Local/Express bus routes
 

"Sky Fly" wrote in message ...
Here's an idea I thought about to improve bus services in
London. Instead of having all bus routes serve all bus stops
in London, there would be a division of bus routes into
'local' and 'express' bus routes.


[snip]

I'm sure they exist already. I remember an express version of the 68
(X68 maybe?) that ran non-stop from Croydon to Waterloo in the morning
peak and the reverse in the evening peak. This was a little annoying
for me since I sometimes needed to travel between offices in Holborn
and Croydon at the time but the express service was always going in
the wrong direction when I wanted to travel.

--
Gareth Davis

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Sky Fly" wrote in message
...

Here's an idea I thought about to improve
bus services in London. Instead of having
all bus routes serve all bus stops in London,
there would be a division of bus routes into
'local' and 'express' bus routes.

A problem (perhaps a show stopper) is that most bus lanes do not allow buses
to overtake stopped buses.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Local/Express bus routes
 

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
"Sky Fly" wrote in message
...

Here's an idea I thought about to improve
bus services in London. Instead of having
all bus routes serve all bus stops in London,
there would be a division of bus routes into
'local' and 'express' bus routes.

A problem (perhaps a show stopper) is that most bus lanes do not allow
buses
to overtake stopped buses.

What if the express buses took the bus lane but moved out
into main traffic once approaching a bus stop with stopped
buses?

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Sky Fly" wrote in message
...
"John Rowland" wrote in message
...

A problem (perhaps a show stopper)
is that most bus lanes do not allow

Er, I meant enable

buses to overtake stopped buses.

What if the express buses took the bus
lane but moved out into main traffic once
approaching a bus stop with stopped buses?

By the time the adjacent queue of cars had moved enough for the express bus
to get through, the stopped bus would have pulled away and so would remain
ahead of the express bus. Repeat procedure at every stop until bus lane
ends.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:31:50 +0100, "Sky Fly"
wrote:

Here's an idea I thought about to improve bus services in
London. Instead of having all bus routes serve all bus stops
in London, there would be a division of bus routes into
'local' and 'express' bus routes.

Local routes would serve all currently designated bus stops,
but their range would be limited so that no journey was longer
than 5 miles. This would be to improve reliability - the
longer a bus route, the greater the chance that 'bunching'
will happen and the more the timetable is thrown out of
whack.

Express routes would serve specially designated stops (which
would be at major town centres - as an example, the 109 which
currently runs from Brixton to Croydon might stop at Brixton,
Streatham, Norbury, Thornton Heath and Croydon). The routes
would be longer distance routes, because the limited stops
would mean that the journey would be a lot faster.

Any comments?

I have long been a fan of such an idea. This is borne out of experience
of express routes running in the old Met county areas like Tyne and Wear
and West Yorkshire where a multi centred conurbation can support such
services. The other key example which works well is Hong Kong which has
a hierarchical bus service network.

The really big issues for a London express network are (IMO)

a) ensuring sufficiently quick journeys to make the services attractive
in their own right.
b) ensuring they can operate reliably.
c) how to deal with the very strong competition provided by the rail and
tube network. One of the main reasons why such routes don't exist is
that they fail the "value for money" test when you look at the density
and capacity of the rail network in Greater London. I appreciate that
peak capacity is a big problem on much of the rail network but just
running express buses at that time just pushes up the peak time costs of
the transport network as a whole.
d) how you structure the network to balance journey objectives (which
are densely clustered in London) against quick journey time. There is no
point in providing express buses that don't take people where they want
to go but which are also slow!

In Hong Kong there are quite long distances between parts of the
territory and a good but limited rail network. There is a distinct price
difference between modes. The bus network is subject to government
control via a franchising process and limits on the total number of
buses in the company fleets. Hong Kong therefore has feeder buses to the
rail network, local routes serving all stops, a layer of express routes
which will link say Hong Kong Island and the New Territories plus
supplemental peak journeys that link big housing developments with key
employment centres. This structure tends to work very well but there is
a huge public transport market which can sustain high demand all day
every day - the lack of access to cars being the big difference to
London.

I would certainly like to see some additional radial express routes but
I think the key gap that does need to be tackled is orbital travel.
There are only a few routes that try to do such journeys and they are
not very quick - just look at the level of private transport on the same
routes e.g. A406.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:26:14 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

c) how to deal with the very strong competition provided by the rail and
tube network.

The answer is that they should not. Why? Well, what's the point in
running parallel with railway lines, except where necessary to get beyond
the railway line? In fact, I'd propose the best solution for the latter
would be to run an express service from the end of the railway line to the
ultimate destination. Express bus services are really best filling in
where the railway does not serve.

