please empty your brain below
hold tight, ding ding ...

PJS | 16.01.18 - 7:09 a.m. | #

I wonder how many of the trips and falls are due to sudden braking rather than “sudden” acceleration? I suspect most.

Kirk | 16.01.18 - 7:13 a.m. | #

How about trying to tran drivers not to floor the accelerator as they leave stops, and a bit of progressive braking as they are approaching stops instead of flying up to stops then slamming on the brakes.

dg writes: Training bus drivers is also part of TfL's Bus Safety Programme, and is underway.

Michael | 16.01.18 - 7:17 a.m. | #

A simple and obvious part-fix would be to inhibit the message if the bus is actually moving at the time.

But linking it to the start of door-close would fix most of the mistimings, and the remainder (caused by traffic issues preventing movement) are more readily forgiven, as passengers can see that the bus might have moved, and why it didn't.

Malcolm Story | 16.01.18 - 7:22 a.m. | #

In my provincial world (Arriva) drivers expect passengers to sit down before setting off from a stop and for folk to remain seated until they have stopped. (All single deckers, standing comparatively rare)

In London, my experience is that closing of the doors indicates buses are about to move. I don't need a voice (by the way, what about deaf people?). When I want to go from top deck to lower, usually when the bus is at traffic lights, I would value a warning the bus is about to move. Then, I would hang on tight. Walking down backwards facing stairs on an accelerating bus is no fun.

100andthirty | 16.01.18 - 7:27 a.m. | #

Can he fix it, no he Khan't.

Still Anon | 16.01.18 - 7:28 a.m. | #

Like you, I took a lot of buses at the weekend, and like you I had the full range of erroneous announcements (before the bus moved; well after the bus had moved; while the driver was changing over). Presumably, linking it to the doors closing would solve the first and last, but not the second. I don't know whether it's just the routes I use, or the general increase in traffic, but drivers don't seem to accelerate violently away from stops in the way that they used to (one driver on the 185 was a complete nutter) so you could argue that the announcement is less necessary these days anyway. I hope they make the whole misguided thing stop soon...

Baldassaro | 16.01.18 - 8:35 a.m. | #

To couple the first poster's idea and DG's poster idea, maybe there could be a ding noise as the bus is 'setting off' (ie when the doors close) and posters inside the bus informing passengers that the ding indicates the bus is about to move so they should hold on?

Also would be interesting to know more about the 'change of speed' injuries, as already mentioned whether there is a correlation with acceleration or deceleration, or if there is a certain passenger profile of those who are injured

| 16.01.18 - 8:43 a.m. | #

Quarterly spreadsheets of bus safety data can be found here.

In the most recent period, 70% of slips/trips/falls were by females, 25% by children, 20% by the elderly, and 25% were treated in hospital.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.01.18 - 8:48 a.m. | #

So there you have the solution.
"Ladies, please hold tight".

Petras409 | 16.01.18 - 8:58 a.m. | #

Would the injured passengers be those carrying or attempting to carry shopping or school bags by any chance? How many times have you been prevented from moving your feet to keep your balance because there are bags and other articles in the way? (you are standing because all seats are occupied - the bags can also belong to those sitting).

b | 16.01.18 - 9:03 a.m. | #

The other day I heard something like, "The driver has been instructed to hold the bus at this stop for a few minutes to regulate the service," immediately followed by the announcement that the bus was about to move!

Couldn't they have beta tested the new announcements on just a handful of buses first to spot these problems before rolling it out across the network?

solar penguin | 16.01.18 - 9:03 a.m. | #

It's even more stupid than the "Mind the closing doors" announcement on the tube after the doors have already closed, or long before they do so.

Tim W | 16.01.18 - 9:04 a.m. | #

All buses have a device which has actuators to control the closing of the doors and the operation of the handbrake, built-in sensors that can detect if there are any standing passengers, a means of making announcements, and a central processor capable of determining whether and when such an announcement would be appropriate.

