London Takes The Great Leap Forward
From today on all public transport in London, you can use your UK contactless payment card as a ticket. Full details are on the BBC’s web site. Certain mobile phones can also be used.
Some are predicting it’ll all end in tears, but I suspect passengers will take one of two routes; carry on as now with Oyster or a Freedom Pass, or embrace the new technology with enthusiasm and a correct level of mistrust. After all, there doesn’t seem to have been any reports of problems since London’s buses went cashless a few months ago.
As a Freedom Pass user, it won’t effect me directly. But I always carry an Oyster card for the cable car, visitors or emergencies. But there may come a time, when I can leave this out of my wallet.
London is setting a standard here and surely, this should be implemented all over the UK as soon as possible. But I can’t help feeling that some authorities will invent their own totally incompatible systems.
After all, the best way to hack off a visitor to the UK, who perhaps wants to visit people and places in several areas, is to present them in every place with a different ticketing system.
Do We Really Need A New London Airport?
The Guardian is running a report this morning, about the resignation of the Mayor of Berlin. This is the first paragraph.
Klaus Wowereit, the openly gay mayor who turned Berlin into a capital of cool, announces intention amid delays to new airport
If you read the Wikipedia entry about the new Berlin-Brandenburg airport, you’ll see a large number of problems.
It looks like to me, that Berlin has bitten off more than it can chew with this airport.
So would it be the same if London decided to build an airport in the Thames Estuary? Or anywhere else for that matter?
I think that we’re in some ways trying to make a decision about new airport capacity in the South-East, before all the things we’re doing now have had time to settle down.
The aviation industry obviously wants more airport capacity, as it will make the aerospace, airline and airport companies larger. And Directors, Senior Managers and Shareholders would like that, as it would enrich them. Just as British Airways has merged with Iberia, will other mergers happen, that will effect our decision on airport capacity. The shape of the airline industry will be driven by the desire to get bigger and also American companies wanting to be more tax efficient.
The airlines too, will be bringing in lots of new aircraft. If we take the example of replacing say an A330/A340 with an A380, this will probably increase the passengers going through an airport for the same number of aircraft movements. Even small airliners like the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 are squeezing in a few more passengers every couple of years or so.
So in the future we may need several more terminals. But perhaps only one extra runway! If that!
We also don’t know what the air passenger market will be. If I read the travel pages of serious newspapers, you find that the self loading cargo is restless and complains about everything from drop-off and parking charges to security delays. Even Ryanair is introducing a Business Class. Things are changing and in some ways, I think I’m typical of the new breed of passenger. I go to and from the airport by train, I only carry hand baggage and if it is available, I can afford to travel Business Class. Incidentally, I’ve had five or six outward flights from the UK this year and only one inward.
In some ways the most interesting flight I had was to Iceland, for my holiday. Many of the travellers I met, were going between North America and Europe and were having a holiday and flight break on the island. I never liked long flights and would often go to Houston or California, by changing planes at Boston.
So I think we’re going to see passengers demanding flexibility in how they book flights and they’ll adjust their schedules to make the most of the awful experience of sitting in an aluminium tube for several hours.
With the growth of low cost airlines, have we in the UK changed our pattern of holidays and swapped long haul holidays for several short-haul ones.
I believe that every flight that can be avoided should be. After flights this year, I think my days of travelling steerage are over.
All the vested commercial interests also ignore the herds of wildebeest and zebra in the room. Trains in the UK will shape our airports policy more than anybody predicts.
Manchester is now the UK’s third busiest airport. With the Northern Hub rail developments and the expansion of the Metrolink tram, the airport is getting much better connectivity. Already, electrification in the area, has allowed new electric trains to connect the airport directly to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Heathrow gets Crossrail and Gatwick gets an updated Thameslink in 2018/2019, which coincidentally is the date when the Northern Hub developments will be substantially complete.
If you look at the top ten airports by passengers, only Glasgow and Bristol don’t have a rail link, although Glasgow may be getting one. But then Glasgow’s trains need a good sorting out, as I discussed here.
I think by the end of this decade, that a much higher percentage of passengers will go to their departure airport by public transport, mainly because of more frequent and passenger friendly tram and rail links. Although the way airports see motorists as cash cows will help.
And then there’s the elephant in the room of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. By now, London should have been linked to at least Amsterdam and Cologne, in addition to the current destinations. I wonder sometimes if there is lack of political will in the various governments to get more services through the tunnel. Or is our policy determined more by the British government discouraging immigrants than providing a proper rail service?
All of these factors must be allowed to settle before we decide if we need any more airports or runways in the South East.
There Are Some Honest People In This World
A couple of months ago, I lost my little ticket folder, which contains a credit card, my Freedom Pass and Senior Railcard on a 38 bus.
Imagine my surprise today when I got an e-mail from someone claiming to be at the Transport for London, that they had found it and would I go to Baker Street to collect something.
Could this be my little folder?
It was and it cost me just four pounds to get it back.
