One of London’s busiest bus routes converts today from bendy to conventional. That’ll be the 25, then, from Ilford to Oxford Street. As of yesterday, it required 44 buses in service, totalling nearly 800 yards of roadspace if laid out end-to-end. Today, it needs 59, an increase of a third and the resultant roadspace required actually now decreases, to just over 600 yards. Seating capacity improves, frequency improves (from 5-6 to 3-4 minutes) but overall capacity (including standees) does not. Neither will carbon emissions.
It’s no good saying that such a conversion is a political decision, for all of London’s transport decisions are such.
The thing that fascinates me is the publicity generated by TfL. On it, there’s a diagram of a double deck clearly showing passengers where they should board and alight. And when to go upstairs. Perhaps after almost exactly seven years on a bendy bus passengers’ve forgotten how to use conventional buses.
I wonder how the future publicity will describe how to board the New Bus for London, capable of operation in both three- and in two-door format.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Straightening Out
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20 comments:
The 25 has had serious fare evasion problems for years, I dare say if these lowlife people now need to pay there will be much lower passenger numbers.
Its route parallels GE mainline railway and central line (and through trains on crossrail once that opens in 2018), why does Ilford feed such a service more than other middle zone places eg Wimbledon ?
I use buses in London frequently and there are many routes where driver won't let you on but there are many empty seats upstairs (because too many are standing downstairs). Many won't (or can't) climb the stairs so having a double decker is pointless (and there is an I-bus announcement that gets played saying seats are available on the upper deck), but even this is ignored (maybe should be no standing in gangways if seats are available). The biggest deterrant to going upstairs on a TfL bus is the position of staircase, getting on you have to walk a third of the way to the back and are faced with a choice of 2 paces to standing area or about 9 stairs. If you do go upstairs, then when you try and get off, the overflow in standing area blocks your route to the exit doors.
The new long single decks do work well (H37 uses 12m Tempos due to low bridge at Isleworth) but double deck substitutions on X26 (Croydon-Heathrow) don't, as many passengers have luggage and won't go upstairs out of sight of luggage. Simply whilst congested central area will probably have keep double decks, TfL needs more long single decks (H37 style) in outer suburbs where road space isn't a problem and tight corners are rare.
Hmmm, double decks have most of their seats unused upstairs. Long single decks don't have capacity. Maybe we need a super long single decker, with perhaps, 3 sets of doors? Of course it'd have to bend to get round corners, but it seems the perfect vehicle. Better still I hear lots are available second hand, and they are even painted in a red livery...
There is a simple reason Ilford needs this level of service - sheer volume of passengers. The 25 is heaving, all day and all night. A few months ago I had reason to use it at 0230 in the morning on a Tuesday - I had to stand all the way from Whitechapel to Ilford.
Fare evasion problems maybe, but such is the level of bus usage along the Romford Road that the new buses will not be wasted.
It may appear on the map that the Great Eastern line is parallelled, but in practice a number of those stations are well offset from the bus route and a very long walk for people, who quite naturally use the bus instead. There is also the minor issue that the GE is effectively like an Underground service at peak times - completely overcrowded and leaving people behind, so a high frequency bus service is essential.
I don't disagree that there could be cause for long single decks in parts of outer London but believe me, the 25 needs double decks and an awful lot of them.
Looking at the photo of the Artic, what is the intending passenger to make of the confusing information displayed on the front?
OK, we know that the number 27 on the yellow card is the bus running number, but when its almost as large as the actual route number, what does Joe Public think? Certainly seems overkill; do drivers really need to be able to identify their vehicle as quickly as an intending passenger does as the bus comes down the road?
OT a bit!
To think that in my youth, and perhaps before, the 25 ran as far out as Hornchurch, Essex.
Cannot imagine a route of such length today in London,
The 25 was converted to artics for a good reason - sheer volume of passengers. Remember that the 25 serves areas of London that are not exactly the most affluent in the world - heading straight through the heart of the east end out to Stratford and Ilford - and as another commenter said, while it *broadly* parallels the tube and train in part, the stops are not that close and indeed there are a lot of people in between.
Ironically, when the 25 last changed hands to First, the new vehicles (when they eventually arrived) were not big enough, so were upgraded within a year to longer Tridents - and the PVR kept on increasing.
What some people who comment on here miss is that in London, the underground/national rail simply cannot meet the capacity needs of London's travellers on their own - the bus route is equally vital, and isn't just a feeder.
(My own local route into the West End is the 29 - another route I am fearing the 'decker conversion of. N29s on Friday and Saturday are rammed, even on a *6 minute* frequency - how 'deckers will cope, even at a 3-4min frequency, I have no idea, as those issues with people not going upstairs will happen once again)
Hi, I live in Kingston, so have never had the artics here, but agree with most of the comments. we don't have long routes to Central London (you take the train instead) and night buses aren't that frequent (most prefer to drive) as the network is based on day routes (designed to serve shops or act as feeders to the station)so rarely covers any journeys at night without changing.
