In message .com,
Mizter T writes

1935
'Fixed stop' system for buses introduced
First LT programme of compulsory and request bus stops started"
~~~~~

I'm not an expert on bus stops but I do know they're a surprisingly
late innovation - the above suggests as late as 1935, in London at
least.

I think that reference is simply to the LPTB's policy to rationalise
(using the "roundel" logo as a brand) the bewildering variety of signs
inherited from their bus and tram predecessors.

Signs were not always used if the place to wait was fairly obvious, such
as outside a pub or railway station, but elsewhere there were
rectangular plates attached to lampposts, triangular signs, discs on
poles, elaborate wrought-iron contrivances and, in the early 30s,
"tombstone" shapes (rectangular lower half with curved top).
--
Paul Terry

On 23 Jan 2007 06:40:49 -0800, "MIG"
wrote:


Mizter T wrote:
MIG wrote:

(snip)

There have historically been white (compulsory) bus stops and red
(request) bus stops in London. There still are. Children are taught
by their parents that they have to stick their arm out or ring the bell
to get on or off at a red bus stop.

At a white stop, you shouldn't need to. That's not laziness.

Now that drivers have been instructed to treat all stops as request
stops, why doesn't TfL make them all red to save confusion?


Have drivers been officially instructed to do that? I'm certain that
it's hasn't become official TfL policy to treat all stops at request
stops.

Well, I have it off the cuff from a bus driver, whose comment perfectly
matched my experience. I can't prove where the instructions come from,
but they certainly apply.

Interesting because exactly this subject is being debated on another
(non usenet) group. No such instruction has been issued by TfL although
apparently there is a review of the policy of compulsory and request
stops underway. This is to deal with exactly the issues being raised in
this thread. The basic position seems to be that passengers in a bus
will have to press the bell to indicate they wish to get off. Bus
drivers will have to pull in at stops where passengers are waiting in
the expectation that they wish to board. The distinction between
compulsory and request stops would be removed. Someone else mentioned
the need to make sure that at stops served by several routes (often the
case in London) *all* buses stop. I'm not convinced that this is really
covered by what has been suggested will be the new policy. I would
prefer bus stops to remain compulsory at such locations so that bus
drivers are not tempted to just drive past simply because they can't see
if anyone is waiting due to there being 3 buses (of other routes)
already at the stop.

I think it is entirely possible that bus companies have failed to point
out the difference between compulsory and request stops to their
drivers. There also appears to be no enforcement of the rules or
consequences for non compliance - no wonder people are confused as to
what to do.

I am also somewhat intrigued by your comments about there being only one
performance indicator for London Bus performance and that that it
relates to arrivals at the end of the routes. How did you come to that
understanding?

TfL publishes where it does it timing checks for each route and on my
local route the checks are most certainly not done at the extreme ends
of the route. Arriva's inspectors are not located at the end of the
route either.

There is an explanation of the bus performance statistics and how they
are compiled on the TfL website.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:32:16 -0600, "Tristán White"
wrote:

I've noticed, in the past few weeks, a decrease in courtesy when trains
actually wait for passengers to leave the arriving train across the
platform.

Sorry, that made no sense did it? I'm talking about things like Finchley
Road (Metropolitan to Jubilee) and Mile End (District to Central) and vice
versa.
[snip]

BEFORE ANYONE LEAPS DOWN MY THROAT AND TALKS ABOUT HAVING TO STICK TO
TIMETABLES ETC - I just wanted to say that IN THE PAST they waited, they
don't now (or they're less likely to do so now). That's all.

I have been using the Mile End interchange relatively frequently of late
and I have noticed trains on each line waiting for each other. I've
arrived on a District and the Central Line that was already there
waited. I've also observed for a few trains in a row as I waited for
the service I wanted.

You make the comment about timetables - I'm afraid this is a relevant
point here. The Central Line timetable is very finely balanced -
especially in the peaks so it's hard to justify extended dwell times
when you're running on 2 min headways.

The other issue is that the District and H&C have been through pretty
awful times in recent weeks. When there is disruption then there is less
opportunity to wait - especially if the service is being reformed to try
to get it back to timetable and to provide a better service for
everyone. I know you won't like this.

