ULEZ bus consultations

A face of things to come...

Includes four new consultations, touted as the solution to the increased regulation Ultra Low Emission Zone brings for your average Joe and Jenny car and van user who rely on them to get around London, since their areas have poor or no transport, in and around or across London borders.

- 315 extension to Springfield Hospital

- 79 extension to Stonebridge Park

- Brent Cross West

- 346 347 497 restructure

- Wembley Park

I'll write my overall thoughts now. It is disappointing.

With Congestion Charge in the early 2000s, you had many new bus routes (think 148 205 360 RV1) as well as splits of day routes (2 into 2/432, 36 into 36/436, etcetera) to increase capacity in the network.

In this round of four consultations, bearing in mind the early 2000-2005 era saw plethora of improvements, there's 2 semi-long extensions and 2 short extensions, with 2 routes withdrawn. Yes, routes are withdrawn.

Whilst not part of the Congestion Charge changes, cross-border London travel saw improvements, mainly as routes 405 and 498 saw the potential of withdrawal if TfL didn't step in to protect the London sections of those routes, which meant serving the counties. Same couldn't be said for the many lost cross-London routes such as 310 in Enfield and 402 in Bromley, with many more lost. The 505 lost from Chingford due to Low Emission Zone.

So without further ado, my first impressions on each consultation.

Lack of upload

Lately I've been sick so I haven't written anything for a February upload. I have stuff in the works but still in the Work in Progress stage. I've also had a waning interest in the enthusiast space, though lately there's been new tenders and developments to spice up my nearly nonexistent drive for writing bus content.

So I guess for now, February and March, perhaps even April, will be lull moments for this blog in the short term.

I apologise to you and myself, as I usually was enthusiastic writing posts at least monthly. I usually averaged 11-12 posts a year, with 2022 being my peak with 16 posts published.

Until the next one stay safe, and bless you.

Mulltiple routes - one contract

We used to have Boxing Day only contracts, examples of First and Metrobus operating a route on Boxing Day usually operated by Stagecoach on most of the year.

We used to have night routes separate from day routes, hence examples like N137 operated by London Central. The last being N136 now tied to be 436/N136.

We used to have no school routes tied to day routes, no we have 631/H3 160/660 and in future the 412/685.

We used to have school day operations; e.g 150D operated by Go-Ahead whilst 150 operated by Arriva, or 405D operated by Arriva but 405 operated by Metrobus. Many have had their SDOs withdrawn, or combined into main routes [e.g 150], or renumbered as proper school routes [405D to 645].

Buses are meant to be fluid, with the possibility of changing quickly when the need arises, for positive (responding to increased demand) or negative (making cuts).

As a result of our contracts system, we've artificially made it slower.

A scale as large as Croydon changes of yesteryear before the tram, would've been done as quickly as 79/83's reroutes in 2023. Instead, it's normal even for a minor reroute like 309's in Aberfeldy Estate to take 4 years.

Perhaps if term lengths were fixed as it is now* back when we started, it'd be much easier with less kerfuffle to do network changes.

(*7 years for zero emission contracts, 5 years on diesel/hybrids, other lengths for other reasons unknown)

Think Croydon for example, many routes come up together similar to as they did 20 years ago, by luck of not many routes being separated by contract extensions. Makes improvements and restructures involving multiple routes a lot easier to do, unlike waiting on another contract to expire (470 meant to be restructured, yet waiting on 455 withdrawal - 439/S2 start)

Starting off, every possible route is on a standalone contract.

A total of 549 daily routes, yet only 5 pairs:

378 joint with 209

399 joint with 389

H9 joint with H10 (circular)

H19 joint with H18 (circular)

R10 joint with R5 (circularish)

Whereas the only N-prefix routes not joint with a day route are: N5 N20 N97 N550 N551.

Out of the 70 so school routes:

Then the only school routes joint with day routes are 142/642, 160/660 and H3/631 with 412 seemingly joining with 685 next tender.

School routes paired with other school routes: 628/688, 653/683, 692/699, 649/650/651, 624/658, 639/670.

Spreadsheet (not shared): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gCFV7Jso06OAfMmTvvrqepMsCgLx4oMaUlZH4VFEUQg/edit?usp=sharing

Spawned from a discussion where it wasn't fixated on school routes but I ended up making the research in a previous post.

This time the discussion came about in my circle and thus I set out what was already somewhat set out - multiple routes in one contract. The focus will be small routes.

Not combining double decker routes in the spreadsheet because that will easily make a 50+ bus spending in one contract which limits who can win it. Reducing flexibility, which is a bad thing usually. Even if I have played with the idea for 25/425 in literally my previous Bifurcated Buses post with a gimmick.

If the consensus is two small routes in one contract is a happy medium, three being the limit pushed, what can truly be past the limits?

I've already done a similar concept on school routes, Where I glorify my fantasy of 690 buses being used as extras on 322, and other school routes with other daily routes like 152/652.

For school extras, 143D is on it's own contract.

Normal school routes; 642 joint with 142, likewise 660 with 160

Then 628 tied to 688; 653 tied to 683; 692 tied to 699; 650/651 tied to 649; 658 tied to 624; 670 tied to 639

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.

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. 

______________________________________________________________________________

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?