It's called a driver.

timbo again | Homepage | 16.01.18 - 9:54 a.m. | #

I think that people have missed what should have been the main point in this total daftness.

Too often in life now, schemes (especially government schemes) are rolled out in one big go without a trial, extended trial, pilot in a particular area etc.

Do it on one route and find the obvious flaws. Do it on a few routes and find a few more issues (e.g. changeover) then have a planned but stepped rollout. At all stages invite feedback from staff and passengers.

If people just assume things will work OK and then do them without thorough real-life testing then they are asking for trouble.

Pedantic of Purley | 16.01.18 - 10:03 a.m. | #

They used to have a particularly annoying announcement on one of the routes serving Harefield hospital around 2002 -- a very rural route.

As soon as anyone pressed the bell to ask the driver to stop at the next bus stop the announcement staarted: "Warning, this bus is stopping at the next bus stop. Please stand clear of the opening doors."

Repeated every 10 seconds until the stop. Impossible to tune out of.

AlanBG | 16.01.18 - 10:48 a.m. | #

How do the software updates work, for example if you had a trial/pilot area, then only certain buses would get the updates - everything at Bow for example, but then would you have to send an update remotely that only targeted buses at Bow, but then every network update after that would have to have an exception for Bow to avoid overwriting the trial software.

Still Anon | 16.01.18 - 10:52 a.m. | #

Still Anon,

I can't believe they can't be selective. If they can't then that is the first thing they need to fix.

And there ought to be a way of downloading to individual buses without having to do it over the air.

The obvious thing is target just one bus then target a route. If a bus gets reallocated to a different route then no big deal but make sure the route is covered. After that do a complete garage.

Software ought to be able to tell if an update has already been applied and not download it a second time.

Pedantic of Purley | 16.01.18 - 11:25 a.m. | #

Just wondering how does each bus receive the latest version of iBus? Via Wifi / Near Field / Bluetooth overnight at the bus garage?

TFL merely says: "Using a combination of technologies including satellite tracking, iBus can pinpoint the location of buses, relaying information between the driver, garage and central control point." Not enough detail there.

And those bus stop locations which are spoken and text-displayed when presumably triggered via GPS: does each bus hold the complete bus network set in its on-board database? Is that a lot of data? And what happens to the triggers when a bus gets diverted?

I feel a DG blog update about the whole iBus system coming on. Hope so; I'd rather read about it within the context of the London bus network than purely conceptually.

Pimlico Pete | 16.01.18 - 11:26 a.m. | #

Reminds me of the safety device fitted on the new Thameslink trains, which stopped the doors being opened unless it was sure (via GPS) that the train was at a station. A good idea, surely? What could possibly go wrong with that?

Well, unfortunately it did not work very well sub-surface, for example at St Pancras, so the train would arrive and sit there with the doors resolutely closed for a minute or two while the system caught up (or driver used a manual override).

As Timbo says, we could rely on the driver, but they don't always get it right either. Would an automatic speed limiter have prevented the Croydon tram incident, for example?

Andrew | 16.01.18 - 11:27 a.m. | #

Maybe we are looking at it from the wrong angle.

Perhaps the drivers are starting of to soon and should wait for the announcement, at least that’s the wife’s reading of the situation.

Ray | 16.01.18 - 12:22 p.m. | #

The idea is sound, even if it's "health and safety gone mad".

Has anyone on the project ever ridden on a bus? Did no one think to test it on one route to see how it goes?

I hope phase 2, where the message is played between the driver pressing the brake pedal and the brakes engaging, has been delayed.

Brad | 16.01.18 - 12:33 p.m. | #

"Perhaps the drivers are starting off too soon and should wait for the announcement".

I refer you to the very first comment in this thread.