On the DLR the computers run the trains so that Stratford / Beckton
trains connect effortlessly at Poplar - very helpful and that shows you
what can be achieved with a modern and reliable system. It wasn't always
like that in the early days of the current signalling system!
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:

I am also somewhat intrigued by your comments about there being only one
performance indicator for London Bus performance and that that it
relates to arrivals at the end of the routes. How did you come to that
understanding?

TfL publishes where it does it timing checks for each route and on my
local route the checks are most certainly not done at the extreme ends
of the route. Arriva's inspectors are not located at the end of the
route either.

There is an explanation of the bus performance statistics and how they
are compiled on the TfL website.


I've wrongly used the word "end", and you've picked up on it. That
wasn't the emphasis I meant.

My point was that the arrival of an empty bus at any kind of checkpoint
isn't as important to me as whether or not I am actually able to make
my journey so that my body gets to where it is going on time.

To improve the "bus-getting-somewhere" statistics by cutting routes
short of popular destinations to avoid traffic, cutting routes even
shorter due to bendy buses potentially making the statistics worse and,
particularly, by not stopping at bus stops, TfL is harming my own
statistics for my body reaching its checkpoints when I travel by bus.

Paul Corfield wrote:

(snip)

On the DLR the computers run the trains so that Stratford / Beckton
trains connect effortlessly at Poplar - very helpful and that shows you
what can be achieved with a modern and reliable system. It wasn't always
like that in the early days of the current signalling system!

There may have been signalling but there wasn't much of a system!

The image of the DLR has changed so much. I remember it being
continually referred to as the 'Toytown Railway' in it's first few
halting years.

Mizter T wrote:
Paul Corfield wrote:

(snip)

On the DLR the computers run the trains so that Stratford / Beckton
trains connect effortlessly at Poplar - very helpful and that shows you
what can be achieved with a modern and reliable system. It wasn't always
like that in the early days of the current signalling system!

There may have been signalling but there wasn't much of a system!

The image of the DLR has changed so much. I remember it being
continually referred to as the 'Toytown Railway' in it's first few
halting years.


I remember the first ever day of the DLR in ... about July 1987 was it?
We got a few hundred yards from Stratford and then got stuck for a
while. Everyone laughed. I remember thinking "I bet that's the last
time everyone will laugh when it breaks down".

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:32:16 -0600, "Tristán White"
wrote:

I've noticed, in the past few weeks, a decrease in courtesy when
trains actually wait for passengers to leave the arriving train
across the platform.

Sorry, that made no sense did it? I'm talking about things like
Finchley Road (Metropolitan to Jubilee) and Mile End (District to
Central) and vice versa.
[snip]

BEFORE ANYONE LEAPS DOWN MY THROAT AND TALKS ABOUT HAVING TO STICK
TO TIMETABLES ETC - I just wanted to say that IN THE PAST they
waited, they don't now (or they're less likely to do so now).
That's all.

I have been using the Mile End interchange relatively frequently of
late and I have noticed trains on each line waiting for each other.
I've arrived on a District and the Central Line that was already
there waited. I've also observed for a few trains in a row as I
waited for the service I wanted.

You make the comment about timetables - I'm afraid this is a
relevant point here. The Central Line timetable is very finely
balanced - especially in the peaks so it's hard to justify extended
dwell times when you're running on 2 min headways.

I'd put it more strongly than that. If you have a peak service with 2
min (or less) headways, you MUST NOT have extended dwell times out of a
misplaced sense of courtesy. A longer dwell time at one station means
larger crowds at the next few stations which leads to enforced longer
dwell times which leads to larger crowds further on which leads to ...

.... the timetable in ruins! It always amazes me that there seems, on
the manually driven lines at any rate, to be little or no automated
assistance to the driver to keep to the timetable. The best way to deal
with crowded stations is to have a very regular frequency of trains, yet
apart from crude regulation at places like Hyde Park Corner, little is
actually done, as far as I can see, to ensure this. Indeed, scheduling
crew changes at places such as Earl's Court (District) without any
apparent monitoring of the process on the platform is sheer negligence
in my view, as it inevitably leads to erratic intervals.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:36:58 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

You make the comment about timetables - I'm afraid this is a
relevant point here. The Central Line timetable is very finely
balanced - especially in the peaks so it's hard to justify extended
dwell times when you're running on 2 min headways.

