please empty your brain below
On current form it's probably: TfL aren't printing timetables anymore 🙄

Roger French | 08.10.17 - 7:05 a.m. | #

I don't live in London at all, so I would just as soon read about Bow Road as Fulham. It's not what you write about; it's how. The fact that people come back day after day to read posts about a bus stop is testament to the quality of the writing.

Sarah | 08.10.17 - 7:15 a.m. | #

How dare you write even more words about a thing that some people have no interest in. I pay good money for this hashtag content and I will be contacting your editor to take this further. I will send you a list of what I think are appropriate topics. Hashtag furious.

T | 08.10.17 - 7:29 a.m. | #

I think you owe Alan Platt a refund of his subscription fees.

| 08.10.17 - 8:04 a.m. | #

The posts about Bus Stop M & Bow Road tube station aren't just idle Twitter rants. They're researched pieces written in DG's style.

How many arm-chair ranters would have bothered to check all the stops on their bus route? Or spend an hour on the platform watching the next tube indicator?

I don't even live in London but still like to read DG's posts about Bus Stop M. I think I'm going to have to make a pilgrimage to it someday!

John Smith | 08.10.17 - 8:13 a.m. | #

I was on route 25 yesterday but didn't see bus stop M. Disappointed

Simon G | 08.10.17 - 8:13 a.m. | #

Ha ha That made me laugh out loud DG....Alan must be going nuts now

Bruce Wayne | 08.10.17 - 8:19 a.m. | #

Alan old mate, if you don't like it either write a blog yourself or as others have suggested skip the topics that bore you. As someone who now lives 50 miles from London but spent nearly 20 years in the 70s and 80s in Wandsworth, I find the saga of Bus Stop M and the Bow Road indicators fascinating, tales of how bureaucracy doesn't really give a stuff about the people that pay their wages.

Not Alan Platt | 08.10.17 - 8:27 a.m. | #

Stratford High Street Station: one out of ten timetables? Have they stopped bothering? Have the timetables been removed, or were they never there in the first place?

A failure rate of around a third or a fifth suggests a systemic problem, not just accident. Perhaps they assume everyone is using Citymapper or the TfL website or whatever on smartphones to check times, so there is no need for the paper version any more?

Andrew | 08.10.17 - 8:33 a.m. | #

Is there scope for an FOI request to see if TfL have procedures in place to check for the presence of up-to-date timetables, and to replace out-of-date or missing ones?

Andrew | 08.10.17 - 8:36 a.m. | #

I live over 250 miles from London, but I love to read these tales of bureaucratic / technological / managerial inefficiency in the transport system.

My great hope is that these blogs are also read by The Man Who Does ..., not only in Bow, but around the country, where similar failings are to be found all over the place.

Petras409 | 08.10.17 - 8:45 a.m. | #

My partner, a very serious and responsible man in his mid 50s, had a meeting at an institution in Mile End last week. Rather than pick up a bus/tube home (to Stratford) from there he deliberately walked up to bus stop M before phoning me in some excitement to say he was at the fabled stop!

Joan | 08.10.17 - 8:46 a.m. | #

It's not just the timetables that are disappearing, in my bit of north London the countdown displays are disappearing. The latest to go is opposite Morrisons on the Holloway road.The old shelter had a countdown display, the new shelter does not.

coffin dodger | 08.10.17 - 8:47 a.m. | #

Apart from it being local and therefore easy for DG to know what *should* be happening versus what is *actually* happening, I very much suspect Bus Stop M to be a microcosm for the entire network. Bus Stop M today could be Bus Stop ZG, E, AR or P tomorrow.

It could be your parents standing endlessly at a bus stop in the rain because they don't have a smartphone, internet signal or battery power to tell them the bus they want no longer stops here.

We still have up-to-date road signs at junctions, printed menus at the Chinese takeaway, and posters about changed Christmas shopping hours, even though that information is readily available on the web.

Think of BSM as a mystery shopper exercise with added wit, tenacity and journalistic qualities! If one of London's largest organisations doesn't take information seriously why not expect them to be held to account?

Subscription renewed for another 12 months.