(Although as has been pointed out drivers are fallible - indeed there have been a number of railway accidents caused by drivers responding Pavlov-like to "Ding Ding" and setting off against a red signal)

timbo again again | Homepage | 16.01.18 - 12:37 p.m. | #

My understanding is that new bus schedules are uploaded by TfL, then downloaded to garages overnight, sometimes TfL forget to update schedules when they change, there is a planned long term diversion, if a new operator takes over or the actual bus hasn't been added to the system, so there is nothing on iBus for the driver to log into.

The system doesn't know anything about the bus - for example on a single decker you can play the message about seats being available upstairs.

Still Anon | 16.01.18 - 12:41 p.m. | #

Still anon,

Which is interesting because was told that iBus substantially reduced bus bridge strikes by warning the driver. But I can't imagine that single deckers give out loads of false warnings.

Pedantic of Purley | 16.01.18 - 12:54 p.m. | #

But...that's why it's a trial, to work out what doesn't work.

dg writes: No, it's a trial to see if it works.
Nobody did a trial to check how it works first.

louise | 16.01.18 - 1:38 p.m. | #

I think able bodied and sighted people should calm their rage before making comments.

Mark | 16.01.18 - 1:56 p.m. | #

I don't think disabled people & visually-impaired people are helped by a message which bears no relation to whether the bus is moving or not.

Peter | 16.01.18 - 2:04 p.m. | #

Maybe they shoulld have a guy in the back of the bus ,to yell hold tight and then ring a bell so the driver knows it's safe to pulll away......

| 16.01.18 - 2:18 p.m. | #

Surely that's what the driver's internal rear mirrors are for - so they can make sure the passengers (especially those who looked wobbly on their pins when they boarded!) are safely seated or holding on before moving OR pressing a button to play the message just for them!

Cornish Cockney | 16.01.18 - 3:23 p.m. | #

Maybe the insides of buses could be lined with cotton wool FFS.

There is no need for this announcement. Those boarding should have the nous to realise the bus is going to move off at some stage -- warning or not.

Rocket science it ain't.

What next? "Warning. This bus will brake every so often. It will be a sharp braking action if a kamikaze I-phoning pedestrian is involved."

Chris | 16.01.18 - 3:49 p.m. | #

TfL again - Oh Dear

Ken | 16.01.18 - 4:18 p.m. | #

As buses stop and start in traffic and lights all the time, not only are these announcements erroneous and intrusive, they don't even cover all the times the bus changes speed. False positives, false negatives, false security.

If everyone protests, hopefully TfL will scrap the whole idea.

John B | 16.01.18 - 4:33 p.m. | #

They also assume that people aren't holding on for the sheer, reckless thrill of it. A weekend's observation suggests that if people aren't holding on to something when the bus pulls out of a stop, it's because they can't - they're carrying shopping, wrangling small children, dealing with a walking aid and in the act of lowering themselves gingerly into a seat when the bus zooms off as if from a Formula One starting grid (W4 I'm looking at you). If Tfl really want to reduce accidents on buses, they need to find a way of getting the drivers to wait until people can hold on. Conductors, anyone?

Dolcina | 16.01.18 - 7:32 p.m. | #

What annoys me about this whole fiasco is the way it spoils the reputation of a very good underlying approach to improving safety. The idea of investigating in what ways people get hurt, and then dreaming up a scheme to diminish the amount of hurting, is sound and much needed.

But if the scheme dreamed up happens to be a bad idea made even worse by botched implementation, it just discredits the whole accident-mitigation approach. The boy who cried wolf springs to mind.

So the more vulnerable passengers, whom the scheme is intended to help protect from harm, will actually finish up worse off, because of the principle of bad solutions driving out good ones.

Malcolm | 16.01.18 - 10:05 p.m. | #

And then we'll get "Please hold on, the bus is about to stop" and "Please hold on, the bus is about to turn a corner".

And before you know it, there will be non stop announcements, so it will just become background noise that is largely ignored. Still if that does happen I'll look forward to TFL tying themselves in knots when they decide they need another health and safety announcement and the only option is to get rid of an existing one for it to be possible.

