Local/Express bus routes
 

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?

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, 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.

Bloody good idea. However, i think it would need to be planned in concert
with the rail network; you wouldn't want to have express bus lines
duplicating the inherently fast rail lines. Perhaps the bus lines would
assume a more orbital configuration, moving people around within the
suburbs rather than in and out of the town centre (exactly like the
Brixton - Croydon route you describe). Although it would be very nice
indeed if there were express night bus services covering the rail
corridors.

Local routes would serve all currently designated bus stops, but their
range would be limited so that no journey was longer than 5 miles.

So the existing routes would be split into 5-mile chunks? I'm not sure of
the necessity of this, and the introduction of arbitrary breaks would make
certain short journeys (from one side of the break to the other) much
harder than at present.

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.

I'm not entirely convinced that bunching is unavoidable with long routes;
surely it could be beaten by better control systems? I'm thinking of
detecting that buses are close (which would mean tracking them by GPS or
GPRS triangulation) and instructing the back one to slow down a bit.

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.

Also, these routes would have priority for bus lanes, traffic modulation
measures, better driver training, linking of traffic lights to the bus
control system, bendybuses, nicer bus shelters, etc. Also, because they
only need to get from point to point without stopping on the way, they can
make more use of fast, non-stoppable roads like clearways and such, which
should speed them up even further.

A twist on the scheme would be to have partial express services, along the
lines of the fast Metropolitan services; you might have something which
looked like Finsbury Park - Hackney - Stratford which stopped at all the
present 106 or 253/4 stops between FP and Hackney, but was then express
from Hackney to Stratford. I have no idea if that particular route would
be any use, but there might well be cases where that sort of thing would
be good.

Anyway, it'd be one in the eye for the fecking tram nazis!!!

tom

--
alle Menschen werden Brüder

Local/Express bus routes
 

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?

It's a decent idea, and already runs on the Uxbridge Road as the 207/607
between Uxbridge and Shepherd's Bush - although to be replaced with the
West London Tram. I'm not sure whether they're going to retain the 607
(the express bus).

There's also the 726 express bus in South London and the X68 from
Russell Square out to Croydon.

When Jeffrey Archer was standing for Mayor, he had a plan to run a
series of orbital and radial express coach routes within London.

I think mixed services as proposed in Tom Anderson's post would be very
useful for inner London areas not served well by rail-based modes - for
example Hackney, Camberwell, Chelsea. Such services could serve all
stops until reaching a railhead, and then run fast from there - for
example, a Camberwell service might run all stops to Elephant & Castle,
and then London Bridge, City (say Monument station), Liverpool St.


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...
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?

It's a decent idea, and already runs on the Uxbridge Road as the 207/607
between Uxbridge and Shepherd's Bush - although to be replaced with the
West London Tram. I'm not sure whether they're going to retain the 607
(the express bus).

Do you know how effective/popular the 607 is? Knowing how an
existing express route works in practice will give a better
insight as to why this idea should/shouldn't be adopted.

There's also the 726 express bus in South London and the X68 from
Russell Square out to Croydon.

The X68 isn't quite what I had in mind - it's express from Russell
Square to West Norwood, whereas I'd be thinking of Russell Square -
Aldwych - Elephant - Camberwell - Herne Hill - Tulse Hill
- West Norwood - Whitehorse Road - Croydon. As to the 726, I
think that is *way* too long and too infrequent to be of
much use. If it ran from Heathrow to Croydon or Bromley to Sutton,
that might be better.

I think mixed services as proposed in Tom Anderson's post would be very
useful for inner London areas not served well by rail-based modes - for
example Hackney, Camberwell, Chelsea. Such services could serve all
stops until reaching a railhead, and then run fast from there - for
example, a Camberwell service might run all stops to Elephant & Castle,
and then London Bridge, City (say Monument station), Liverpool St.

Or they could just take a local route to the Elephant and use an
express route from there. I think the idea of having a clear
hierarchy of transport routes is important, because people could
easily get confused and not know whether a bus is going to stop
at a stop or not.

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:

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 think mixed services as proposed in Tom Anderson's post would be very
useful for inner London areas not served well by rail-based modes - for
example Hackney, Camberwell, Chelsea. Such services could serve all
stops until reaching a railhead, and then run fast from there

I think there's a flaw in this idea: these buses have to make up for the
lack of rail lines in those areas, and that means providing a fast inward
service; running all-stops to the railhead is utterly wrongheaded. Think
about it: the all-stops part would be no faster than catching a local, so
why not just catch a local to the railhead and a train from there? Rather,
the service has to run fast from the start to the railhead, along the
lines of the tram-busting services i vaguely alluded to in the recent
thread.

