Year Recap 2022: Elizabeth's year

Most heads of state and prime minsters we had in a long time.

The year of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee.

The year of the opening of the Elizabeth Line.

The year of her passing, rest in peace.

Through storm, through heatwave, through war in Europe, we've left from 2021, via 2022 to 2023.

<   Year 2021 recap                Year 2023 recap   >

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

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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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Bifurcated buses

Branch lines.

Wikipedia
Central Line map

Look at the Northern Line, to the south it has Battersea Power Station and Morden. To the north it has Edgware and High Barnet/Mill Hill East.

Branches.

   Or even other lines with many destinations on one end, then all converge to one at another, Metropolitan at Aldgate for example.

Branches.

Current 166 and 466

The tube can do it, some buses used to bifurcate (on some routes, like 32 with journeys from Grahame Park Estate, or N25 to Hainault/Harold Hill, N109/N159 to Coulsdon/New Addington), why not buses in 21st century?

The answer is standardisation above all else. 

Perhaps there's still scars from confusion of the past (e.g 137 not running on evenings/Sundays but 137A extended from Clapham to Oxford Circus on evenings/Sundays) with suffixes on hundreds of bus routes with variations of all kinds, making it a must for you to know the structure of your bus routes (beyond if they run or don't run) in order to not have a bad day/evening.

Out of our 549 daily routes, there's only 5 examples of two routes in one contract (e.g 389/399). 

Quite impressive as it is excessive. Efficiency loss as well from a few factors. Imagine counting +1 on your calculator for every number, with the very rare +2 from the 389/399 example. Ridiculous oversimplification, but you have a little idea now.

The EL1/EL2 from 2010 until 2016 did count. A shared service between Ilford and Thames View Estate, where EL2 diverted further to Dagenham Dock. Obviously no more shared service from 2016 onwards as both routes had sharply increased in frequencies, then EL2 diverted to Becontree Heath instead of Ilford.

The objective is simple: Smarter distribution of buses with the least passenger inconvenience.

Preferably, without reducing frequencies on core parts of a route, compared to completely reducing frequencies haphazardly for the sake of costs..

Spreadsheet link of historical bifurcations.

E-branding + Bus branding short history

Imperfect representation of 52 and N52 once upon a time

A quick idea that popped into my head when I thought of the lack of displays on the offside of buses (except on RV1's hydrogen Citaros) which are found often but not commonly in mainland Europe.

How about combining the E-ink displays used in Waterloo Bridge bus stop which don't require maintenance of changing the stop timetables (in this case, route branding) with the problem of route branding whereby only one [set] of route[s] is advertised?

Electronic-branding, in the form of e-ink route branding.

Example: A 155 bus goes on 118. Displays 118 as usual. The branding changes into 118.

See where I'm going with this?

All this because I dwelled too long on 322's blindset at Battersea (QB) confined only to 322 and me staring at 315s a bit too intently.

261's express Tube/Elizabeth Line feeder

Yay! 100th uploaded post!

The 261 getting an additional route in the form of X239 which runs parallel from Grove Park to Lee, then via 202 to Blackheath and runs fast to Canary Wharf connecting with the DLR Jubilee and Elizabeth lines.

It didn't take me long to think about how X239 is truly a tube feeder, which also doubles as extra capacity for 261 which will be very great for it.

The style of express works well, long-past the tried-and-true method on X53 X68 and X72 of which only one remains (since a tube line didn't kill it), born from 68's overcrowding itself. All three serving areas with no rail (Thamesmead or Upper Norwood or Thamesmead).

I've already done an Expressa and Expressa 2 before so this is a defacto Expressa 3.

In short: Replicating X239 with other tube lines, where possible adding capacity to routes that need it.

Operation Remove Garage Terminators

I don't advocate for the title, but it is clickbait. Get baited.

Or maybe own garages' forecourt stands (if not garage itself) so every garage terminator route can be like 33, a free-for-all.

Self explanatory. The post is more of an excuse for collecting data I could reference easily, without having to go through a bunch of sources post-haste.

2023 Edit: 171 has since been kicked out of standing inside Catford (TL) so runs out-of-service to Downham and runs back to stand outside Catford (TL) adding up to 15 minutes of time to schedule. Sorry I guess?
 

Interworked routes

As usual I watch transport videos on YouTube, I watch Not Just Bikes regularly and watched his video on Switzerland's trains. Which cites an article on The integrated timetables of Switzerland, an article by Jokteur.

So I've decided to see how much of the bus network is integrated timetable-wise, between bus routes and bus routes with train connections, if London has any. No doubt outside London there are cases, especially with low-frequency routes, though the easily changed train timetables does make keeping on track of connection guarantee a work and a half, though that's a work the Netherlands and Switzerland are proud to do, in order to achieve over 90% train punctuality and especially over 90% connection guarantee nationwide.

Connections between buses and trains also accounted for.

So what can the creator of the trains, United Kingdom, offer for it's capital London?

Spoiler alert: I overfocussed on buses.

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Also, a non-mandatory part 1: Interworked iBus-display-ETM

Interworked iBus-display-ETM

Electronic Ticketing Machines we had since the 80s in Britain, of course rolled out over time since the first iterations had poorer reliability.

Displays have been electronic by way of Dot Matrix Indicators since the 80s-90s in Britain, though few buses in London adopted them as London Transport tested the tech and then turned tail.

These were Leyland Titans (T929 T1000 T1002 T1005) as well as a Renault PR100.2 (RN1).

I was eventually going to make a post like this, the thought to write it now came about as I pondered over the iBus changes that I made a post on as well as discussions in chats.

Edited screenshot of BBC's video
Current cab setup

So we'll be seeing our current setup [ETM, inside blind controls, driver iBus screen, interior iBus displays]

Then comparing them to other bus setups (not dissimilar to roasting your budget gaming PC setup), where frankly the rest are either a lot better than us, or not worse than us. Britain falling behind is an internal motto it seems.

iBus changes 2021

Another short post update of something I've been holding back, but now I have the intention to release as footnotes for my upcoming 2022 Year roundup, similar to ULEZ diesel workings in my 2021 roundup.

Of course I can't start this without a thumbnail or chipping in an experience of my own.

This is definitely not going to be a rant
"West Norwood, Rosendale" versus "Norwood, Bus Garage"
both now only "West Norwood"