please empty your brain below

Great assessment of the upcoming changes.

I wonder how long it will be before the associated bus shelters (and their associated adverts) are removed from stops that no longer have services and the footway return to pedestrians.
It was pointed out by someone on The Bus Forum that the changes are based around the availability of bus stands - the implication being that the tail was wagging the dog.

Some other long term links also vanish, so although no roads are left unserved, there is no replacement of the southern section of the 4, western section of the 242 and southern section of the 388.

Also the 100, 172 and 388 were last changed in 2017, and the 388 will be changed again this October as partial compensation for the withdrawal of the 48.

The 242 ends up nearly back to being the same as the old 22A.

I assume that some of these changes are also a nod towards the upgraded Thameslink (4, 45, 172) and Overground (67, 242).
Unfortunately, the Citymapper app has decided these changes have happened already, so last night when I needed to catch a bus from Kings College to Jermyn Street, I was delighted to see that the number 9 as well as the number 6 went up Regent Street St James'. The number 9 arrived before the number 6, so I hopped on and was very suprised when we didn't turn right onto Regent Street St James' and instead conitnued to the palace. I know my way around the area, so I just got off at the next stop and walked, but if only you'd posted this yesterday...
These changes are in the name of rebalancing resources to meet demand but why is bus use in central London declining? It's not as though people are traveling less overall in central London.

My hypothesis is that the decline has happened with the increase in PHVs which increase both congestion for buses (making them less attractive) as well as offering a (reasonably) affordable alternative to the bus. The low(ish) cost of the PHV helped by each journey being heavily subsidised by a loss making Unicorn. TfL wanted to restrict PHVs which may have had the consequence of reversing the decline in bus usage. However, they haven't been allowed to do that so are doing the only thing in their power and shortening bus routes etc.

Whilst the world looks towards more sustainable solutions, how did we instead get to reduced public transport and a flood of PHVs causing congestion and increased pollution (assuming they're all hybrids, they still produce significant levels of particulate pollution)?
TfL have already updated their on-line maps. Eg if you look at the 341 route map and click on stop N on New Fetter Lane it has the message "This stop does not serve any TfL routes." even though the red line shows the route going that way. However, click on stop HT (Snow Hill) on Farringdon Street, it lists 341 as one of the routes - but with no departures listed.
If there are any spare bus stops going, we need some on the Lower Richmond Road in Putney. Two bus stops in a row are without proper bus stops after a couple of accidents. They've been like this for a few weeks now.
Online information for Stop B at Blackfriars currently shows both the 4 and the 388 as serving it, although there is of course no live departure information for the 4 - and there never will be, because Blackfriars will be the terminus.
Encourage people to get out of their cars and use public transport. Yeah right. Political inducement fares freeze got to be paid for somehow.
Does make one question how some routes ever came into existance in the first place.

And I wonder if London has the most bus routes of any city in the world.
The public transport watchdog London Travel Watch are meeting today. According to a tweet from the session, John Trayner, MD of bus company Go Ahead London (they run the 40 bus) is concerned that changes to the bus network could confuse the public.

I think for could read will.
The chopping of the 45 leaves Brixton and Streatham Hill without a connection to Blackfriars Bridge / Farringdon corridor now, and getting there by tube is circuitous too. One wonders what the point of the remaining section is, and suspect it might be ditched altogether... only it's a vital link to Kings College Hospital which they night or might not overlook in the future.

I always knew they had to deal with the oversupply in the central area, but the way it's being done is to make the rump routes so much less useful, that it will precipitate an accelerating decline that is self-inflicted.

Using the hopper as a catch-all excuse to change buses is not good enough. It discriminates sharply against disabled people due to some very poor interchanges, and added hassles concerning whether the next bus will have space, etc.
I think a lot of these changes are either to do with Crossrail (e.g. increasing buses running around Farringdon), which isn't due for another year at least; or to do with getting rid of buses which are now sat in traffic jams thanks to Cycle Superhighway 6 (along Blackfriars Road).

Either way, using buses in Central London - especially if you're encumbered with luggage, a pram or a wheelchair - has just become more difficult.
The spider map leaflets on the TfL website rather cheekily suggest that the RV1 runs on the same route as the 381, rather than one block closer to the river. Conveniently hiding the largest section of road being debussed...
Now, what we could REALLY do with would be a London Bus Map.

Hollow laugh / tears of despair.
Fortunately the wonderful Mike Harris has a newly-updated version of his map to buy from his website (or in person from the LT Musuem).
I wonder if Google Maps already shows these changes, and if not how long it would take to change. I was in Nottingham recently and GMaps was basically useless in the city centre after a major overhaul of bus stop locations :( Thankfully a super friendly bus driver helped me out, I think he was getting bored of being asked by people though!
Gregg, The spider map shows 381 following the same route as the RV1 on Southwark Street but not on Stamford Street - which is what actually happens
If TfL have updated their data prematurely, then it means anything which relies on it (including Citymapper, Google Maps, and, er, the Uber app) will also be showing erroneous information.
Making such savage cuts well before CrossRail becomes fully operational means that it becomes much less attractive to get around and across Central London.

Having to “hop-on” then “hop-off” several vehicles to undertake what previously was a single journey that would have been completed simply, quickly and in comfort on one bus, is not a particularly user-friendly alternative. It is not as safe, as comfortable or as convenient, as the single service that is now being taken away.