The more i think about it, the more i think my express plan isn't very
useful over this sort of scale. You either have to scale down the
Metropolitan scheme uniformly (which would mean running fast into local
centres - something like Northwold Road, Clapton, Linscott Road and then
fast to Hackney Central, which frankly seems quite silly, as it's only a
few minutes anyway), or maintain the scale and do something like
Walthamstow Central, the Leyton stops, the Lea Bridge Road stops and then
fast to Liverpool Street. The latter option might be useful, but i think
the uniform wannabe-tube plan (stopping only at Walthamstow Central,
Leyton, Clapton, Hackney, Shoreditch, Liverpool Street) would be better,
as it puts a useful service in reach of more people (where 'in reach of'
is basically not more than 10 minute's walk, which is about 500 m).
Perhaps the one case it would be useful is in a very Metroland-like
context, for example if you wanted to bring fast TfL connectivity to the
borough of Havering; you could have a bus that went express to various
points around Romford, and then busted it non-stop down to Liverpool
Street. Or something.

for example, a Camberwell service might run all stops to Elephant &
Castle, and then London Bridge, City (say Monument station), Liverpool
St.

Hey, that could be the other end of my local route - it would follow the
current route of the 48 from Walthamstow Central, all stops to Liverpool
Street via Leyton, Clapton, Hackney and Shoreditch. Or maybe it'd be fast
from Hackney (the first meaningful railway station).

tom

--
You are in a twisty maze of directories, all alike. In front of you is a broken pipe...

Local/Express bus routes
 

Sky Fly wrote:

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

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?

It's a decent idea, and already runs on the Uxbridge Road as the 207/607
between Uxbridge and Shepherd's Bush - although to be replaced with the
West London Tram. I'm not sure whether they're going to retain the 607
(the express bus).


Do you know how effective/popular the 607 is? Knowing how an
existing express route works in practice will give a better
insight as to why this idea should/shouldn't be adopted.


There's also the 726 express bus in South London and the X68 from
Russell Square out to Croydon.


The X68 isn't quite what I had in mind - it's express from Russell
Square to West Norwood, whereas I'd be thinking of Russell Square -
Aldwych - Elephant - Camberwell - Herne Hill - Tulse Hill
- West Norwood - Whitehorse Road - Croydon. As to the 726, I
think that is *way* too long and too infrequent to be of
much use. If it ran from Heathrow to Croydon or Bromley to Sutton,
that might be better.


I think mixed services as proposed in Tom Anderson's post would be very
useful for inner London areas not served well by rail-based modes - for
example Hackney, Camberwell, Chelsea. Such services could serve all
stops until reaching a railhead, and then run fast from there - for
example, a Camberwell service might run all stops to Elephant & Castle,
and then London Bridge, City (say Monument station), Liverpool St.


Or they could just take a local route to the Elephant and use an
express route from there. I think the idea of having a clear
hierarchy of transport routes is important, because people could
easily get confused and not know whether a bus is going to stop
at a stop or not.

If they were going to take a local route to the Elephant and change to
an express route, they might as well just change to the Underground. TfL
already have plans using Oyster Prepay for cheaper bus/tube transfers.

Having routes which run local in inner London and then express in
central London delivers price, time and convenience benefits to the
passenger in that they don't have to change.

I think confusion could be overcome by having clear branding.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Local/Express bus routes
 

In article , 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.

You could call the latter 'Green Line' g

--
Tony Bryer

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.

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 run a Nat ex service out of London bound for the Kent Coast. There is
nothing in theory stopping people from purchasing tickets say from London to
Lewisham for which the journey time is between 32 and 40 minutes. This
represents the fastest available time by road using bus lanes. Is it a
worthwhile saving compared to using a bendibus 436 between the same two
places?

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Tony Bryer" wrote in message
...
In article , 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.

You could call the latter 'Green Line' g

Yes, but GL services would be nowhere near as frequent/short
as the services I'm proposing.

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, 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.

