London Shows Contactless Cards Work On Buses
This article on Finextra, shows that what the Dismal Jimmies predicted when you could use your contactless cards for bus travel didn’t happen. Here’s the two paragraphs.
Transport for London is celebrating a successful one-year anniversary of the use of contactless payments cards on the capital’s buses, as it prepares to extend the technology to the entire transit network in 2014.
Since it was launched on Thursday 13 December 2012 when 2,061 customers made 2,586 journeys, more than 6.5 million journeys have now been made using an American Express, MasterCard or Visa Europe contactless payment card.
So now we have another good thing, that the banks have done for us in addition to the cash machine.
I hope, I’m young enough to be able to use my contactkess bank card on public transport all over the world. It would certainly have helped in Bilbao and a lot of other places I’ve visited this year.
Crossrailed Yet Again!
Coming back from St.Pancras today, I took my normal route of the Circle line to Moorgate to get a 141 or 21 bus home.
When I left on Sunday, the buses were running their normal route, but coming home, they were on diversion because of Crossrail. The display was showing a bus was due, but if I had waited until September, I have frozen to death before one arrived,
So it was back into the Underground to take the Northern line and see if I could cut one off at the pass opposite Moorfields.
When I got there, it was showing twelve minutes wait, but one arrived in two.
So I was lucky.
Why don’t they divert the buses permanently until Crossrail is finished with digging up Moorgate?
I’m sure, I wouldn’t be the only one, who would be very pleased!
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
Biarritz has a free shuttle bus, that operates around the town.
Biarritz’s Free Shuttle
This was the stop outside the hotel.
Termibus
What better name is there for a bus terminus, than Termibus.
Termibus
Surprisingly, Termibus in Bilbao, would appear to be the only place the name is used.
Where Now For The New Bus for London?
This post was prompted, when I found this post on Leon Daniel’s blog. It was this paragraph that caught my eye.
The buses have also been busy promoting British technology at home and abroad. After leaving the USA, LT1 journeyed to Bogota after which it will head to the Far East. Another vehicle is already doing similar duties in Europe and a third vehicle is likely to be added to the tour. Wherever they go they attract huge attention and continue to promote Britain and British industry.
It’s an interesting itinerary!
Couple this sort of story with the news last week about LT100 appearing in Ipswich and it does appear there is a strong move to sell the buses more widely.
Remember though that WrightBus have sold a lot of buses to the Far East in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
The New Bus for London is also not built like most other buses and coaches, which makes it easy to assemble from a kit of parts with most of the body made locally. Hong Kong and Singapore have got their previous Wright buses this way. I speculated on a New Bus for Hong Kong in May 2012.
These buses are almost like a kit of parts, that can be assembled in many ways.
But surely, one of the biggest selling points of the bus, is that each operator can rebrand them as they want. Will we see a New Bus for Ipswich?
And don’t forget that London’s red buses have always been fashionable and extremely cool. Were bendy buses ever that?
I do think we’ll see one big change on New Buses for London in a few years. Hybrid buses, like the New Bus for London, use a lot of batteries, that need to be changed every few years. I suspect these will be replaced by some form of mechanical energy storage device like a flywheel. There’s something about the testing of this type of technology here.
To my untrained brain, I think that the distributed nature of the power train on the New Bus for London, where the various parts are positioned around the bus, lends itself to the replacement of the batteries by a flywheel. The batteries are under the front stairs and the engine is under the back stairs, with the electric motors in the rear wheel hubs.
Proceeding Along Oxford Street
I took the 390 to the vicinity of Bond Street station, so I could get a Central line train to Liverpool Street station for my train to Ipswich for the football.
It was rather a round about route from my home, but the pictures show what a good camera platform a New Bus for London is.
Note the crowds at the X-shaped crossing at Oxford Circus, which is a very busy area.
I prefer my idea for an elevated walkway, as I proposed here.
I think that in a few years time, we’ll think that running through shopping streets like Oxford Street, will be one of the best places for New Buses for London.
They will make a good window shopping vehicle for the lazy or a simple way to check out which shops you are going to visit. So you can do that on all double-deck buses, but New Buses for London are a much better viewing platform.
Loading buses with passengers on Oxford Street and similar shopping streets, is often a frustrating and slow process, but the three doors and two staircases should speed it up and hasten those wanting to get out of the area on their way.
But the biggest advantage of the New Buses for London, is that you can enter with a baby in a buggy or heavy parcels, though the middle door, swiping your card as you go. This will be a lot easier, than fighting in at the front.
New Buses for London On The Euston Road
The route 390 from Archway to Notting Hill Gate from this morning is using New Buses for London.
These pictures were taken on the Euston Road, in the vicinity of Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations, which now have a bus to compliment their own good design.
If you wan t to go in the Archway direction, you will just walk onto Kings Cross Square and pick up the bus along Euston Road. To go to Oxford Street and Notting Hill Gate, you need to cross the road.
I think that when they’ve finished the building work, it will be a lot better than it is at present.
New Buses for London To Venture South
It is being reported that from February 2014, route 148 from Denmark Hill/Camberwell Green to White City is going to be converted to New Buses for London.
A New Bus for London Gets Lost
My Google Alert for “New Bus for London” picked up this story from Ipswich in the local evening paper. Here’s the first paragraph.
People in Ipswich will have the chance to travel around the town on a new London bus this week.
I’ve looked up the free Ipswich shuttle bus, on which the New Bus for London is running and the details are here. Effectively, it runs around the town centre linking the various shopping areas and car parks.
It is an idea that many towns and cities could use. In fact I think Ipswich had such a route in the 1970s and Liverpool certainly did until the infamous 1960s bus strike.
If you are going to have such a free bus route, what better bus than a New Bus for London is there for the job. It’s very low emission, the access for the disabled and buggies is excellent and with three doors and an open platform, it loads and unloads quickly. If it’s free, you don’t even have to bother with a fare collection and a conductor, although it probably helps to have someone to organise the passengers in busy times.
There are some excellent photos here on David Warren’s Flickr Photostream.
A New Bus For London On Route 27
I was surprised to see this New Bus for London, all dressed up as being on route 27 and going to Turnham Green.
A New Bus For London On Route 27
But note that the bus is in Metroline livery and route 27 is contracted to London United.
The clue to this sighting was round the corner, where they were filming the new Paddington Bear film.
The Anonymous Widower 