please empty your brain below
You have missed some of the detail of this scheme, for example once the school has been passed the bus can revert to a normal service. Also some routes are school bus services in one direction only depending on where the schools are.

Surbitonian | 03.09.20 - 7:58 a.m. | #

I've missed out plenty.

(in this case because the operational details you mention are not included on TfL's information pages about school services)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.09.20 - 8:06 a.m. | #

Do all the 6xx routes now carry the card in the window and are therefore restricted to schoolchildren only rather than any passenger as usual?

Maldenite | 03.09.20 - 8:11 a.m. | #

Just as well that Johnson's daft exhortations to cancel all the very successful work-at-home schemes are being ignored then.

Malcolm | 03.09.20 - 8:36 a.m. | #

Some form of normality must be on the horizon now that we can once again see Bus Stop M 😉

Kevin Too | 03.09.20 - 8:57 a.m. | #

I've looked this up and can't find anything about adults travelling with primary school children, who are some of the main users of buses to school and who will find it hardest to change to walking and cycling. It seems they will be able to use the school buses but with no social distancing so they are likely to be very close to other adults as well as lots of kids. I'm sure anyone who can possibly use a car will do so. The logical answer is the American school bus system, but that would be a huge change.

dg quotes: "Schoolchildren travelling without adults are encouraged to travel on School Services.... Anyone else needing to travel at these times should board regular non-school buses as usual."

Tony Woolf | 03.09.20 - 9:10 a.m. | #

TfL's operation to get people to stop using public transport continues apace, I see.

Meanwhile, here in West Yorkshire, the Combined Authority has removed all the timetables at bus stops and replaced them all with COVID-19 information posters telling them to use the internet to find bus times. One could argue that the concept of a static bus timetable is nebulous right now but bus frequencies are almost at 100% of pre-COVID levels. This just smacks of an attempt to confuse the populace and get them off the buses.

TheLupineOne | 03.09.20 - 9:36 a.m. | #

» The numbers 25, 276 and 425 which turned up at 9.30am had School Service on a card in the window, but the normal complement of adult passengers on board.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.09.20 - 9:41 a.m. | #

'...for example once the school has been passed the bus can revert to a normal service'.

191 driver starts laughing hysterically then bursts into tears.

Still Anon | 03.09.20 - 10:52 a.m. | #

"once the school has been passed the bus can revert to a normal service"

Which school? Most routes pass several schools- one of my local routes has a school near each end, and five others at various points in between.

I have a teacher in the household whom is now unable to get the bus to work. It would be helpful, and possibly improve discipline, if teachers were allowed on the school services as well - after all, they are not going to be isolated from the kids the rest of the day.

timbo | 03.09.20 - 11:15 a.m. | #

Good point Timbo!
I live a few hundred metres from both a primary and a secondary school and expect the traffic to be even more chaotic than normal when they return next week!

So will non-school buses refuse to allow school kids on, as well as vice versa?

Cornish Cockney | 03.09.20 - 11:26 a.m. | #

The test will come when schools have half days - which the secondary down the road seems to be having today judging by the number of pupils walking past!

Cornish Cockney | 03.09.20 - 12:00 p.m. | #

All these cards in the window perhaps suggesting that moving to digital destination screens would be a very good idea

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 03.09.20 - 1:29 p.m. | #

So will adults taking their children to or from school by bus have to use different buses?

dg quotes (again): "Schoolchildren travelling without adults are encouraged to travel on School Services.... Anyone else needing to travel at these times should board regular non-school buses as usual."

ActonMan | 03.09.20 - 7:00 p.m. | #

One early suggestion was to make the top deck of double-deckers for schoolchildren only, which would have been marvellously self-enforcing as no right-minded adult would go anywhere near a top deck full of rampaging schoolkids. Some might say it's always been the norm anyway.

Anon | 03.09.20 - 7:13 p.m. | #

But elsewhere it says:
"All buses designated for school travel will carry prominent "School Service" signs to clearly indicate that people not travelling to school should not use them."
..where *people* could suggest that accompanying adults who are also 'travelling to school' could use the 'school' service. I'm sure custom and practice will soon establish how this arrangement will work.

dg quotes (again): "Schoolchildren travelling without adults are encouraged to travel on School Services."

ActonMan | 03.09.20 - 7:44 p.m. | #

Had two medical appointments yesterday so I was on and off multiple buses across the borough. The only one I saw with the "school service" sign was a D6 at about 1600- the only passengers on board were all adults...

IslandDweller | 04.09.20 - 7:08 a.m. | #

In spite of being short of cash, someone at TfL had the brilliant idea of removing all the 'E' plates from bus stops displaying school route numbers and replacing them with a single 'E' plate saying 'All school buses stop here' (or something like that), also the 'E' plates for 24 hour weekend routes are being replaced with normal ones - which I feel is an acknowledgment that the weekend night economy isn't returning in the foreseeable future.

Still Anon | 12.09.20 - 10:05 p.m. | #











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