Bloody good idea. However, i think it would need to be planned in concert
with the rail network; you wouldn't want to have express bus lines
duplicating the inherently fast rail lines. Perhaps the bus lines would
assume a more orbital configuration, moving people around within the
suburbs rather than in and out of the town centre (exactly like the
Brixton - Croydon route you describe). Although it would be very nice
indeed if there were express night bus services covering the rail
corridors.

Actually, I don't see any reason why you couldn't have the 'radial'
routes as well as the 'orbital' ones. Bus travel is cheaper and
much more frequent that rail services in some areas.

Local routes would serve all currently designated bus stops, but their
range would be limited so that no journey was longer than 5 miles.

So the existing routes would be split into 5-mile chunks? I'm not sure of
the necessity of this, and the introduction of arbitrary breaks would make
certain short journeys (from one side of the break to the other) much
harder than at present.

This could be the main problem - although I'm gambling that most
bus journeys rarely ever take place over the full route. Perhaps
we can have an informal survey here - typically, how long is your
busy journey measured by bus stops? If I'm right, then we can have
an existing 9 mile route split into two 6 mile local routes with a
3 mile overlap, with the hope that very few people will have
their journey 'broken up'.

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.

I'm not entirely convinced that bunching is unavoidable with long routes;
surely it could be beaten by better control systems? I'm thinking of
detecting that buses are close (which would mean tracking them by GPS or
GPRS triangulation) and instructing the back one to slow down a bit.

It isn't, but if the stops are limited, I think it would be
reduced. I'm sure you know that bunching happens when the bus
ahead stops to hoover up waiting passengers, and thus the
bus behind (which has no passengers to pick up) can catch
up with the bus ahead. So the fewer stops there are, the
less chance of bunching (especially if at the major stops,
there are always people waiting to be picked up so that the
bus coming from behind doesn't have the chance to catch up).

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.

Also, these routes would have priority for bus lanes, traffic modulation
measures, better driver training, linking of traffic lights to the bus
control system, bendybuses, nicer bus shelters, etc. Also, because they
only need to get from point to point without stopping on the way, they can
make more use of fast, non-stoppable roads like clearways and such, which
should speed them up even further.

Agreed.

A twist on the scheme would be to have partial express services, along the
lines of the fast Metropolitan services; you might have something which
looked like Finsbury Park - Hackney - Stratford which stopped at all the
present 106 or 253/4 stops between FP and Hackney, but was then express
from Hackney to Stratford. I have no idea if that particular route would
be any use, but there might well be cases where that sort of thing would
be good.

I'm not really a fan of this - as I said in my reply to Dave
Arquati, I fear that it would confuse the passengers to have
to remember which part of the route is local and which is express
(and I *know* that confusion over bus routes is one thing that
drives many people away from using buses). I think it's simpler
for people to know that a route stops at several very prominent
stops, just like a railway route.

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

Local/Express bus routes
 

In article , Neil
Williams writes
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".

A good example being my recent trip to Dusseldorf - the area has exactly
three fares, called A, B, and C. A single B ticket[*] was good for a
journey consisting of:
* tram through suburban streets, which turned into pre-Metro through the
central area to the Hbf;
* rail to Wuppertal;
* monorail along the river a bit;
* (if I'd wanted) bus into the suburbs.

A second B ticket got me on the monorail, two trains, and the strange
Skytrain thing back to the airport.
[*] Bought on the tram, incidentally.

--
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Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Neil Williams wrote:

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.

Crumbs. The idea of a road vehicle being *higher* status than a train is
pretty radical!

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.

Sounds extremely sensible.

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".

Also extremely sensible. Ein Stadt, Ein Verkehrsverbund, Ein Fahrpreis!

tom


--
Dude, read Aquinas if you want intelligent. This is the internet.

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Neil Williams wrote:

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

snipitty
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".

Also extremely sensible. Ein Stadt, Ein Verkehrsverbund, Ein Fahrpreis!

tom


Funny you should say that, I have in front of me the current Munich public
transport map and printed beneath the MVV logo it has, "1 Netz. 1 Fahrplan.
1 Tarif."

As a comparison with UK pricing, an all zone one day ticket (called a Single
Tageskarte - Gesamtnetz) is ?9.00, whilst the same ticket but valid for up
to 5 people (with children between 6 & 14 counting as half a person and
called a Partner Tageskarte - Gesamtnetz) is ?16.00. Which if my maths is
correct makes the one person ticket about 6 quid and about ten and a half
quid for the five person one, which, for a family is a bit of a bargin.
--
Cheers, Steve.
If The Good Lord had meant for us to be fiscally prudent, He would not have
given us the platinum credit card...
Change colour to PC Plod's lights to reply.