Ewan | 08.10.17 - 9:01 a.m. | #

We all know it's option 2, the change to the 25 and 488 has been deferred twice (weren't the tiles for the 488 extension put on the stops?), the problem might be the cut back to Holborn in London - which I believe is going to be done at the same time.

Seeing as the timetables are unique to each stop, I don't see why printing one is inefficient.

Perhaps with all the cuts going on nearly everywhere, TfL staff (those who are left) are busy updating these timetables instead.

dg writes: Best not start a comment with "We all know". Because
a) We don't all know.
b) It's 25 and 425, not 25 and 488.

Still anon | 08.10.17 - 9:03 a.m. | #

Didn't The Guardian run a story of how when Boris was Mayor, TfL had happily spent almost ÂŁ98 million on his various vanity projects? The garden bridge, cable car, getting rid of the bendy buses etc? Well maybe these cuts to bus timetables are to pay for this.

My local station (Chislehurst) has not had its bus timetables at the stop - or the map inside the station - updated since 2014! (And there is a new bus route outside - that hardly anyone knows about). Never TfL dont care about being popular we are told - they just do their own thing

Le Ver | 08.10.17 - 9:03 a.m. | #

Well, Alan and others, if you're not interested in what DG writes there's a very simple solution. Don't read it.

Leuconoe | 08.10.17 - 9:07 a.m. | #

Route 25 is a very frequent route but can be very irregular, (like none for 10 minutes then 3 at once) so I would suggest that a timetable would be fairly useless anyway.

Agent Z | 08.10.17 - 9:10 a.m. | #

The main use for a timetable on a frequent route like the 25 is showing where a bus is going, not when it's coming.

Irregular users also appreciate knowing it runs every 4-9 minutes, not every 30.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 08.10.17 - 9:13 a.m. | #

Funnily enough was at Banstead on Friday wanted to catch a bus home and there was no timetable for my service at the bus stop. Silent inner rant about how hard can it be to put a timetable on a bus stop rather than a message apologising for the timetable not being displayed.

On the outward journey I had caught a bus (not the one I wanted) to a bus stop that I knew had a countdown display so that I would know how long I had to wait for the bus.

Pedantic of Purley | 08.10.17 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Out for a walk, I couldn't resist going to see Bus Stop M yesterday. It felt rather like visiting the Abbey Road zebra crossing.

Lorraine | 08.10.17 - 9:25 a.m. | #

Maybe Alan doesn't catch buses, but I do and I agree with others that M is a microcosm for what is happening elsewhere in London, including Fulham.
What annoys me is Alan's kicker. 'Stop bitching and be thankful for what you have.'
But the bus stop HAD correct timetables and now doesn't. A bit of research has shown other stops in the area are similarly lacking. Drip, drip.
Where does it stop? Today the timetable, tomorrow the route?
I speak as someone who learnt of the proposed loss of 50 percent of my bus routes from Charlton to Greenwich from this very site.
Alan and others may think a gradual erosion of standards is fine, others don't.
Okay off to get one of my two (for now) buses to Greenwich.

Chris | 08.10.17 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Yes, and like a lot of other 'services', everything is moving to digital where your data is more useful to the provider than they think non-digital is to you.

b | 08.10.17 - 10:13 a.m. | #

Never change DG. Your effort and dedication is appreciated by far more than the few Alan Platts of the world.

Cornish Cockney | 08.10.17 - 10:24 a.m. | #

>So I went out and checked all the bus stops >on route 25 between Mile End and Stratford, >all 17 of them.

A cautionary example of what can happen if you move out of fulfilling employment.

new still anon | 08.10.17 - 10:28 a.m. | #

I suspect the reason is two fold. Firstly there has been a change pending to the 25 and 425 for many weeks. Its introduction date keeps slipping for some unknown reason. TfL may be reluctant to put up route 25 panels when a change is pending. Ditto for the 425. The 276 is also due a frequency cut soon so that's another one on the "pending" list for new timetable panels.

I have a sneaking suspicion that TfL actually want to bring in the 25/425 change *and* the proposed cut back to the 25 to Holborn Circus at the same time to save more money. However the consultation process hasn't churned out an answer for the second change to the 25 yet. That may be a further factor but I'm speculating.