I'd put it more strongly than that. If you have a peak service with 2
min (or less) headways, you MUST NOT have extended dwell times out of a
misplaced sense of courtesy. A longer dwell time at one station means
larger crowds at the next few stations which leads to enforced longer
dwell times which leads to larger crowds further on which leads to ...

... the timetable in ruins! It always amazes me that there seems, on
the manually driven lines at any rate, to be little or no automated
assistance to the driver to keep to the timetable. The best way to deal
with crowded stations is to have a very regular frequency of trains, yet
apart from crude regulation at places like Hyde Park Corner, little is
actually done, as far as I can see, to ensure this. Indeed, scheduling
crew changes at places such as Earl's Court (District) without any
apparent monitoring of the process on the platform is sheer negligence
in my view, as it inevitably leads to erratic intervals.

I would agree with your comments about longer dwell times but they are
an irrelevance to the vast majority of passengers. They just want the
most convenient journey possible - which is what the OP is clearly
driving at. While I fully understand why the travelling public are not
concerned with the minutiae that makes the Underground work it does not
take very much at all to tip things over. I don't know how we can
effectively educate our passengers so that they don't do the things that
can cause the "tip over" effect. The counterbalance is to make sure the
assets all work properly.

As you say the most important thing is to keep pushing trains down the
line at frequent intervals with as few perturbations to the service as
possible. The simple fact is that most lines have very old signalling
and control systems that are a very long away from the best modern
systems. There are additional aids and information sources that have
been "added on" to help with train dispatch and changeovers but it's not
state of the art nor is it fully integrated to allow line controllers /
duty managers to effect the most sensible solutions very quickly. I
don't know if there is something at Earls Court to assist with District
Line changeovers.

Nonetheless there is a huge wealth of experience and knowledge that
allows service recovery to happen faster these days than it used to do
(in most cases). Some lines have much more trouble with recovery -
Northern and Piccadilly being two that spring to mind all too readily. I
only hope that the new systems being installed as part of the line
upgrades deliver the right combination of high reliability, extra
capacity and the "tool kit" for controllers to restore the train system
quickly and efficiently if things go wrong.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On 23 Jan 2007 01:53:26 -0800, "MIG"
wrote:

There have historically been white (compulsory) bus stops and red
(request) bus stops in London. There still are. Children are taught
by their parents that they have to stick their arm out or ring the bell
to get on or off at a red bus stop.

At a white stop, you shouldn't need to. That's not laziness.

Now that drivers have been instructed to treat all stops as request
stops, why doesn't TfL make them all red to save confusion?

Or make them all white and let it be known that all stops are now
request stops.

I would suggest that the vast majority of the bus-travelling public in
London already treats all bus stops as request stops.

Paul Corfield wrote:

I am also somewhat intrigued by your comments about there being only one
performance indicator for London Bus performance and that that it
relates to arrivals at the end of the routes. How did you come to that
understanding?

TfL publishes where it does it timing checks for each route and on my
local route the checks are most certainly not done at the extreme ends
of the route. Arriva's inspectors are not located at the end of the
route either.

The trouble with my usual local route (the W6) is that the measuring
points *are* at the terminals, but as the monitoring doesn't take place
from first bus to last bus and the drivers know when they're being
monitored, it produces results that bear very little resemblance to reality.

After about 21:00, the frequency drops to half hourly and it's not
unusual for buses to leave 2 or 3 minutes early, and to get to the other
end of the route 5 minutes early, yet when you complain to TfL Buses
about it they just send a standard fob off letter giving the usual
excuses of traffic, bunching, and statistics, and don't actually *do*
anything.

The most extreme example I've experienced was when I was coming back
from work one day. I got the 22:40 299 from Muswell Hill Broadway, with
the intention of catching the 23:00 W6 from Southgate. As it was around
22:55 when we got to Ye Olde Cherry Tree, I got off the 299 there and
had just crossed the road and was walking back to the W6 stop when it
shot past me, before it was even due to leave Southgate Station, and I
had to wait nigh on 40 minutes for the last bus of the night.

Cheers,

Barry