please empty your brain below
Interesting about the 25. Only yesterday I was waiting on the Stratford Jubilee line platform and noticed a 25 cross the bridge with its top deck seemingly full, whereas on my wife's bus trips to and from work she's often the only passenger.

Both of us are "key workers" before anyone casts any aspersions!

Tim | 04.04.20 - 2:13 p.m. | #

I see 5 London bus workers have apparantly died of the virus.

Around me in SW London there are plenty of buses trundling back and forth with almost no passengers. One route I've seen on my daily exercise bike ride does seem to have higher numbers than the rest - that's the 430.

It must be a nightmare to schedule the right number of buses. Reduce further and the fewer buses running will be more of a health risk. Just look at the tube for that.

What really suprised me is that the Kingston University shuttle buses are still running.

ap | 04.04.20 - 5:48 p.m. | #

Modified Saturday schedules were introduced Mon-Fri from 23rd March and all weekend only night routes were suspended, some school routes are operating - see Robert Munster's site.

Still Anon | 04.04.20 - 6:30 p.m. | #

I suppose one key point is that the 25 links the Royal London Hospital with a lot of other strategic places, so it's likely to be busier than a route that's mostly used by commuters or shoppers.

Moogal | 04.04.20 - 6:58 p.m. | #

Government guidance allows commuting for those who cannot otherwise work: “You may travel for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home.” Critical workers are distinguished only by the provision of childcare rather than by exemption from some supposed ban on commuting.

Since 26 March this is reflected in the regulations for England: a reasonable excuse for leaving home includes “travel for the purposes of work… where it is not reasonably possible for that person to work… from the place where they are living”. Leaving home without a reasonable excuse is a criminal offence. Identically worded conditions apply in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

TfL, by contrast, state that “No one should be travelling unless you are a critical worker making an absolutely essential journey.” Presumably this is not enforceable, though it is understandable advice given the confines of public transport and the usual rush hour crowding.

National Rail has given less strident advice: “The government has advised people against non-essential travel. If your journey is essential and you need to go by train, please check before you set out.”

Food shops are still allowed to sell non-food items. As time passes, everyday breakages and developments will require a wide range of goods and services to keep everyone safe at home and provide back-office support to the essential services themselves. This no doubt informs the Government’s nuanced position of allowing a range of work to continue, while the headline advice “STAY HOME” achieves forcefulness through simplicity. People’s compliance with rules is influenced in complex ways by comprehensibility, practicability and psychological sustainability. Many lives are at stake.

So should non-critical London workers who cannot work from home still commute if they cannot get to work by foot, bike or car? Is the TfL advice best understood as contradictory or a necessary simplification of the real position?

Rich G | Homepage | 04.04.20 - 10:15 p.m. | #

The buses I see are virtually empty but bus passenger numbers are meant to be running around 20% of their usual level. I would have thought it’s a lot less than that unless buses in some parts of London are still busy

Kutgw | 05.04.20 - 8:24 a.m. | #

Now that the weather is warmer, buses would be safer places if opening windows were the norm, ie if (for example) the New Routemasters were mothballed.

Ian | 05.04.20 - 9:34 a.m. | #

Mhm, and if I can only access my local supermarket by bus, what then?

straphan | 07.04.20 - 5:40 p.m. | #











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