The other issue is whether TfL have cut back spending and resources on things like timetable panel / bus stop flag updating. I also think that they've cut back the numbers of local infrastructure managers who manage things like temporary changes and diversions. Far too many instances where out of date notices are still at bus stops weeks or months after the event / diversion. Still everyone loves a fares freeze don't they even if the quality of everything else goes to pot. ;-)

PC | 08.10.17 - 10:41 a.m. | #

I don't catch buses (I ride a bike) but I still accepted 'The Creed' as a condition of becoming a subscriber...
"This is my Bus stop M. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life"

RogerW | 08.10.17 - 10:45 a.m. | #

What about bus stop P in West Norwood? A few years ago, the council put a recycling bin on the kerb, right by the place where the buses' front doors should open. This means that buses now have to stop further back, and if two stop there at once, the rear one overlaps the junction with Chestnut Road, adding to the traffic congestion problems in the area.

That's a more serious problem than a few missing timetables. Any plans to report on that?

| 08.10.17 - 10:48 a.m. | #

An interesting post, which has also raised some interesting comments, although I do detect a bit of a common theme of generalised world pessimism. OK, some or all of us may have plenty to be pessimistic about, but maybe a few rays of sunshine would not go amiss.

Surveying missing timetables on bus stops, for the purpose of entertaining his readers and also contributing to eventual improvements, could be at least as fulfilling as many of the routine tasks which - in my experience - turn up in all kinds of paid employment.

Oh dear, I don't think that paragraph read quite like the ray of sunshine I was advocating. Do we need kittens?

Malcolm | 08.10.17 - 11:21 a.m. | #

I don’t even live in the UK, but the posts about Bus Stop ‘M’ in Bow interest me.

May 2018 I’m going to visit this monument of DG blogging.

To all the Alan Platts of this world if you don’t like the article don’t read it, or view it. If you think you could do it better, stop whining and and write your own blog.

DG’s blog is a personal look at the world through his eyes.

As for that line stop bitching and be thankful for what you have, I do think you could, practice what you preach.

Michael | 08.10.17 - 11:34 a.m. | #

I was presuming it was a conspiracy against Bus Stop M to the exclusion of the entire rest of the London Network!

Antipodean | 08.10.17 - 11:50 a.m. | #

Sorry 425 not 488, but you have already mentioned the 425 change when you blogged about the West End consultation, most have now been partially or fully carried out, the exceptions are the 46, 25, 332, 425, 452.

I merely assumed that most DG readers, apart from certain individuals in Fulham, would be more or less up to speed.

dg writes: I would never assume this.

Still anon | 08.10.17 - 12:10 p.m. | #

This extract from Metrobus shows how time consuming and expensive it is to maintain bus stop information

"Historically, we had used a very manual approach to roadside information. In the weeks prior to a service change, we would manually print off thousands of stop specific timetables, maps, adverts, and general information “Filler” artwork. These would then need to be hand trimmed and laminated before double sided sticky tape was applied to the rear.

In the few days before the change, we would visit each stop (sometimes many hundreds) and apply the printed and laminated artwork to plastic backing sheets inside the timetable cases. At some stops, we would spend a number of minutes getting the display right as existing artwork needed to be removed and rearranged in order to fit the new information in.

It was a time consuming process and involved significant manpower – Preparing the new material was normally two weeks full time work for a member of staff without everything else we needed to juggle, and displaying it at the stops another full week of long days which on occasions would exceed 16 hours.

It wasn't unusual for us to spend one whole day on a small number of stops – Crawley Town Centre alone could sometimes take several hours with the number of services which had their own pieces of artwork, and the number of cases at each stop which needed updating for every change. Not only was this method time consuming, but it also left much to be desired around our presentation and professionalism.

And that was just the work involved in updating information for service changes. Several hours were spent afterwards monitoring bus stops for damaged displays, failed tape causing artwork to “Slip”, plastic backing sheets and timetable carriers discolouring and disintegrating over time and so on.

The costs were certainly high, as was the pull on our staffing resources!"

john | 08.10.17 - 12:16 p.m. | #

Hi DG. It seems my Post on Wednesday has ruffled a few feathers. In all honesty I really wasn´t trying to be offensive to anybody, least of all You. When I wrote "...stop bitching and be thankful for what you have." I was genuinely thinking of others living in areas like Croydon, Kingston, Battersea, to name a few, who don´t have the Luxury You or I do in having a local Tube Station. Apologies to any and all if I Rubbed You Up the Wrong Way.