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message
...

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Neil Williams wrote:

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

snipitty
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".

Also extremely sensible. Ein Stadt, Ein Verkehrsverbund, Ein Fahrpreis!

tom


Funny you should say that, I have in front of me the current Munich public
transport map and printed beneath the MVV logo it has, "1 Netz. 1
Fahrplan.
1 Tarif."

As a comparison with UK pricing, an all zone one day ticket (called a
Single
Tageskarte - Gesamtnetz) is ?9.00, whilst the same ticket but valid for up
to 5 people (with children between 6 & 14 counting as half a person and
called a Partner Tageskarte - Gesamtnetz) is ?16.00. Which if my maths is
correct makes the one person ticket about 6 quid and about ten and a half
quid for the five person one, which, for a family is a bit of a bargin.

Thats 9 and 16 euros, knew it was a mistake to use the symbols...
--
Cheers, Steve.
If The Good Lord had meant for us to be fiscally prudent, He would not have
given us the platinum credit card...
Change colour to PC Plod's lights to reply.

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:34:24 +0100, 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? 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.

But the original poster was proposing an express version of route 48
which runs between Walthamstow Central and Liverpool St virtually
parallel to the "One" overground line. The bus does run on to London
Bridge. It also stops at almost all the same places as the train service
barring St James St and Bethnal Green.

You deleted my text which referred to the waste / duplication of
resources argument which would fall foul of the strategic direction
given to TfL. Also in times of constrained budgets it would not make a
lot of sense.

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".

Which is similar to the long distance bus routes in Hong Kong. These
typically run at a premium fare but in the few cases where there is a
parallel with the rail system they remain cheaper than rail.

Commuter bus routes (from the outer Boroughs into Manhatten) in New York
also charge a premium fare and to use them on a regular basis you need
an upgraded and more expensive Metrocard.

Do the Hamburg express buses run only at peak times or all the time?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...

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.

If an existing route which is running ludicrously frequently, for instance
the 38, were replaced by an express route and stopping route each running at
half that frequency, the decreased journey times would allow a reduction in
the number of buses and drivers used. I suspect that fuel usage and vehicle
wear would also decrease with fewer stops. The only question is whether the
stopping route would wither and die.

--
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
 

Neil Williams schrieb:
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".
Excuse me, but i can say something about Hamburg too... I actually live
there!
The express bus system falls into two categories:
"Eilbusse" (buses in a hurry would be a translation) is a system of only
6 lines. They are useable without a supplement. 3 of those lines are
serving the airbus airplane works in Finkenwerder. A few buses from
major stations or some parts of town go there in the morning and come
back in the afternoon.
The other lines serve a big settlement that has no railway connection
and another big company.
"Schnellbusse" (fast buses) (8 lines): These are very long lines, often
going all the way through Hamburg, the idea is to provide fast
connections from suburbs to the city and back. They run all day and they
cost a supplement of 1,05 Euro per trip. A season supplement is available.
In my opinion the supplement makes them completely useless. They are
rarely faster that getting a local bus to the next railway. They get
stuck in traffic. They are not very comfortable.
I don't want to pay a premium for them and most other Hamburgers, too,
it seems, as everytime i see a Schnellbus it has between 1 and 10
passengers only.
In my opinion the hamburg express bus system is rubbish... with one
notable exception: In weekend nights there is an express night bus from
the Reeperbahn amusement district to my front door, using a motorway for
most of the trip. This express bus is unbelievably cool!

Local/Express bus routes
 

Tom Anderson schrieb:
[Hamburg express buses]
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?
Standard bus and train cost the same. You don't buy a ticket for a mode
of transport but you buy a ticket from A to B, including trains
(everything that runs on rails excluding intercity services), buses and
ferrys as necessary, all for the same price.
Its only if you want a Schnellbus (possibly duplicating a railway) or
you want to travel first class on the mainline railway that you have to
pay 1,05 Euro for a supplement.
And, in my opinion, the Schellbus is of course less comfortable than any
train.

Local/Express bus routes
 

Neil Williams schrieb:
This supplement is also charged for night buses.
This is no longer true.
Night buses now cost the same as any other vehicle.
Also, if you have a one day travelcard this will get you around for one
day, and it will still be valid on all night buses the following night.

