The August 2011 copy of the Chartered Institute of Transport’s* journal lists the finalists in its annual awards for excellence. There are few bus operators present. Of three finalists under the category “Information Management” comes Lothian Buses from Edinburgh, Scotland. I dare say this is because of whizzo technical solutions such as its bus tracker & Airlink audio announcements. I genuinely wish them well because it would be good to see the few bus-related entries getting somewhere. One of the two other finalists in this category is Palletforce, for instance. The bus industry tends to prefer its own awards.
But what of ordinary information?
I had the honour of dropping in on Edinburgh for the recent marriage of Michael Tindall & Zara Phillips**. In spite of visits to Perth, I’d rarely ventured into Edinburgh. Now, I was heading south by car from Perth and didn’t realise the park & ride as signed off the dual carriageway north of the Forth was intended for Edinburgh. I thought it was just for Dunfermline or Inverkeithing. Well, the signs don’t actually say. There would be something near Edinburgh. Wrong. That was my first mistake. Had I arrived by public transport, I may have had an easier time.
Edinburgh bus station
I took a map from the foyer of the shopping centre under my chosen car park and optimistically headed off to something labelled the bus station. This turned out to be more of a coach station but with a handful of country services. There was no information within to be had (or if there was, I didn’t notice it or find it).It took me quite some time to track down the Lothian Buses office. I should’ve asked a driver much sooner than I did. Inside was a lengthy queue (of mainly young people) circling the office. It was no doubt flourishing but the queue wasn’t moving. The paper timetables were in the centre and it was difficult to push past the queue to see which I needed. I was really looking for a map, plan or even index showing which bus goes where and from where. A combined timetable book would’ve been nice but I knew that would be optimistic.
I found none of these but an array of individual route leaflets. It wasn’t long before I gave up in the face of several walls of information. I don’t think the queue moved at all during my visit and I felt that the time might be better spent plugging in my satnav rather than trying to figure out where to go.
Yes, I know I came unprepared. Yes, I know I should’ve visited the Lothian Buses website well in advance. But I wasn’t and didn’t. Not everyone will plan in advance or will think to do so. In contrast, what’s it like in the other capitals in Great Britain, London and Cardiff, Wales. Information in London is easily obtained but then again tube stations tend to act as an obvious focus. In Cardiff, city bus times are available in a single booklet from the Cardiff Bus office opposite the bus station (or they were when last I was there).
* I mean the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport, of course. ** Don’t be too impressed. I got as far as watching policemen on the royal mile raising drain covers and peering inside (the coppers, not me).
10 comments:
I don't think that Edinburgh has produced a single timetable book for many years. A visit as a teenager in 1967, when I was starting my timetable collection, produced a half inch high pile of leaflets, although the map was excellent as it was a complete street map of the city with the bus routes superimposed. My collecting has found that these started back in the inter-war years.
At a stopover in the city last week I found that the map is now a folded A3 diagram, more useful for carrying around but lacking the finesse of the former.
You missed the information desk at St Andrews Square Bus Station. It is literally an office desk placed in front of one of the ticket counters with a small selection of leaflets racked behind. I luckily spotted it in between the milling crowd of foreign students and their rucksacks. The person behind the desk could give you a particular leaflet if you knew what you wanted, but strictly no browsing.
As with online information from the likes of Traveline, current thinking does not seem to take account of the thought that you might like to see what options there are for travelling from a particular place. It is assumed that you already know that and just want the timetable for one particular route.
Oh dear. Not my recent experience of Edinburgh at all, although I am fairly familiar with where to find information.
Firstly, the bus station has a fairly good range of leaflets and the like adjacent to the ticket office, but if I recall correctly, not much - if any - for Lothian. I managed to obtain two First timetable books and a Midlothian bus map - and there were also free tourist maps of the city centre available.
Secondly, the wall of information at Waverley Bridge usually has a "Route Map Bus Guide" - the same size as the timetable leaflets. I picked up an April 2011 edition only last month.
It is worth bearing in mind that it is currently the Edinburgh Festival, adding huge numbers to one of the UK's top cities for visitors.
We tend, these days, to see having "a range of leaflets" as a good thing. But for a visitor it is nigh on useless. A timetable book and map allows a "tourist" to investigate network opportunities, places of interest or to plan a ride around.
Trying to do this on line is slow, tedious and complex.
Opening a book and browsing through it does not need laptop, broadband etc.
Increasingly leaflets are rationed or hidden and getting a "full set" is impossible even if you know what a full set is.
BRING BACK TIMETABLE BOOKS!
'To see oursels as ithers see us'. (Burns, but you knew that)
I hope you are sending a link to LB, though the bus station is not their fault; the attitude seems to be - if we put leaflets on display, people will keep taking them!
Actually LB do the right things - 3 offices in the city centre (three more than First and Stagecoach combined), a route map, which is displayed on some bus shelters, timetables available for all routes, etc.
