please empty your brain below
But how long have 25 users got to wait?

Kim | 15.11.09 - 1:24 a.m. | #

Sorry to hear you're all having to pay for your bus fare now. But at least you seem to be putting a brave face on it.

I just wish we'd had those free buses down here in Crystal Palace. You don't know how lucky you were.

solar penguin | Homepage | 15.11.09 - 8:27 a.m. | #

I agree, for a long journey a double decker is better. But for two or three stops in central London surely the convenience of a bendy is hard to beat - even if it means standing?

IanB | Homepage | 15.11.09 - 10:32 a.m. | #

I predict outbreaks of buggy rage. One of the few things the bendys were good for.

Let's hope the new timetable is as robust and accurate as dg's posting times, then: 00.38 today; 11.00 yesterday...

Gordon | 15.11.09 - 10:40 a.m. | #

I suspect the fare-paying residents of Hackney will be well pleased.
Whereas the fare-dodgers will be somewhat less enamoured.

I can't remember the last time I saw a revenue inspection team on a bendy bus. I think it was possibly in 2005.

martin | Homepage | 15.11.09 - 11:45 a.m. | #

Come to North London then on the bendy 29 (Camden, Holloway, Finsbury Park, Wood Green): revenue protection + police teams pretty visible here - is it the neighbourhood....

Gordon | 15.11.09 - 12:33 p.m. | #

I do occasionally use the 29!

martin | Homepage | 15.11.09 - 1:24 p.m. | #

Use between 10 and 4 for best chance of hi-viz visitations then!

Gordon | 15.11.09 - 2:17 p.m. | #

Agreed with Gordon re. the 29, it does seem to get more attention than some other bendy routes I've experienced. It seems to abstract the more colourful characters from parallell routes too (the 253 definitely feels a lot more peaceful these days), so it's quite a good way of (albeit perhaps unintentionally) kettling the troublemakers into a predictable place.

I think part of the problem with the bendies is that an effective revenue protection exercise needs a staff of at least two inspectors on board and two police staff at each of the three doors, plus additional staff off the bus to actually deal with the inevitable non-fare paying masses. Otherwise everyone without a validated oyster/ticket just does a bolt for it. What would be a routine ticket check on a normal bus becomes a full scale 'bust' operation on a bendy, and the costs involved must be way out of proportion. With the end in sight for them, I suspect TfL's revenue protection arm may have quietly thrown the towel in. There are plenty of misappropriated freedom passes and 14/15 year olds with lost/suspended free passes to go for on conventional buses now..

Nico | 15.11.09 - 2:18 p.m. | #

Yes it needs to be a mob-handed exercise given the three doors and the number of passengers per bus.

On fare evasion, no excuses, but what are the overall mass transportation economics here? TfL is subsidised but less so than most other capital city mass transportation systems I think - if (say) 5\\% or 10\\% of bus riders do so free, is that per taxpayer a greater cost to the London residents than to, say, the Parisian or Roman inhabitant?

The scoff-laws deserve what they may get, but what's the bigger picture?

Gordon | 15.11.09 - 10:25 p.m. | #

I was a Bus driver for 10 years and the very first route that I ever drove a Bus in service on was an RM on route 38 working out of Leyton Bus garage, I remember on that very first journey getting as far as Holborn and glancing around to take a peek through the very small section that was cut out of the folding blind behind my seat and seeing all the passengers siting reading their newspapers and staring out of the windows and my only thought was my god they all look so relaxed, thankfully none of them apart from my conductor knew they had joined me on my very first drive without an instructor siting watching my every move.

fishislandskin | 15.11.09 - 10:57 p.m. | #

TFL's Revenue Protection may have thrown in the towel but what about the rest of us who have to put up with this in Bow? On the 25 here, packed with riff-raff, winos, feral kids; yet on the parallel 205 or 425, seats galore. Do the math!

Kim | 15.11.09 - 11:56 p.m. | #

Coming back to this, I went into Hackney this afternoon on the 253. The inspectors were still hanging around on the Lower Clapton Road waiting for 38s to turn up.

It surprises me a bit (but not much - I doubt DG gets many inner-west London subscribers when compared to east) how little mention is made of the 18. It's the 25 of NW London for all the wrong reasons - long slow drag out to zone 4, same overcrowding, often late with short turnings all over the place, and some of the finest specimens to come out of Harlesden and Stonebridge on board. If anything, it's worse: while it's possible to circumvent the 25 by using the underground or parallell bus routes, the 18 goes it alone virtually all the way from central London to Wembley. There isn't another bendy route in the capital to have it that bad - before the 205 was extended the solitary section of the 25 was about half that distance, but the problems on both routes are the same. Still, should only be about another 18 months of fun and games for both..

Nico | 16.11.09 - 4:30 a.m. | #

I'm looking forward to the end of the bendies on the 436 (although I wonder what will happen to the route as a whole, since it was introduced when the bendies came in, and largely parallels the 36). Same difficulties with feral kids, winos etc (in this case from Peckham and New Cross at the end of the route I use).

But the main problem with the bendies is that if anyone wants to get off, the driver has to open all the doors. People then pile on, and the bus gets absurdly overcrowded. At least on a double decker, the driver can choose not to open the front doors if the bus is full. And I'd like to see anyone with a push chair getting on to a rush-hour 436, notional buggy space or not...

Baldassaro | 16.11.09 - 8:58 a.m. | #

>new two-way bus lane in Piccadilly (with bus stops planted on a narrow island in the centre of the road)

Running both ways? Does this mean that the bus lanes will be on the wrong sides of the road?! Would like to see how that's supposed to work!

dg writes: it's all in this pdf here

Wayne | 16.11.09 - 10:27 a.m. | #

I clearly spoke too soon.

martin | Homepage | 17.11.09 - 12:52 p.m. | #

For relatively short journeys (say Zones 1 and 2) on high-density routes the bendies have been excellent and I shall miss them. They allow quick loading and unloading and relatively easy circulation within the bus.

Of those I use regularly, the 521 and now the 38 have gone. Curiously the 521 has been replaced with a sort of half-bendy. A l.w.b. Citaro/Merc with about 25 seats and a huge standing area towards the front (reminiscent of some Red Arrow designs 20 years ago) and with all-door loading and no ticket checking.

Edwin Greenwood | Homepage | 18.11.09 - 12:50 a.m. | #











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