On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 10:56:01 -0800 (PST), brixtonite
wrote:

London could certainly do with smoother bus rides (although as a
priority, for me it comes rather a long way behind keeping buses out
of congestion and having working 'next bus' indicators at every stop)
and trolleybuses would no doubt help. But the biggest impact must be
the road surface. When I was in Berlin I was amazed at how smooth the
buses were. I assume that it's just down to maintaining the roads to
a higher quality, and not letting utilities dig them up whenever they
please. Is there any more to it than that?

One thing that would make London bus rides much smoother would be the
implementation of Bangkok-style "countdown to red" displays on traffic
lights. These would allow safe and sensible judgement of whether the
bus will get through on the current phase, and thus reduce heavy
acceleration (to get through a set of green lights) and braking (when
the bus fails to do so).

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.