You do have to ask why one route needs so many buses on its whole length (and I'm aware alternate buses terminate at Holborn Circus daytimes and peak)or should there be some overlapping buses on busy sections.
Personally I think the artics are great people movers, and best on high volume linear routes (eg 25) but have been saddled with a rubbish ticketing system so are going for political reasons. Before they were introduced fare evasion was rare, but 10 years ago you could find London buses with two notices side by side, penalty for no fare £5 (later £10), penalty for smoking £1000 (max), why was one 100 times more serious ?, and why did the penalty only equal a handful of fares. I use buses twice a day every workday and have had ticket inspection 3 times in 8 years (ie about once every 500 journeys, considerably cheaper to pay penalty rarely than pay fare everyday.
Just to join up this thread with others from the site, I have just returned from a journey into Ilford to photograph the new 25s.
Not surprisingly there were several of us recording the first day, and guess what, we were stopped and questionned by the Police. I despair of this country.
I accept the point of the previous contributor regarding the value of the artics and the motivation for their withdrawal. But the answer to his question "why do you need so many buses on the whole length of the route?" is simply beacause the number of customers justifies it. I am afraid cosy high car ratio Kingston doesn't quite see the sort of bus loadings that we get out here in impoverished East London!
Anon 10:02
"What some people who comment on here miss is that in London, the underground/national rail simply cannot meet the capacity needs of London's travellers on their own - the bus route is equally vital, and isn't just a feeder.
"
And as a long ago London worker I rememberinterchanges within the tube system often involving quite a lot of walking. Frequently changing between buses was more convenient and as swift, even with the tube's speed.
Anon 10:59
"I use buses twice a day every workday and have had ticket inspection 3 times in 8 years (ie about once every 500 journeys,"
In deed another big change over the decades. Back whenever there were as many "Jumpers" as needed to stock M&s and British Homes Stores ( a k a BHS).,
Trivia: didn't there used to be something weird about the 25 in days of yore? It only ran its full length from terminus to terminus on Christmas Day (rather than running in two overlapping sections as many London bus routes were wont to do).
Anon at 1502 is thinking along the same lines as me.Would splitting or overlapping sections ease the problem?Or perhaps a completely new route over the busiest sections to increase frequency?
Can anyone please explain why there were always so few ticket/Oyster checks on the 25?
I've ridden on the route loads of times and never been checked even once. Someone at TfL needs to explain why they couldn't be bothered to police it properly.
"Looking at the photo of the Artic, what is the intending passenger to make of the confusing information displayed on the front?
OK, we know that the number 27 on the yellow card is the bus running number, but when its almost as large as the actual route number, what does Joe Public think? Certainly seems overkill; do drivers really need to be able to identify their vehicle as quickly as an intending passenger does as the bus comes down the road?"
In London, blinds do actually tend to work, and tend to be yellow writing on black, above the windscreen. If that is there as it should be, why would you even consider the random yellow card as possibly being the route number?
"In London, blinds do actually tend to work, and tend to be yellow writing on black, above the windscreen. If that is there as it should be, why would you even consider the random yellow card as possibly being the route number?"
Because London buses are not just "local buses for local people", and in the provinces it's not at all uncommon for the destination blind on a bus to be stuck showing incorrect information, which is overridden by a bit of A4 in the windscreen. So people are used to that sort of thing.
The answer to it would be to make a reporting code something that is very obviously not a bus number - for example, for it to be made up of letters only. (I know in some places buses are lettered rather than numbered, but this is very rare).
It is rare for blinds to get stuck showing full service info as normal, then get overridden by a bit of A4.
Anyway, why should London have to change their ways and make things less convenient for the staff trying to keep the route running smoothly, just because operators in the province can't get their act together????
I'm actually more concerned about the double decker in the picture....seems to be some sort of weird Enviro 400 with a Wright Gemini upper deck windscreen. Most odd....
As a regular loser of the 25 I see at first hand the overcrowding problems. One of the reasons of the high usage is that the areas it serves are of low inome so the bus is cheaper for some journeys meaning people use it instead of the train.
Fare evasion levels were high seemed to be high as was the nightbus being frequented by a large amount of homeless people riding around sleeping.
The general concenous is that double deckers are an improvement but people are failing to go upstairs making it impossible for people to get upstairs so who knows what thw best solution would be.
My journey time on the 25 bus since the beginning of this week has increased by 20 minutes. I catch the 25 at the Katherine Road (Forest Gate) stop along Romford Road at around 8.00 am and get down at Fenchurch Street. Normally this journey takes around 45 minutes.
I cannot understand why the journey time has increased so much as there is no noticeable increase in traffic. Any views?
Anon at 13:59. Yes, crowded bendy buses are quick at bus stops, crowded double deckers are not.
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