In the light of the comments on and from Thursday, perhaps I need to revise my views as to whether London is different. It all followed the sotto voce comment on Thursday’s post that went like this:
“… operators switched back to a preferred single door layout. Except, of course, in London, where even the smallest midibus comes with a double dose of doors. This is another area where London is perceived to be different even though it really isn’t.”
Lest I be viewed as some sort of hick from the sticks, I ought to point out that, on occasion, I need to travel to and around London, for work. And, I regarded one particular operating environment where I worked to be as intense as London’s. Here, we had a dual-door policy. Interesting that the buses now deployed are all single door again—and have been successfully for at least 20 years.
I do take the point, though, that there’s a lot of middle-to-middle and short-hop movements in London that make the argument for dual doors more compelling than in some other parts of the country. London is like Trantor: it’s an amorphous mass without a single focus for passenger demand. Short distance passengers are more inclined to tolerate single deck standing (where there are fewer seats that result from dual doors—though tell that to those who complained about crush-loaded bendies. On second thoughts, the complainants weren’t necessarily passengers on them.
Is London, however, so very different to elsewhere? If you accept that it is, if you agree that passengers are continually getting on and off, then by all means punch another door in the side of your bus to help passenger flows. But why go to the lengths of providing a designer model with two staircases? Peter Hendy himself has recently suggested that a (significant?) proportion of the Wrigthtbus NBfLs will not have a rear platform. This, surely, strengthens the case for London adopting provincial (well, ordinary) designs (albeit with dual doors). After all, aside from LT1, LT2 and heritage RMs, aren’t these exactly what we see on London’s streets? Hasn’t London invariably purchased and used ordinary “off-the-shelf” buses in large number and operated them satisfactorily?
I blame the DMS for unnecessarily perpetuating the idea that London needs its own bus design. Since the DMS Daimler Fleetline debacle, no one could quieten the calls for a bespoke London design. The London DM and DMS classes, you may recall, were to be the salvation of London’s transport ills (along with standee Red Arrows). LT sourced well over 2,000 such dual door Daimler Fleetline deckers but they found two problems with them, in spite of their superior accessibility to the RM:
- The first was that they proved unreliable. Strange, this, because the provinces managed with them fine (and even bought young redundant London models).
- Secondly, they were slow to load. This was unsurprising when compared to the London-designed, open platform Routemaster. The DMS never stood a chance.
The mind-set that London needed a specific design continued till the present day. And, Londoners now have one. The bus itself might be somewhat rrelevant to the provinces but I am sure some operators will begin to take design cues from the interior.
And, on the subject, another thing that’s different in London relates to the mayor’s intervention over the “gay cure” bus adverts, all over the news at the moment. Aside from the rights & wrongs of the campaign itself, in which UK city would a mayor have the power to intervene directly over a bus advert? Not in Birmingham or Manchester might a mayor even say “No” to a billboard advert (though they may have views, of course). There, whether the campaign was acceptable or not, would be up to the ASA. What this really is demonstrating is the political dimension to the capital’s bus service, something not present elsewhere.
But it is saying something else. It does show that bus advertisements actually work. Indeed, so potent are they that some provincial operators chose a very different line to London’s. They dare to advertise their own wears on the sides and backs of buses and not someone else’s.
6 comments:
Many years ago I met one of my school peers at an alumni event. As an engineer responsible for supplying DM/S he was tearing his hair out because the LT engineers he was dealing with could not think outside of their particular mindset.
Slow boarding was partly due to the difficulty in getting people to use the self-service AFC machines because of their unreliability. What seemed like a good idea on the drawing board had not been tested and so it had not been appreciated that the AFC machines were just not robust enough to work when out on the road.
London certainly is different, as many commenters have pointed out. Perhaps its biggest difference is that according to its 2011 Annual Report, 2289 million passengers were carried, generating revenue of £1257m. That's an average fare of just under 55p, which I doubt that any other network in the country could sustain. The TfL report also tells us that buses cost £1848m, while the subsidy level was £428m. Which doesn't explain the actual difference between revenue and costs of £591m ....
I know not whether it's true, but it has been suggested by some that the DMS problem was, at least in part, due to London's "not invented here" outlook, because LT failed to adapt its systems to maintaining a new type of vehicle.
As Busing says, relatively young DMSs were snapped up by others and used satisfactorily. Conditions in, say, Birmingham and Hong Kong can scarcely be less arduous than those in London.
I can't comment on the T&C's that bus operators sign up to when using outdoor advertising agencies, but I feel sure that there would be pressure on the bus companies in provincial cities should *those adverts* threaten an appearance - just that the local politicians don't have any say over buscos.
(And certain companies would have to tread very carefully given their proprietor's past dabbling in such politically sensitive matters...)
The NBfL with open rear platform and twin stairs etc will be just a short-term vanity project to suit Boris.
However, the wealth of knowledge acquired by Wrights in the process should ensure that a 'Super Gemini' will arise in due course and become the ideal bus for London in the future.
@ Invicta - the difference in costs may relate to the centralised elements of bus infrastructure management, radio / I-Bus costs, Centrecomm etc. That is a guess on my part.
I assume the £428m subsidy refers to the difference between on bus and off bus revenue less the net contract costs for the entire network (including the net of the quality incentive bonus and abatement payments to/from operators).
It's interesting that Londoners consider their transport costs to be sky high and yet the considered view is that bus fares are cheap relative to almost everywhere else in the country. I happened to be in Staines on Saturday which is "border country" between TfL and Surrey / Berkshire routes. The TfL routes all left very well loaded on fairly modest (for London) frequencies. Abellio's Surrey routes loaded moderately well as did one First route (51). The other First route (71) was sparsely loaded which was a surprise given it links to Heathrow. I have to wonder if TfL's routes would load as well if they were charging the same fares as First and Abellio.
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