Jon Combe | 16.01.18 - 10:55 p.m. | #

A soothing 'bing bong' or other emollient disquietude would surely fit the bill here and, after a brief acclimatisation, be more meaningful for those who don't understand English.

Having to process spoken words is somehow far more intrusive and annoying than hearing musical tones.

drD | Homepage | 16.01.18 - 11:51 p.m. | #

Also - I heard something on the radio yesterday that relates recent research showing the physiological effects of unwanted noise on health. There appear to be demonstrable connections between noise stress and hardening of the arteries.

How long before TfL get sued by cardiologically damaged commuters?

drD | Homepage | 16.01.18 - 11:55 p.m. | #

An occasional "hold tight please" wouldn't be too bad.
Similar to the "no standing upstairs" or "please stay with your buggy"

James Scantlebury | 17.01.18 - 12:18 a.m. | #

At 1095 injuries due to change of speed, that represents approximately one injury per bus every 8 years. On my two journeys yesterday I estimate that a) about half the time, the message came after the bus had set off and b) there were more bus starts not from bus stops than there were from stops.

As no evidence has been presented that setting off from a bus stop is the main "change of speed" cause, its entirely possible that it could take years to determine whether this has had any impact or and by then it will probably be part of the "rich fabric of irrelevant noises" one has to put up with like my personal non favourite....."see it, say it, sorted".

100andthirty | 17.01.18 - 8:28 a.m. | #

Bus updates - each TfL contractor garage has a LAN (Local Area Network). Info is downloaded to each bus at that garage, usually on alternate Thursdays. These transmissions can be selective, to a single garage or even for a single route. It's a single data package for all the routes at that garage.

A bus/route has a supplementary announcement if the internal visual display has a trailing full-stop. That means there is an extra statement for the next calling point but not necessarily on the screen (eg routes 25/205 between Stratford/Bow and Whitechapel, about the cycle lane behind the stops). Two preceding full-stops means a systemic announcement applies for that route (or garage or entire fleet).

Bus drivers take off like rockets because tight scheduling (saves buses by running fast) means drivers are under pressure to keep to time. Extra running time needs more buses; each bus on the road all day needs two drivers (minimum) - money rules, ok?

Standing starts from traffic jams, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings don't have door movement events to trigger announcements, but physical effect is as leaving a bus stop, other than no traffic lane change perhaps.

Prototyping used to be carried out by TfL - Arriva London North and Clapton Garage were often used to pilot new ideas.

Buses are now so complex, mostly for good reason, that their on-board systems conflict and drivers may less familiar with them, or feel unable to manage them. Don't always blame the driver...

Joel | 17.01.18 - 3:02 p.m. | #

I applaud this, once it's linked to door closure. What we now need is a message linked to the brake pedal saying "hold tight, the bus is about to brake (which might alarm people into thinking it might be about to break up, so perhaps "decelerate"). And another linked to the accelerator saying "hold tight, the bus is about to accelerate". And another as the bus is entering a corner (similar to curve detectors on Pendolinos) stating "hold tight, the bus is about to lurch sideways."
All that would save several minor injuries, no doubt. And ensure there are no long embarrassing silences to upset those who are upset by long silences.

Strabismus | 17.01.18 - 8:04 p.m. | #

With all the holding tight while starting, stopping and manoeuvring, perhaps the lesson is just to hold tight at all times while on an unpredictably moving mode of transport? Perhaps a continuous loop of "hold tight while you are on the bus".

Andrew | 17.01.18 - 8:46 p.m. | #

Funny that, I always thought that beeping noise to warn that the doors were closing also meant the bus is about to move.

Uncle Audrey | 19.01.18 - 6:18 p.m. | #

Please hold on while the bus is moving

Begins Friday 26th January.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.01.18 - 5:03 p.m. | #

(graphic amended to show 5 second gap, and overall length of 18 seconds approx)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.01.18 - 11:28 p.m. | #











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