A Wet Night In Islington
I needed supper last night and although I had food in the fridge, I went to Pizza Express at the Angel.
The great advantage is that the bus stop is right outside the restaurant.
So although, the rain was amazing, I didn’t get too wet.
The gluten-free pizza was good too!
Oslo’s Tourist And Transport Information
There is a lot of transport information in Oslo, but much of it, is not really geared at tourists and especially those that walk everywhere like me. Here’s some examples.
Note that the bus timing information is in the stop itself and the clock in the train information.
But there were no walking maps and you needed to have a paper guide or book in your hand.
To And Around Vasteras
I then took the train from Stockholm to Vasteras, so that I could meet up with the rest of the party and the guide at Vasteras Airport.
The trip was totally without incident and after getting a bus to the airport, we all met up easily.
The only problem I had, was buying a ticket for the bus, which needed to be paid for with coins. Surely, it’s time we had a Europe-wide ticketing standard, so that buying bus tickets is easy.
Transport for London Consults On Cashless Buses
I saw this poster at Euston yesterday.
Transport for London Consults On Cashless Buses
I have added my four pennyworth and can honestly say, it was a well-written survey. You can comment here.
Do We Have Too Many Site-Seeing Buses In London?
On Friday, I needed to get from Piccadily Circus to the Aldwych, which is a simple one bus journey on a 6, 13 or 23. But the whole area was in chaos because of large numbers of site-seeing buses. This one was even parked so that it blocked the Haymarket.
Do We Have Too Many Site-Seeing Buses In London?
Hopefully, when more New Buses for London are delivered and take over routes in the centre, the economics of taking of the annoying tourist-ripping-off site-seeing buses will take a well-deserved nose-dive.
I’m also getting rather fed up in some places in London by the annoying ticket touts for these buses, who I keep telling to Foxtrot Oscar.
Proof That LT7 Is Back On The Job
I’ve seen it a couple of times, since it appeared on Top Gear, but today was the first time, I managed to photograph it.
Proof That LT7 Is Back On The Job
A driver did tell me it’s all pristine now, although it didn’t return that way from Top Gear.
London’s Forgotten Route Gets A Hybrid Bus
The 277 is one of London’s forgotten bus routes and runs from Limehouse and Canary Wharf through the East of London to Highbury and Islington station.
London’s Forgotten Route Gets A Hybrid Bus
I photographed this lone hybrid on the route last week.
Why this route is so often neglected by the powers that be, I do not know! I suspect, we’ll never see New Buses for London or in fact any new buses on this route in my lifetime.
London Buses May Go Cashless
According to reports like this one on the BBC, it looks like London buses may go cashless.
There have been a few comments that the usual suspects are against this, as it may hurt the poor and the vulnerable, but I don’t think it will create too many problems after the first few months, especially if publicity and the technology was cranked up a bit.
I do remember though, a conversation on a Manchester bus, with an off-duty driver and union representative. He felt that their single-door buses where the low-life gathered around the driver and tried to steal his money were very inferior to two-door buses. he would have loved a cashless system.
I’ve just done a small calculation. There are six million riders on each weekday on London’s buses and working on a figure for today that one per cent of riders buy a ticket with cash, that means that 60,000 riders a day buy paper tickets. as there are 250 weekdays in a year, that means there are fifteen million tickets sold each year.
The cost of collecting the cash is given as £24 million a year, so it would almost appear that some of those without tickets could be issued with a free get-you-home ticket. Transport for London are saying they might bring in the Hong Kong system, where an expired card is good for one journey.
I do think though that if the decision was made to go cashless, as the no-cash day approached most people would do something about getting a ticket like Oyster.
i do suspect though that there will be a few objectors, who would not countenance any ticket like Oyster, that enabled them to be tracked,
Art At The Bus Stop
My local bus stop has got the treatment from Art Everywhere.
Art At The Bus Stop
I think, I’ll go and find the original some time next week.
Cash-For Crash By The Busload
This story must be the ultimate cash-for-crash story. Here’s the intro.
A bogus bus crash was staged in Sheffield so 26 passengers could make fake whiplash claims – all set up by organised conmen trying to defraud insurance firms, a court heard.
As I don’t have a car or car insurance, I’m glad that I don’t have to pay for these crooked claims.
The Anonymous Widower 