Can anyone enlighten me as to the logic of bus stop naming? Two stops
directly opposite each other sometimes have different names. This
sometimes makes sense - at a tube station at a crossroads, for
example, you want to know you're there at the first stop you come to.

But other times it seems entirely random - on Pentonville Road, for
example, there's a stop called The Angel Centre across from one simply
called Angel Islington.

There also doesn't seme to be any logic to when iBus tells you what
road you're on. I took a 73 in this morning, and the bus announced its
arrival on Pentonville Road and Oxford Street, but not Euston Road or
Gower Street. Wouldn't it be useful to announce all major roads in the
name of the first stop on them?

I was just wondering if there was a logic I wasn't seeing or if it
really is that random.

Jonn

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:30:05 -0000, wrote:

I was just wondering if there was a logic I wasn't seeing or if it
really is that random.

I suspect it really is random. A better system is the one used in
Germany, where a group of stops near one another will always share the
same name, usually based on a nearby landmark. The Dutch system of
the stop being named after the nearest road crossing the one the bus
is on is even more stupid as it results in stops with the same name a
long way from one another, but stops where a connection can be made
being named differently.

When you see stops named things like "High St, o/s Somewhere School,
400m from Other Place" which are common in places outside London you
can't help but think they are missing the point.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:30:05 -0000, wrote:

Can anyone enlighten me as to the logic of bus stop naming? Two stops
directly opposite each other sometimes have different names. This
sometimes makes sense - at a tube station at a crossroads, for
example, you want to know you're there at the first stop you come to.

But other times it seems entirely random - on Pentonville Road, for
example, there's a stop called The Angel Centre across from one simply
called Angel Islington.

This can also cause problems with the TfL Journey Planner. In some
cases, if you ask to go to a specific stop whose name only exists in
one direction, it will only give you routes ending at that actual stop
(even if it means going past the stop in the "wrong" direction and
returning on another bus).