I only actually need the folder, as I’ve replaced all the cards.
Are Transport for London Doing Bit Of Route Proving?
I noticed this evening that London bus route 453 is to be Routemasterised next month.
I obviously don’t have the figures that TfL do, but is it a choice with a lot of implications for future public transport in the capital.
Route 453 has its Northern terminus at Marylebone, which is on the Bakerloo line. The route then calls at the following stations, which are also on that line.
- Baker Street
- Oxford Circus
- Piccadilly Circus
- Charing Cross
- Lambeth North
- Elephant and Castle
It then continues to New Cross, New Cross Gate and a couple of places mentioned as possible stops on the Bakerloo Line Extension.
As buses these days have extensive data collecting capabilities through Oyster, are TfL hoping to get specific traffic information, that might help in deciding where and when to extend the Bakerloo line? They might also be hoping that a quality bus route might flush out a few more passengers. The numbers using route 38, since the full Routemasterisation in May, certainly hasn’t decreased markedly, although in the summer there have been a few half-empty buses.
TfL obviously knows what to expect, as they have now converted several routes to New Routemasters.
But the only fact we know about traffic changes when New Routemasters take over a route, is that no statistics have been published.
I’d have loved to write a software system to analyse bus route performance.
It’ll be interesting to see how it all works through in the future.
If I take the route I know best, the 38, what would happen if the buses got to be very full?
I am drawn to the conclusion, that all TfL would do, would be to draft a few more buses on the route, which will be very easy, if there is only one type working the route.
Try doing that in a hurry with a tram route!
A Vision Of Old Oak Common In The Future
Transport for London’s Transport Plan for 2050 is particularly forceful about what will happen at Old Oak Common.
A key aim beyond this is to integrate Old Oak Common as a Canary Wharf of the future, with around 90,000 jobs and 19,000 homes
They also have a detailed map, showing lines reaching out in all directions, from the junction of Crossrail, HS2 and the Overground. In addition to the links through the Goblin Extension, I’ve traced earlier, there are a possible extension of the West London Line to Balham and a service northwards on the Midland Main Line to somewhere like St. Albans.
So London is getting another hub to complement Stratford and Canary Wharf in the East and Clapham Junction in the South.
I Lost My Freedom Pass
Two weeks ago my small ticket wallet with my Senior Railcard, John Lewis credit card and Freedom Pass.
I went down Liverpool Street station immediately and for a tenner, I got a replacement railcard and I just phoned my credit card company to replace that.
But for the Freedom Pass was much slower to get a replacement. I phoned 0300 330 1433 and they gave me a reference and an address to which I should send the tenner.
My cheque has now cleared, but I haven’t received the new pass.
I have been travelling around London recently tracing the Goblin Extension, so every day I have had to buy a Zone 1-6 Travelcard at £8.90 or because I have a Senior Railcard at £5.90. I do have an Oyster for emergencies and I’ve used that at times.
The money isn’t the problem for me, although it could be for some.
But to get a discounted Travelcard, I can’t just go to the ticket machine at Dalston Junction, I have to go to the Ticket Office. It’s not a real pain, but yesterday, I had been to my doctor’s to pick up a prescription and so used Haggerston station to buy my ticket, which was very slow, as they were having all sorts of problems with the gates and lifts, so the staff were otherwise engaged.
One problem I have with cashless buses, where you must use a card, is that I have no contactless credit card, as my providers don’t issue them. So I have to travel with a spare loaded Oyster card to get me home on the bus.
These last few days have been quite an inconvenience.
It would be a lot worse, if I lived some distance away from a station with a Ticket Office.
There should be somewhere, where you can go to get a replacement Freedom Pass and the replacement system should be able to respond faster.
Should Hackney Send Missionaries To Yorkshire?
One of my Google alerts has found two reports today about New Routemasters being considered for Yorkshire; one in the Huddersfield Examiner and another in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
I live on London bus route 38, which is one the most intense bus services in London, that links Hackney to Victoria via the West End, using a squadron of New Routemasters.
And we love them! So much so, that when we have a choice, as say a bus on a parallel route has arrived together with a 38, we all get on the 38.
I’ve never heard a complaint about these buses, whilst on-board and they are becoming very much part of life in Hackney. They are faster, as they load quickly, everybody seems to be polite and you are certainly more likely to strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger.
So why should only London get the benefits of this superb updating of a humble method of public transport?
Londoners and especially those that live in parts of London, where the routes go, should broadcast their enthusiasm to the rest of the UK and the wider world!
London Has A New Island And Bridge
City Island is a housing development in a bend of the River Lee. The island has been connected to Canning Town, by a new bridge, that was lifted in place by the UK’s largest mobile crane.
Unfortunately, by the time I got there the bridge was in place and the crane was virtually dismantled.
A 3D Map Of London
This 3D map of London is at the Building Centre close to Tottenham Court Road station.
Unfortunately, dalston is just off the map, But it was good nevertheless.
The Anonymous Widower 