Neil Williams wrote:
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).

Safe and sensible judgement comes from better training and skills of the
drivers. Without that, you'd have reckless acceleration to get through
the lights before the countdown finished, and not only from bus drivers.
My view is that bus driver skill is the key element in producing a
smoother ride for passengers. They should approach traffic lights at a
speed such that they can either stop smoothly or proceed without a SPAD.
If they can do neither, then they're going too fast.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)