Describing the new alternatives as “a short walk away” is not the same as just staying on one vehicle for the whole journey, especially if it is wet, windy or boiling hot, while having to wait to board the next leg of the journey when it eventually arrives.

It does not present the potential bus user with the prospect of a great customer experience. Sadly it may well foreshadow even more cuts as bus services become less convenient and attractive to use, thereby presenting a less and less attractive and welcoming picture of London itself.
The loss of the 40 along Fenchurch Street and indeed from Elephant to Aldgate, is a big deal.

The 40 was introduced 107 years ago on 3rd June 1912 between Elephant and Upton Park via Fenchurch Street & Aldgate. This new rerouting removes the route 40 number away from the last remaining section of its original route.

Originally a City > NE London service out to Wanstead and even Epping Forest (High Beach) in the summer, in the south, Camberwell Green became the long standing southern terminus, apart from a short extension to West Norwood in the 1920s and the post WW2 extensions to Herne Hill & Dulwich, as well as eastwards to North Woolwich.

I for one, will miss the sight of a 40 crossing London Bridge. Yet another institution disappears without trace.
and after this weekend's changes we will no longer get a brochure detailing the latest updates ...

Discontinuation of publication
This report is being discontinued in its current format. From July 2019, permanent bus change information can be found at: tfl.gov.uk/PermBusChanges
Has anyone read the latest 'Permanent Bus Changes' - full of typos, incorrect street names, wrong route numbers, internal jargon. Impossible for the ordinary passenger (there might be one left) to make sense of this, and still today noting on bus stops - just travelled along routes 242 and 388.

Also, more frequency cuts have been sneaked in - route 12 for example.

This is as much a real lack of resource problem (ta, Mister Osborne - not) as the fiction of fewer bus passengers. For the last two years they have been rising, as in TfL's own papers published for their Board and 'panel' meetings. TfL misleadingly compares today's passenger counts against the 2014 peak travel.

"Terminological inexactitudes" come to mind, often.

Now they want to revamp 'excess waiting time' to hide the worsening service level - watch for fewer buses but less time spent waiting - this all from those same papers.
Among the mis-spellinmgs in the Permanent Bus Changes document, a triple whammy in the entry for the 341
" Theobold Road, Greys Inn Road, Holborn Road"

The introduction also says there are changes to route 46, but no such change is listed.
Wanna bet they'll argue that *everyone* has an app to check bus times and therefore *nobody* turns up at a bus stop randomly - thus excess waiting time can be considered irrelevant.

All this from a transport body serving some of the most deprived areas in the UK...
And here's TfL's bus strategy as presented to London Travel Watch this week...
[document]
TfL's Bus strategy

Among many weasel words are "enhance interchange". They seem to think that just means introducing the Hopper Fare. Just round the corner from here, a through journey has been replaced by a 200 yard walk, to wait on an exposed bridge above the Thames at a stop which is now served by only two routes instead of three.
The men (or women) with tiles have been out and about, but have only done half the job. Stop B at Blackfriars now sports a "4 - alighting point only" tile although 388s to the Elephant will still serve it for another couple of days. Stop A now has the new timetable for Route 4, but the old tile for route 388.
Thanks for the link, 'ap'. It's pure MBA tosh - first Powerpoint rule is avoid death by it. Second rule is if you have an MBA, ignore that.

The pages refer to over-capacity but the passenger count (as described to a meeting of people with disability issues last Nov) was flawed. Counts were taken at ONE point on ONE day, PEAK only and only boarding passengers. Buses running empty in the opposite direction were because they have to return to their starting point, against the flow, hence the claim of 'empty buses' in the peak.

Only one way to count passengers - all day, on a Tue/Wed/Thu in a week with no major events on either weekend to affect numbers travelling, in term time for 'normal' numbers, and repeat over several days to iron out anomalies. Do that at several key points along each route. And count boarders, alighters and those in transit. Er, that's how London Buses taught me to do passenger counts.

And not to rely on card reader data on buses, as too many don't swipe in (those on paper tickets, those with non-London concessionary passes etc), apart from the fare-evaders on 'BorisBuses', which can reach 25% by observation in peaks, evenings and weekends.

London bus passenger numbers have been rising since 2016-17, on TfL's own paperwork, carefully buried in a different mass of MBA-style data.

Where are the suburban bus enhancements? Only Croydon and Barnet mentioned; what about the rest of London? More and more 'terminological inexactitudes'.
Here's Roger French's in-depth report on how Day One of the big changes worked out.

Spoiler: quite well, but nowhere near perfect
^^ best post above by MS. No more needs to be said.
Update at Blackfriars. Someone has now covered the "388" tile with a white label. Presumably sticking and writing are different skillsets, and someone else will be along later to write a "4" on the label.

Across the road the westbound stop does show "4 (alighting point only)" - so not actually very helpful.
Just seen that the link mentioned on all those yellow signs at bus stops about the changes and still advertised on stops no longer shows these changes. It's somewhat suprising given I very much doubt TfL has managed to provide the correct info at every stop in just over 2 weeks! Here in south west London we still have the wrong bus routes shown at stops affected by the Hammersmith Bridge changes of mid May.
The loss of the 40 from along Fenchurch Street is disappointing, I used to use it frequently when working on the Southbank and around London Bridge and commuted into Fen St. Fortunately I no longer commute but on my occasional trips into Central London I now find the bus network much less useable than previously as many long established routes are no more or curtailed.










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