Alan Platt | 08.10.17 - 12:33 p.m. | #

In at least one European city that I am aware of e-ink displays are now replacing print on paper timetables, allowing them to be updated live or to show night time services only at the appropriate hour. Whilst TfL's network is several orders of magnitude larger than the location in question I wonder whether this might be a more sustainable approach for the future?

Of course this may simply lead to the sorry tale of bus stop M merging with that of Bow Road, focusing not on the human failings presumably preventing timetables from being replaced but on electronic ones affecting their timeliness and accuracy. F

Robert | Homepage | 08.10.17 - 1:01 p.m. | #

Robert, re e-paper timetables.

https://www.techspot.com/news/63240-london-epaper-bus-schedule-displays.html

Still anon | 08.10.17 - 1:11 p.m. | #

I would imagine Alan Platt, being a DG reader, would have known exactly what DG's response would have been when made his comment, so in that respect he cannot be disappointed!

Tim | 08.10.17 - 2:53 p.m. | #

Thanks for the Guardian link! I was one digit out - TfL happy fund Boris Johnsons vanity projects to the tune of ÂŁ940 million! You have flagged up something really important for Londoners - and its millions of visitors - the increasing disregard of them by this quango - i had noticed maps and timetables not updated - so you are doing a public service by flagging this up. No credible transport doesnt put up updated maps at stations or timetables at bus stops.

Le Ver | 08.10.17 - 2:59 p.m. | #

Having searched in vain for an indication of whether a bus stop was in use or not, let alone having a timetable displayed, in many parts of UK and Europe, Tfl don't do too badly. Indeed it's only recently the bus stops in Hertfordshire have received timetables

Mike Roberts | 08.10.17 - 3:57 p.m. | #

Isn't it Odd the way Some People randomly Capitalise Words in their Sentences, particularly the Nouns, almost as if English were a Kind Of German. But it it was, perhaps the typical standard of Grammar would be Markedly Better.

(Legal documents do This Sort Of Thing all the time, but mostly for Defined Terms, or Proper Nouns.)

I blame 1066 And All That, which was otherwise on the whole a Good Thing.

Andrew | 08.10.17 - 5:01 p.m. | #

I complained to Tfl about an incorrect timetable at one of my local bus stops. The contractor had changed all the others when the service changed but simply missed one stop.
Tfl replied saying thank you and that and that the contractor had told them they had now corrected the problem. I went to look. They hadn't changed it. Told Tfl again. Eventually it was changed. But if no one at Tfl is checking then contractors can get away with doing nothing.

ap | 08.10.17 - 6:02 p.m. | #

One thing worse than missing timetables: out of date timetables. Near me (not in Greater London) the there are a fair number of bus stops (in several cases in fact now entirely disused ex-bus stops) that have timetables posted for routes that were withdrawn (or very substantially rerouted) over a year ago. And at least one stop that has a list of departures up for a route that was withdrawn, without replacement, nearly four years ago. The problem in part is that the responsibility for bus stops is shared between different authorities (the various bus companies themselves, the county council, in some cases a town or parish council). At least in London it is clear which organisation is responsible for sorting things out.

Dominic H | 08.10.17 - 7:00 p.m. | #

For many years the TfL bus mystery traveller survey required bus stop panels to be checked for missing timetables (amongst other things) - all checking of stops and shelters was discontinued earlier this year to save money.

anon | 08.10.17 - 8:25 p.m. | #

Bring on some kind of wireless digital display which would only need to be updated centrally?

Anonanon... | 08.10.17 - 8:45 p.m. | #

Presumably before long the only information available will be an app on your smartphone (assuming you have one, not everyone does)

| 08.10.17 - 9:41 p.m. | #

@ Malcolm - I think the core issue that DG raises is that previously TfL were pretty good at maintaining bus stop info. Over the last couple of years things have slipped badly in a number of areas. Spider map production and updating went to pot for months and months. Management of bus stop information seems somewhat variable these days. It wasn't always like this. The problem, I suspect, is that we have an organisation that is "under siege" and the "little things" are now being undermined and cut. I suspect this was done knowingly in many cases and in some others it will be a consequence of other problems like staff cuts / "role restructuring" etc. As with any public service we should be alarmed when we start noticing "crumbling edges of quality" as they are usually indicative of far wider and deeper problems.