That said, Hamburg[1] takes a different approach; direct, express buses to
and from the city centre do duplicate some railway lines, but at a
supplementary fare of (I think) EUR 1. They are provided with
high-quality, low-density seating and are treated as "first class".

[1] Yes, I mention it a lot - but I feel it has one of the best practical
examples of a properly-run public transport network including most modes
(though admittedly not trams) and is a fine example to Britain. It's also
one I had the chance to use over a period of 9 months, which is enough to
get a decent impression of its strengths and weaknesses.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Neil Williams wrote:

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:26:14 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

c) how to deal with the very strong competition provided by the rail and
tube network.

The answer is that they should not. Why? Well, what's the point in
running parallel with railway lines, except where necessary to get beyond
the railway line?

Hear hear.

That said, Hamburg[1] takes a different approach; direct, express buses
to and from the city centre do duplicate some railway lines, but at a
supplementary fare of (I think) EUR 1. They are provided with
high-quality, low-density seating and are treated as "first class".

What do you mean by a 'supplementary fare'? You mean that the duplicating
buses are more expensive than standard buses? But are thus still cheaper
than the train, while being as nice and not a lot slower?

[1] Yes, I mention it a lot

No need to apologise - i think we're all fairly open-minded here.

but I feel it has one of the best practical examples of a properly-run
public transport network including most modes (though admittedly not
trams) and is a fine example to Britain.

Although it remains true that they do not like it up them.

tom

--
Throw bricks at lawyers if you can!

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:31:50 +0100, "Sky Fly"
wrote:

Here's an idea I thought about to improve bus services in
London. Instead of having all bus routes serve all bus stops
in London, there would be a division of bus routes into
'local' and 'express' bus routes.

I have long been a fan of such an idea. This is borne out of experience
of express routes running in the old Met county areas like Tyne and Wear
and West Yorkshire where a multi centred conurbation can support such
services. The other key example which works well is Hong Kong which has
a hierarchical bus service network.

Vancouver has something similar as well - they have a mesh of local bus
services, and for rapid transit, they have two light rail lines serving
the middle-southwest part of the city, plus three express bus routes, the
B-Lines, in the other areas. they run articulated buses, have few stops,
and get you around fast. i think they're equivalent to normal buses in
terms of fares etc.

tom

--
Throw bricks at lawyers if you can!

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:54:56 +0100, Tom Anderson wrote:

What do you mean by a 'supplementary fare'? You mean that the duplicating
buses are more expensive than standard buses? But are thus still cheaper
than the train, while being as nice and not a lot slower?

No, they are more comfortable than the train, and more expensive (EUR1
or so on top of the standard fare). The idea is that they save you having
to change, but you are charged for the privilege, mainly because of the
limited capacity. They aren't always that quick.

It's worth bearing in mind that the number of bus routes entering central
Hamburg can probably be counted on the fingers of both hands. The public
transport system is geared up such that buses mainly provide links from
non-rail-served locations to the nearest rail station, as well as quieter
circumferential routes, with the Schnellbusse (express) and Nachtbusse
(night) being a separate, largely radial network "on top" of the rail
network.

This supplement is also charged for night buses.

The difference in bus and train fares seems to be a British thing - in
the German Verkehrsverbuende (like TfL or the PTEs) there is no
differential - your ticket is valid for a through journey, with
connections if desired, on any or all of the available modes of transport.
There isn't a "train fare" or a "bus fare", just a "public transport fare".

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

Local/Express bus routes
 

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
"Sky Fly" wrote in message
...
"John Rowland" wrote in message
...

A problem (perhaps a show stopper)
is that most bus lanes do not allow

Er, I meant enable

buses to overtake stopped buses.

What if the express buses took the bus
lane but moved out into main traffic once
approaching a bus stop with stopped buses?

By the time the adjacent queue of cars had moved enough for the express
bus
to get through, the stopped bus would have pulled away and so would remain
ahead of the express bus. Repeat procedure at every stop until bus lane
ends.

Ah, I see what you mean.

I guess it would be up to the judgment of the express bus driver
as to whether to use the bus lane or not, depending on the
volume of traffic. This means that there are times when the
express bus would be faster than regular traffic but just
as fast as local buses (when there's a lot of traffic on the road)
and there are times when it would be faster than the local
buses but slightly slower than regular traffic (when there's not
so much traffic on the road). I don't think this is too bad.

Hopefully, the express bus driver would also be anticipating well
ahead of time whether there were buses stopped at a bus stop
ahead. This would mean that the express bus would have enough
time to merge with the main lane if it was possible and keep
on moving, so maybe the scenario you describe wouldn't happen
all the time.

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk