Routes 322 and 432: 2015-2022

It's been seven years of Stockwell (SW) on both routes, the 432 having for the first time left Norwood (N) since it split from route 2. Whereas 322 makes it's return to the depot, for the first time as a high frequency route with it's contractual frequency increase back to pre-2005 levels before Stockwell (SW) had the route for their 2005-2010 reign.

I'll be giving my armchair report as a local, whilst giving in some factual data from TfL's performance data sheets to back up some of what I say, but cannot be used to translate one experience to the numbers TfL provided.

It's the 2015-2022 time I will no doubt focus on, the first time 322 ever had a 2 year contract extension, the same could be said for 432 though is not impressive given how relatively trouble-free the route has been compared to it's angsty ancestor in a little body.

Briefly, for context. Before 2015...

Had 30 April 2005 went differently

Could it have happened?

This is certainly a rant, you are now warned.

Quirks and trials and improvements

Fake A2
Electrically Three

As usual reading on The Bus Forum and reading posts (rarely ever reply), I stumble on a link and I just read it. Happens to talk about London and buses, how it took a turn for the worse to put it bluntly.

I happen to stumble upon a particular sentence that sparked my idea for this.

"A developer can access bus arrivals but not what facilities are available, how crowded the bus is or how the network is used."

Immediately reminded me of the trial on 59 using HV132-152's CCTV screens...

Note: Usage of any photos on this blog isn't permitted where no name is present (meaning it's mine, ©Unorm), or an All Rights Reserved symbol © is present. If you desire to use a photo, you must contact the original author. In my case, you should contact my Flickr. 

Whereby a name is stated and no © is present, the photo is Some Rights Reserved and may be used in accordance to the license. 

2021 Behind Us

So, as this is typed in advance on New Year's day 2021. What has changed? How has the sphere evolved? The changes we've been expected has happened but how did it pan out? I type this with the future me finishing this post with the final touches. Last year I dived straight into it from laziness but now I've decided I should try and up the ante. For now this is just filling in space to perhaps add a photo to the side and make it align better. This and that, covid happened and was still a thing but a vaccine has been made. The 481 I damn envy a lot.

It doesn't take much to realise a lot happens in a year, with transfers and rare workings as well as other news happening from time to time. So I direct you to UK Bus News for more in depth month roundups.

Let's roll.

December Postscript: Original title Ampere-2021 but I changed my mind literally last minute.

October Postscript: Initially typing the above I was bored to type more but less said the better.

April Postscript: lol Ampere Next.

Note: Usage of any photos on this blog isn't permitted where no name is present (meaning it's mine, ©Unorm), or an All Rights Reserved symbol © is present. If you desire to use a photo, you must contact the original author. In my case, you should contact my Flickr. 

Whereby a name is stated and no © is present, the photo is Some Rights Reserved and may be used in accordance to the license. 

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Hail & Ride sections & conversion to Fixed stops

Writing this part of the post in post-mortem to what I have written months before below definitely felt like a blast, considering I tolled away weeks of time into a spreadsheet that would have been redundant if TfL didn't stop updating the quadrant maps (South East/South West and North East/North West) maps, and not hiding away every possible Spider Map whilst updating few into the more useless format of only containing parts of the routes in question.

Double Consultations

No

Two-in-one, the clickbait would be withdrawal of 168 and 271 but I prefer numbers and calculating any changes, whether I believe they were bad (such as 48's withdrawal) or perhaps positive (I can't mention something within the past 5 years) so without further ado:

One Sainsburys Shopper

There's only three articles which I'll link at the bottom as sources. No timetables of S11 nor S13, but maps in the 1990s by Mike Harris contain the route. No photos of buses at all. Only one photo of P15, with a few timetables archived.

So as far as history goes, these pair of routes (S11 and S13) has went under the radar. Though there are clues which are rather astounding.

School routes... expensive not?

I'll just point out the fact routes 673 685 689 were almost four times cheaper using the same buses as their main route they were joint bid with, whilst also sharing a schedule. As opposed to not sharing a schedule, and having it's own new bus.

The 689 accepted bid in 2018 was under £20K. Lowest single bid was £100K.

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Among my first posts on this blog was regarding capacity on 3/322, back then the 3 didn't sport microwaves on wheels and 322 was low frequency and is currently high frequency. 

Though the question still stands. The answer would've been something along the lines of 'if it's not overcrowded then it's fine' with finer wording to make it less daunting. The question would naturally have been 'should there be extra provision for school capacity?' For the 3 it could be argued, I'm still of the opinion Croxted Road shouldn't have one route but I'm thankful in the climate the 3 hadn't received a frequency cut yet.

Whilst the 322 has the issue of vehicle size constraint.

So what does this have to do with school routes?

DLA273 (Y473UGC), Tulse Hill

Enter 690, the only school route close to me for several miles. It's a route which has it's origins from nearly 90 years ago as the 5, being restructured into a 189 which on it's last days of life died to the common public as it became a school route from the girls school in Earlsfield then terminating at Brixton.

It's section to Norwood spawned off the back of the atypical garage journeys which became permanent through the decades until the current day, however it previously had live garage journeys to Walworth (WL) for a short time prior to moving to Norwood (N). This route was 689, identical to current 690 in every road except using Tulse Hill instead of Dulwich Road and Norwood Road north of Tulse Hill Station. The 689 died in 2011 on contract renewal, as the less favoured routeing between 689/690, and thus 690 kept the #689 running number whose duty entailed a first afternoon trip terminating at Clapham Common before running back to the school to go full route, with another bus covering one full trip. Not long after the Clapham shorts died, making it a 2 trip morning and 2 trip afternoon route. To throw a curveball not mentioned earlier, 689 did get cut to Tulse Hill briefly as the sole 689 was run from Brixton (BN) but returned to going further to West Norwood.

Then the pandemic gave a list of routes extra buses for social distancing, the 690 was one of them, Arriva London South's suite of school routes had extras from Abellio.

Then the question was brought to the table, with empty V690s frequenting Acre Lane. I myself observing nothing different from the Norwood end though...

...traditionally it's been the quieter end. At most there'd be a dozen but as time went one, a handful became a few, then barely visible, then a few again.