But the basic thing should be that you can walk into a busy office, see and pick up a route map (without having to speak in a foreign language), and walk out again.
Cardiff central bus station is right outside the main train station. By the main entrance to the train station is an information desk and a screen displaying live Cardiff bus times. The bus station has been "modernised" (ie tarted up) and there's information about the services that depart from each stand at each entry point. There is a very good Cardiff bus information and ticket shop across the road from the bus station, though I think this could be signposted better than it is.
Maps and timetables for Cardiff bus services are available from the office. Each bus stop has a list of all services that use that stop plus times.
This all sounds plain sailing so far. However, half of the services don't leave from the bus station - some involve as much as a 10 minute walk from the railway station. While this won't pose much of a problem for most, it's not an ideal situation for those carrying heavy luggage or those with mobility issues. It's also a pity that the Cardiff bus office doesn't provide information for any of the other operators who use the city. Stagecoach are by far the 2nd biggest operator yet there's no info about their services from the office, nor are there any timetables. Yes, I appreciate it's a Cardiff bus office, but surely it would be better for the passenger to have all information there?
There are plans to build a new, bigger, all encompassing bus station on the site of the current one. I reckon this would make Cardiff one of the better places in the UK to use public transport from the city centre.
There are two different information needs.
The "regular" traveller needs to know times either side of their habitual travel times, and a timetable leaflet may be good for this.
But the "one-off" traveller in the situation described in the posting simply wants to know how to get from where they are now to point B. They don't want to know times for yesterday and tomorrow, or even this morning and this evening. Nor in the return direction. They may not even know exactly where they are at the moment, and we should make that unimportant. The public are funding Traveline and TransportDirect - why aren't we providing access to these at the places where people need them?
"Use your Smartphone" isn't an acceptable answer as a good proportion of bus users will still be without such technology for many years.
"Ring Traveline" isn't a bad option - we are getting to the point where posession of a working mobile phone is probably something that people should be assumed to carry in these situations. Onsite adverts for Traveline should carry a location code, to speed up the "where are you now?" question.
But better still (and probably cheaper to run) would be dedicated self-service terminals allowing access to Traveline/TransportDirect - with the current location already filled in as the default.
Sure, it would cost money. But until we make it easier and less frightening for ordinary people to get where they want to go, we will be underachieving on the social benefits that are the reason that public transport is subsidised. Better to run fewer services, make them connect better, and help users find out about them more readily.
Blogger John Geddes said...
'But the "one-off" traveller in the situation described in the posting simply wants to know how to get from where they are now to point B. They don't want to know times for yesterday and tomorrow, or even this morning and this evening. Nor in the return direction.'
I think that is an over-simplification. A visitor to a city or area may very possibly want to know about potential journeys that can be made during the period of their stay, and, naturally, how they can get back. Having all of the information to hand in a convenient form means that the traveller can plan journeys ahead; and if that information is in a compact, portable form, then it can be used to make last minute changes to an itinerary without having to make a phone call.
I'll admit to being a "mobile phone sceptic", but I don't believe that many people in such a situation would want to have to make a phone call every time they wanted to travel anywhere. Much better to have an itinerary planned ahead, even if only approximately. For example, if you plan to visit a couple of attractions during a day, it is useful to know if you can stay an extra half hour at one place without throwing the plans for the whole day out of joint. I agree with 'fatusbloke' - I am not convinced anything yet offered can really beat a timetable book and map for that convenience.
Well, I think you should be receiving your own award and hearty congratulations!
You have written an article about Edinburgh public transport without any reference at all to the tram fiasco.
This is probably a 'first' for the Scottish capital!
Lothian has 3 bus offices in Edinburgh, all have full information, timestables and leaflets about the services there operate. I have to agree with others the bus station does have a good range of ALL timetables, Stagecoach, Citylink, Lothian, and First when there can be bothered to send in some.
Bus Station is still trying to deal with Flooded roof from 18 months ago, hence the lack of room around the Info desk.
Ferrytoll: its More than just an Park n ride for Edinburgh its bus interchange, which allows travel to:
* Edinburgh Airport
* Perth
* Inverness
* Dalgety Bay
* Livingston
* Kirkcaldy
And many other places,
That aside, You have raised some good points, which I would suggest emailing someone at either the council or better still Lothian about, I have never seen any sign to say where the info shops are.
The problem is when you visit somewhere you don't know. If it has a bus station this may only stock the main operators information. Otherwise try and find the TIC or a library - if they are open - though not all stock bus information and it is often hidden!
As for obtaining information in advance both Essex and Surrey County Councils now state on their websites that they will NOT post timetable books out of county, only to local residents.
Likewise why do some (e.g. West Sussex) put colour maps on their websites but apparently don't issue them? Its pointless trying to print them off onto my printer.
Books with a map (or seperate map) are much better.
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