@ Ap - the days of TfL employing legions of people to check other people's work went long ago. You will be lucky if there is one "Bus Infrastructure" person to cover every stop / route / bus station for 4 or 5 boroughs. That's thousands of stops to check / monitor. They probably have a checklist of things that's 150 items long plus all the day to day emergencies, planned road works etc etc to cover too. It is simply impossible for these people to be "on top" of every aspect of their job to 100% success levels. Can't be done - they know it, their bosses know it, people at the top know it but if the budget and headcount isn't there to improve matters it won't get better until there is political fall out and someone demands "something should be done". You then get a short period of activity to right past errors and then nothing changes. Apologies for the cynicism but I've seen it so many times. Heck I've been accountable for teams who did have an audit role to check contractor performance but it was very hard to find the time to release people to do that task without something else of equal or great importance / value suffering. Budget and headcount again.

You cannot expect to take out billions of pounds in "efficiencies" and there be no demonstrable impact on services to passengers / overall quality. All the easy efficiency gains were made years ago, now there is barely any flab / excess to cut. You're now reducing the organisation's ability to function at a given scale. Answer - you have to do less to survive. TfL are now doing less in a lot of areas and hoping people don't notice. I guess it depends on your view as to what the priorities should be in running a crucially important transport network.

PC | 09.10.17 - 12:49 a.m. | #

In response to DG at 08.10.17 - 9:13 a.m.

"Irregular users also appreciate knowing it runs every 4-9 minutes, not every 30."

Saying it runs every 4-9 minutes doesn't actually give any extra information over saying "runs at least every 9 minutes".

dg writes: Actually it does.

John | 09.10.17 - 10:09 a.m. | #

At one of my local stops the H19 timetable has slipped down behind the 183.

Stephen Bird | 09.10.17 - 8:21 p.m. | #

Anyone public spirited enough to report a missing timetable by calling the Service Charge 0843 number promoted by the poster in the top photo will be charged up to 62p per minute.

The law banning the use of Service Charge numbers for customer helplines was announced in December 2013 and took effect in June 2014, so nearly four years later it's high time that TfL complied by replacing all its old 0843 posters.

Gerry | 10.10.17 - 10:15 a.m. | #

"Spider Maps" are also behind - route 388 was extended to Elephant and rerouted months ago but parts of Hackney still do not show this. Timetable and maps replacement at stops / shelters has slowed considerably in the last two years. Clearly a resources issue.

Countdown signs are now of concern - the failed unit in Morning Lane (Hackney) beside Tesco took over six weeks to repair. The unit at Clapton Pond (southbound) took over four weeks to re-energise...

iBus (on board bus route information) was not updated for two major closed stops, one for two years (eastbound in Cannon Street at Mansion House; stop now reopened) and one for an ongoing year-plus closure (westbound in New Oxford Street, beside the former Sorting Office).

Cuts, cuts, cuts - that's all it is.

Joel | 10.10.17 - 11:29 a.m. | #

The changes to the 25 and 425 have been deferred for 2 years due to the decision to turn the Stratford Gyratory into a 2 way system. One for you to follow up on DG!

Robert Taylor | 11.10.17 - 11:36 a.m. | #

But Robert, Newham's consultation on introducing a Stratford Gyratory was launched before TfL's consultation on the 25 and 425...

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.10.17 - 12:59 p.m. | #

I know it was. London Buses decided it wasn’t worth getting two routes delayed by the works and so deferred the extension, they see it as a cost saving and with the recent cuts it’s not surprising. The N86 has had its night tube frequency cut from every 15 to every 20 minutes, I think the 158 is also getting the same type of cut.

Robert Taylor | 12.10.17 - 1:06 p.m. | #

3 months later, Bus Stop M finally has all 7 timetables again.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.01.18 - 3:12 p.m. | #











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