Currently plans are made to run the inner parts of the rail network all
night at weekend nights, bringing Hamburg to the same level as "major"
cities like Berlin, Heidelberg and Hannover.

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 20:20:49 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
.. .

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.

If an existing route which is running ludicrously frequently, for instance
the 38, were replaced by an express route and stopping route each running at
half that frequency, the decreased journey times would allow a reduction in
the number of buses and drivers used. I suspect that fuel usage and vehicle
wear would also decrease with fewer stops. The only question is whether the
stopping route would wither and die.

I understand the point being made but I think the example of the 38 is a
poor one. An X38 but running from Leyton with limited stops in Zone 2
and Zone 1 might make sense but the traffic on the 38 is pretty high
from Hackney Central inwards with people getting on and off all the
time. It would be near impossible for an Express version to offer
sufficient choice of stops while being faster than the stoping service.
Also given that it would probably be one person operated it would be
slower than a crew bus thus reducing the overall extent of peak vehicle
requirement reduction.

I also think you would have a riot on your hands if you proposed cutting
back route 38 given where the route serves and the high usage (look at
the reaction to the 73 change). When TfL get round to replacing the
routemasters it will be interesting to see what they decide to do -
double decks or artics. Personally I will be surprised if they go artic
for this route.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Local/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.

From my experience of it in West Yorkshire, it doesn't work very well.
The Express X84 runs (with a minor deviation) out of Leeds as far as
Lawnswood with the local 1 and 95. It is only express in the sense
that it picks up only outbound and sets down only inbound within the
Green Zone. When I have ridden it, the only place where it passed a 1
or 95 is inbound where the 1 and 95 diverge off the A660 to stay on
Woodhouse Lane and serve the University. Most of the benefit of this
express run was in the driver's sadistic enjoyment of slamming the
doors shut in people's faces in Headingley. I didn't even save any
time as I had to walk down from the Headrow to the Railway Station,
which the 1 would have dropped me near.

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

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.

In Vancouver, everything's equivalent in terms of fare though. You buy
ticket ("transfer") and it's valid wherever you want to go, by any mode, for
(I think) two hours. The upshot of this is that any journey across a certain
number of zones will cost the same. It makes everything much less confusing,
although I don't think they have a travelcard equivalent that lasts all day,
monthly or similar.

Jonn

Local/Express bus routes
 

James wrote:

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.

From my experience of it in West Yorkshire, it doesn't work very well.
The Express X84 runs (with a minor deviation) out of Leeds as far as
Lawnswood with the local 1 and 95. It is only express in the sense
that it picks up only outbound and sets down only inbound within the
Green Zone. When I have ridden it, the only place where it passed a 1
or 95 is inbound where the 1 and 95 diverge off the A660 to stay on
Woodhouse Lane and serve the University. Most of the benefit of this
express run was in the driver's sadistic enjoyment of slamming the
doors shut in people's faces in Headingley. I didn't even save any
time as I had to walk down from the Headrow to the Railway Station,
which the 1 would have dropped me near.

From my experience of it in South Australia, it does work very well but
I doubt it would be at all well suited to London.

Here in Adelaide there are three different types of express buses. Those
closest to as you've described are numbered with an F suffix. They're
good for passengers from outer suburbs who benefit from significantly
reduced journey times, but unlike the non stop buses (X suffix) they do
take these passengers to destinations short of the City. And although
they don't stop to pick up passengers going into the City, some drivers
will let passengers on if they've stopped already (as long as there
aren't too many, as the boarding process is slower than that of London).

The third kind of express buses are those which only serve a few of the
stops along the route. These routes are numbered with a T prifix,
although not all of them are based on stopping routes, and those that
are avoid taking the deviations that the stopping route takes.

I don't think any of these would work so well in London. The main
obstacle is the road congestion in Inner London. Bus lanes have gone
some way to alleviating this, but very few of them are wide enough to
permit overtaking (and places wide enough to overtake are are often at
the more important stops), so the benefits would be limited. Also the
dominance of the City (or even of Zone 1) is much lower in London, so F
type buses would be stopping a lot more than they do here. London also
has a much more comprehensive rail system, so there are fewer places
where express buses would be more convenient than trains.

