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Post by borneobus on Apr 28, 2024 12:06:59 GMT
The W7 is a fascinating route with its overwhelming purpose of feeding Finsbury Park Station (granted some pax will alight at Crouch End for LO). It was interesting to read your observations - I've not ridden the route in the rush hour but seen packed buses de-boarding every 4/5 minutes at Wells Terrace and despite the large number of pax it was civilised and there was no pushing and shoving...I suspect 99% of the rush hour pax are regulars, appreciate that the bus will be packed prior to reaching FP and act accordingly to make the short journey as swift and manageable as possible. Two facts / one question about the W7: 1) In 2023 more pax boarded the W7 at Finsbury Park Stn (1.24m) than any other route / bus stop across London 2) In terms of ‘PAX Density’ (total number of PAX divided by Bus KM operated) in 2023 the W7 had the highest density (8.53 pax per km) – for context 18 is 6.79 and 195 (busy SD route) is 4.51 3) Is this the shortest DD route?? In conclusion SD ain’t gonna work on the W7 but then no-one's suggesting that They would work the same way they did on the former Red Arrow routes, obviously increase the frequency if necessary. Or LTs maybe with their extra door and staircase for quicker unloading at Finsbury Park? There's already a PVR of 17 for a route that's timetabled to take 17 minutes e2e at 8am on a weekday with a frequency of "3-4 Monday to Friday peak hours."
source www.londonbusroutes.net/details.htm - the cost of adding say 8-10 buses for the rush hour to operate a 'Red Arrow' operation combined with challenging logistics of parking buses on stand, even for a few minutes at Wells Terrace or Muswell Hill Broadway (where there's minimal space). I'm no expert (others will know) but operationally the route may be challenging for some buses (hills on Crouch Hill and Muswell Hill itself). May be I missed the original point raised - is there currently an issue with the W7?
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Post by greenboy on Apr 28, 2024 12:10:46 GMT
W7 is one route for which open-boarding articulated buses would be ideal. Of course, in many parts of the world such an intensively-used route would have trams with open boarding. Yes indeed and I vaguely recall some sort of open boarding trial being carried out on the W7 a few years ago? To answer my own question it was a pay before you board trial in 2001... diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2019/01/route-w7.html?m=1
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Post by vjaska on Apr 28, 2024 12:23:29 GMT
They would work the same way they did on the former Red Arrow routes, obviously increase the frequency if necessary. Or LTs maybe with their extra door and staircase for quicker unloading at Finsbury Park? W7 is one route for which open-boarding articulated buses would be ideal. Of course, in many parts of the world such an intensively-used route would have trams with open boarding. I think the Muswell Hill stand would stop that from happening as it’s at capacity and I believe some buses hang off the back of the stand.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 28, 2024 12:25:41 GMT
They would work the same way they did on the former Red Arrow routes, obviously increase the frequency if necessary. Or LTs maybe with their extra door and staircase for quicker unloading at Finsbury Park? There's already a PVR of 17 for a route that's timetabled to take 17 minutes e2e at 8am on a weekday with a frequency of "3-4 Monday to Friday peak hours."
source www.londonbusroutes.net/details.htm - the cost of adding say 8-10 buses for the rush hour to operate a 'Red Arrow' operation combined with challenging logistics of parking buses on stand, even for a few minutes at Wells Terrace or Muswell Hill Broadway (where there's minimal space). I'm no expert (others will know) but operationally the route may be challenging for some buses (hills on Crouch Hill and Muswell Hill itself). May be I missed the original point raised - is there currently an issue with the W7? Muswell Hill stand is the only issue I’m aware of - can see the logic in converting the W7 given it’s short & unique purpose but certainly can’t see the logic in converting most other double decker routes
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Post by redexpress on Apr 28, 2024 21:51:36 GMT
The 183 being converted to single deck in 1999 which turned out to be a massive mistake with double deckers returning after 2 years. Except it wasn't. The service frequency was increased substantially when the route was converted to single deck. This attracted so many new passengers that when the double deckers were reintroduced, it was at the increased frequency. If that’s a mistake, let's make more of them! Except that the frequency on the 183 was not really increased substantially. It only went from 4bph to 5bph. While that was a welcome increase, it's not the sort of step change that will drive large numbers onto the bus. I suspect the increased accessibility (of low-floor Darts compared with step-entrance DDs) was more of a factor. It only took two years for reversion to DD but during those two years passengers suffered dreadful overcrowding on those buses, so yes, I would call it a mistake.
