Roland Perry writes:

In message , at 23:30:51
on Sat, 25 Jun 2011, Paul Corfield remarked:

I still think it's a monstrous waste of resources to be binning the
bendy buses when they still have another 10-15 years life in them.

The operators will move them to a different city, won't they?
Unfortunatly they have.

I came across one in Leicester, causing chaos as it is too long to turn
right from the right turn lane and was therefore blocking traffic going
straight on. Victoria Park Road to Queens Road.

They are totally unsuitable for British cities. Couldn't they just have
had the back cut of and a new back welded onto the bus part.

Phil

In message , at 11:01:50 on
Sun, 26 Jun 2011, Paul Corfield remarked:
The operators will move them to a different city, won't they?

They've not managed it so far. A few went on to Olympic site worker
shuttles, some have gone to Brighton, Bournemouth and Leicester.
Arriva have moved a fair number to Malta for their big network scheme.

That's interesting - I was reading an article the other day about Arriva
talking over from the colourful owner-drivers on the island.

An example of a route where they could be used is the X26 from Kingston
to Heathrow. That route fills up well but is not suited to double
deckers as people cannot lug their luggage upstairs.

In other news... I saw a (P&R[1]) double decker being used on the
Nottingham to East Midlands airport SKYLINK service the other week. Not
sure if that was a deliberate attempt to increase capacity, or whether
it was an emergency substitution. The destination boards had it
programmed in though.

[1] Which have quite a bit of luggage/standing space downstairs.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:37:04 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

The 25 has been debendified as of today and doubledeckers are
running its length.

How many routes still have these monsters on them?


The 37 was still going strong last time I looked. Also the 29?

37? It's double deck and runs from Putney to Peckham and has never
had them. The 38 went double deck a fair while ago.

Oops. I meant to write 73.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Paul Corfield wrote:

The reality is that very expensive assets are being chucked on the
scrap heap as a result of a political whim turned into a policy. Even
more (in terms of quantity) replacement assets are being bought new to
replace them prematurely. It is as if we had shuttled back to the
1970s and were reliving the worst aspects of LT's vehicle policies
from that time. One might have hoped that that particular lesson from
history had been learnt by now.

I suspect that such politicking will continue for a good unless a consensus
develops across the main parties that agrees these things better before the
assets are ordered in the first place. I have no memory of whether the
initial bendy orders were supported by the Conservatives at the time (or
which particular Conservatives - a serious problem with the GLA set-up is
that Mayors aren't necessarily going to come from within and a party's
Assembly group's agreement will be less binding on candidates than a
parliamentary one) but I do wonder if Livingstone would have so readily
agreed them if he'd realised what a controversy they would be or that he
could face defeat in an election (and in 2005/6/7 a lot of people outside
Labour took his re-election for granted). Then again Livingstone is one of
the least likely politicians to go in for such agreements.

It's perfectly clear that a fair proportion of people do not like
going upstairs on double decks so more seats on a single deck offers a
sensible compromise.

Is the design workable for that? On the bendies at the moment the crush is
in the door areas and people generally don't try to move down into the
seating aisles because they lack confidence they can get out in time. The
(usually) one way doors on double deckers do at least encourage movement in
that direction.

Paul Corfield wrote:

They are totally unsuitable for British cities. Couldn't they just have
had the back cut of and a new back welded onto the bus part.

No they are not - people seem to conveniently forget that bendy buses
have operated for years and years in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Bath,
Gateshead, Leeds, York, Coventry and Birmingham with barely a squeak
of complaint about them. These buses run on a wide variety of
services on streets of varying dimensions and they are not subject to
the sort of irrational and daft vilification that has surrounded their
use in London.

Of all those cities I can only recall using bendies in York - and there they
seemed to run on fairly wide roads, not narrow twisting ones.

Do those cities allow boarding at all doors or just the front? The "free
bus" aspect has been one of the things people hate about them the most and,
whether rightly or wrongly, they believe one of the reasons for
crushcrowding is the limited disincentive for free riding. Also do the buses
generally serve short hops in the urban areas where standing is more
tolerated for a brief period or long suburban journeys where seats are more
desired?

If people wish to complain about long and cumbersome vehicles why is
there not a vocal campaign about huge tri-axle coaches and buses that
are deployed on routes like the Oxford Tube, Megabus and various
sightseeing operations? The answer is that a Mayor (or Mayoral
candidate) has not put them in their sights so far as political
campaigning is concerned even though they are almost as long as less
manouevrable than their bendy counterparts.

There were attacks on the buses before Bojo's campaign. Part of it is down
to London exceptionalism, especially as the bendies coincided with the
phasing out of the Routemaster, but also the buses were never terribly well
sold to portions of the public who have to use them.

Paul Corfield wrote:

They are totally unsuitable for British cities. Couldn't they just have
had the back cut of and a new back welded onto the bus part.

No they are not - people seem to conveniently forget that bendy buses
have operated for years and years in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Bath,
Gateshead, Leeds, York, Coventry and Birmingham with barely a squeak
of complaint about them. These buses run on a wide variety of
services on streets of varying dimensions and they are not subject to
the sort of irrational and daft vilification that has surrounded their
use in London.

Of all those cities I can only recall using bendies in York - and there they
seemed to run on fairly wide roads, not narrow twisting ones.

Do those cities allow boarding at all doors or just the front? The "free
bus" aspect has been one of the things people hate about them the most and,
whether rightly or wrongly, they believe one of the reasons for
crushcrowding is the limited disincentive for free riding. Also do the buses
generally serve short hops in the urban areas where standing is more
tolerated for a brief period or long suburban journeys where seats are more
desired?

If people wish to complain about long and cumbersome vehicles why is
there not a vocal campaign about huge tri-axle coaches and buses that
are deployed on routes like the Oxford Tube, Megabus and various
sightseeing operations? The answer is that a Mayor (or Mayoral
candidate) has not put them in their sights so far as political
campaigning is concerned even though they are almost as long as less
manouevrable than their bendy counterparts.

There were attacks on the buses before Bojo's campaign. Part of it is down
to London exceptionalism, especially as the bendies coincided with the
phasing out of the Routemaster, but also the buses were never terribly well
sold to portions of the public who have to use them.

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:05:03 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
seating aisles because they lack confidence they can get out in
time. The
(usually) one way doors on double deckers do at least encourage
movement in
that direction.

Nothing says you can't operate bendies that way.

Neil

--
Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:49:49 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
Do those cities allow boarding at all doors or just the front?

Just the front.

Maybe the issue is to some extent operational, then. In some places,
e.g.parts of Germany and Switzerland, all buses are like that.

Neil

--
Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK

On 2011\06\26 11:01, Paul Corfield wrote:

Other examples are the 227, 203, 232,
285 and 358 - all busy and constrained to single deck operation IIRC.

I believe the 232 has often used double deckers, and route 285 contains
no low bridges that I can find. Not sure about the others.

On 2011\06\26 08:42, Neil Williams wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:37:04 -0500, wrote:
I noticed some ex-TfL bendies in use in Leicester on Friday on
route 80,
between various Leicester Uni locations. They were painted bright
green!

Perhaps some should be considered for the Oxford Road services in
Manchester?

Major student area with lots of cyclists.