank cards.
Scaremongering Over Cashless Buses
I travel on London buses regularly and probably every other trip, I hear a message broadcast on the bus saying that from the 6th of July, London buses will go cashless.
Yesterday, when the message was played, I started talking to the young lady sitting next to me. We both agreed that we rarely see anybody pay cash on the 38s or 56s we regularly used, although we did think we’d been held up by a passenger scrambling for small chsnge. Transport for London (TfL) say the number paying by cash, has dropped below one percent for those, who use cash on the buses.
Speaking to one of tail-gunners on a 38 last week, she said that staff were looking forward to the cashless buses, as it should further cut the dangers of dealing with the public.
So it would appear from my small survey, that passengers and bus staff are in favour of buses going cashless. I certainly haven’t heard anybody sounding off on the Dalston omnibus about it being a bad idea.
However, there was this story in the Standard last night, which claimed up to two thousand passengers could be stranded every day in London, due to lost Oyster cards. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs.
But notice it is the Green Party complaining.
If this means that 770,000 people are given a free ticket every year at the cash price of a ticket of £2.40, this would cost TfL just under £2,000,000. Compare that with the savings of £24million from going cashless stated in this article on the BBC. The remaining savings would buy a lot of buses or fund other improvements.
You can just hear the rattle in the various canteens in bus garages, as they prepare the teacups for the inevitable storms.
A Telling Statistic
Justin Webb in this article in The Times says the following.
This year under 70 per cent of American 19-year-olds have driving licences, down from 87 per cent two decades ago.
I have heard young people in London, say they are not going to learn to drive, as they have no need. So as [ublic transport and cycling gets better, are we all falling out of love with our cars.
In a thought provoking article he goes on to say this.
Does the hunger for live events in the internet age — concerts, exhibitions, demonstrations — encourage people to meet and talk again?
Certainly here in East London, there are two groups of four seats on the new Routemasters on route 38, where people do seem to congregate to have a chat. If they don’t chat, everybody also interreacts in a very polite way.
So has a good design, made life in the world’s greatest city better and less fraught?
A Well-Designed Transport Interchange
Golders Green is not an area I go to often. Years ago, C and myself used to go there to buy shoes for the children, at a shop I think was called Brians. I wonder if it is still there!
But yesterday, I needed to go there to get some extra keys for my new Banham lock. It is not a difficult journey, as I just got a train up the Northern line from the Angel to Golders Green station.
There are numerous buses to places all over North London from the station as this map shows.
It’s also a stop for a lot of National Express coaches.
We need more well-designed simple interchanges everywhere, so that train passengers can easily get to their ultimate destination.
From the station, it was just a short walk to Banham’s shop.
Tottenham Court Road To Be Transformed
It has been announced and reported here, that the Tottenham Court Road area of London is to be transformed. Here’s the first two paragraphs from the BBC article.
Tottenham Court Road will be reserved for buses and bicycles only during daylight hours from Monday to Saturday.
Camden Council wants to make the central London street safer and boost business ahead of the opening of a new Crossrail station in 2018.
I like the idea, but will everybody else?
I’m sure that it won’t be popular with taxi drivers, as how will they drop well-heeled customers at Heals?
I have a feeling that Crossrail and Thameslink could be the key to making this scheme work? I’ve not seen any figures, but how many people will switch to the trains rather than drive in London, when the two railways open around 2018. If the switch is quite substantial, then cars in London will drop and this will speed up the buses.
We live in interesting times.
The Anonymous Widower 