London used to have quite a lot of express bus routes, but rail
improvements led to the abandonment of the D1, X53 and X130. There are
some quite successful commuter routes from the Home Counties, and
Greater London still retains a few express routes such as the 726
(albeit in truncated form) and the X68 (peak hours only IIRC). However,
there are few fans of express buses now. There was an exception a few
years ago - one of the mayoral candidates announced a bold and
imaginative plan for a large network of radial and orbital express bus
routes. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, as the plan had some
major flaws) it was Jeffrey Archer.

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

Local/Express bus routes
 

"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

Surely, though, that's one of the main reeasons they've taken the RMs off
the roads - because if they accelerate too fast there's a risk people will
fall out.

Jonn

Local/Express bus routes
 

Jonn Elledge wrote:
"Aidan Stanger" wrote...

So what should London do instead? I supplied the answer a few weeks ago:
run untimetabled (but frequent) routemasters in addition to the regular
service! With drivers instructed to go as fast as they safely and
comfortably can, the RMs would regain their reputation for being fast,
and their lack of accessibility would not be a problem as the entire
route would still be serviced by low floor buses.

Surely, though, that's one of the main reeasons they've taken the RMs off
the roads - because if they accelerate too fast there's a risk people will
fall out.

No, their engines aren't that powerful! There's always a small risk of
people falling out if you don't have doors, but that's not one of the
main reasons at all.

Local/Express bus routes
 

There was word that they wanted to get rid of the 726 at one stage. It used
to run to Dartford.

Though the reliablity was poor due to Kingston, Sutton and Croydon traffic.
Glad to see there is a skelton 726 at night now.

N285 doing the Kingston to Heathrow streches
N213 doing the Kingston to West Croydon
N119 from Croydon to Bromley


"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...
Sky Fly wrote:

There's also the 726 express bus in South London and the X68 from
Russell Square out to Croydon.





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Local/Express bus routes
 

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:25:10 +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

Do the Hamburg express buses run only at peak times or all the time?

All the time, unless it's changed recently.

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
 

Sky Fly wrote:

Do you know how effective/popular the 607 is? Knowing how an
existing express route works in practice will give a better
insight as to why this idea should/shouldn't be adopted.

It's quite popular. People get it if they can, but I don't think many
people spurn 207s unless they can actually see a 607 approaching. It
takes longer to load than the 207 because there are no centre doors,
but it's still faster overall (though I usually beat it on my bike).

Colin McKenzie

Local/Express bus routes
 

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 23:41:39 +0200, Gunnar Thöle wrote:

"Schnellbusse" (fast buses) (8 lines): These are very long lines, often
going all the way through Hamburg, the idea is to provide fast
connections from suburbs to the city and back. They run all day and they
cost a supplement of 1,05 Euro per trip. A season supplement is available.
In my opinion the supplement makes them completely useless. They are
rarely faster that getting a local bus to the next railway. They get
stuck in traffic. They are not very comfortable.

If they're still the O405s, I disagree. Even I had a good 8 inches or so
free legroom if I went for the seats over the wheelarch at the back. The
coach-style vehicles used on the Schnellbus from Bergedorf were even
better, IMO.

I did like using them - but then I wasn't always in a hurry, and quite
liked sitting back and enjoying the scenery :) They weren't that fast,
but did reduce the number of changes for certain journeys.

I don't want to pay a premium for them and most other Hamburgers, too,
it seems, as everytime i see a Schnellbus it has between 1 and 10
passengers only.

This is perhaps the point - you're paying extra for first class, part of
which is lower loading (especially in the peaks) and nicer seats...

There was of course one exception - though I don't know if it still
exists. The Blankeneser Bergzeiger (sp?) minibuses were considered
Schnellbusse, presumably because they'd be uneconomic to operate
otherwise, and the affluent inhabitants of Blankenese could probably
afford them. Is this still the case?

In my opinion the hamburg express bus system is rubbish... with one
notable exception: In weekend nights there is an express night bus from
the Reeperbahn amusement district to my front door, using a motorway for
most of the trip. This express bus is unbelievably cool!

:)

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
 

Neil Williams schrieb:
[a minibus route in a quite hilly part of Hamburg with very rich
inhabitants (at least some of them)]
There was of course one exception - though I don't know if it still
exists. The Blankeneser Bergzeiger (sp?) minibuses were considered
"Blankeneser Bergziege" (Blankenese mountain goat), yes, they still run
as a "Schnellbus".
Schnellbusse, presumably because they'd be uneconomic to operate
otherwise, and the affluent inhabitants of Blankenese could probably
afford them. Is this still the case?