You may be thinking of some of the earlier conversions, where low-frequency DDs were replaced with high-frequency SDs. These did indeed drive demand, but by the late 1990s the concept had been watered down significantly, with very modest frequency increases. Conversions like the 183 were more to do with introducing low-floor buses on the cheap, at a time when low-floor DDs were still very expensive.
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Post by redexpress on Apr 28, 2024 21:59:10 GMT
There were two different trials on the W7. First in 1998/1999 there was a scheme called Passright (which also applied on the 41 and W3 I think) where Pass holders did not need to show their tickets to the driver, leaving the driver to deal only with those buying tickets. This allowed two streams of boarding passengers at a time. Obviously this opened the door to widespread fare evasion so there were very frequent ticket checks. It looked like all of London's revenue inspectors were based in Crouch End for a while!
The second trial started in 2001 with the roadside ticket machines referred to above. This paved the way for pay-before-you-board to be rolled out across central London.
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Post by redexpress on Apr 28, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
They would work the same way they did on the former Red Arrow routes, obviously increase the frequency if necessary. Or LTs maybe with their extra door and staircase for quicker unloading at Finsbury Park? There's already a PVR of 17 for a route that's timetabled to take 17 minutes e2e at 8am on a weekday with a frequency of "3-4 Monday to Friday peak hours."
source www.londonbusroutes.net/details.htm - the cost of adding say 8-10 buses for the rush hour to operate a 'Red Arrow' operation combined with challenging logistics of parking buses on stand, even for a few minutes at Wells Terrace or Muswell Hill Broadway (where there's minimal space). I'm no expert (others will know) but operationally the route may be challenging for some buses (hills on Crouch Hill and Muswell Hill itself). May be I missed the original point raised - is there currently an issue with the W7? I don't think there is an issue with the W7 as it is. The route keeps getting dragged into discussions about artics, 3-door buses etc. because its characteristics seem to make it an ideal route for those solutions. Problem is there really isn't the space to cram more buses - or longer buses - onto the corridor. The Muswell Hill stand is the most obvious issue but by no means the only one.
As has been said the W7 is one DD route that doesn't suffer from the problem of an underused upper-deck. Passengers on the route generally know how to use the space. DDs are the most efficient means of using road space in this case.
LTs would offer a small gain in de-boarding times, but take up more road space without accommodating any more passengers than a regular DD (the extra length being taken up by the 2nd staircase) so I'm not sure it'd be worth it.
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Post by danorak on Apr 29, 2024 5:59:17 GMT
Conversion of the 36B to Dennis Lance in the early 90s counts as an aberration. It reverted to double deck very rapidly with the LAs being used on other routes. Similarly, the Lances introduced by Metroline - was it the 113? - were withdrawn swiftly and languished in storage for a long time.
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Post by greenboy on Apr 29, 2024 6:18:22 GMT
Conversion of the 36B to Dennis Lance in the early 90s counts as an aberration. It reverted to double deck very rapidly with the LAs being used on other routes. Similarly, the Lances introduced by Metroline - was it the 113? - were withdrawn swiftly and languished in storage for a long time. If I remember correctly they lasted about two years on the 36B until it was renumbered 136 and subsequently appeared on the 75 and 208? I wouldn't class them as an aberration, I think there are always pros and cons. I also remember a South Yorkshire bendybus being trialled on the 180 in the early 1990s.
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Post by mkay315 on Apr 29, 2024 8:18:00 GMT
Conversion of the 36B to Dennis Lance in the early 90s counts as an aberration. It reverted to double deck very rapidly with the LAs being used on other routes. Similarly, the Lances introduced by Metroline - was it the 113? - were withdrawn swiftly and languished in storage for a long time. If I remember correctly they lasted about two years on the 36B until it was renumbered 136 and subsequently appeared on the 75 and 208? I wouldn't class them as an aberration, I think there are always pros and cons. I also remember a South Yorkshire bendybus being trialled on the 180 in the early 1990s. Then those lances transferred to Barking for the 145 but threw them on near enough every route from that garage bar the 364, 5 and 387
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Post by londonbusbro on Apr 29, 2024 16:22:26 GMT
the 497 was only around for 4 years which is probably the shortest running bus route
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Post by matthieu1221 on Apr 29, 2024 18:29:12 GMT
Ironically enough I feel that with Oyster (and now even worse with Contactless and Apple Pay and the like, the latter which seems to require a particular skill to get to tap on the first go) things feel slower than when the driver just glanced at a ticket.
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