For context London subsidises its buses by about £760m a year (excluding capex).
Thetonn on
This is inevitably doomed to fail.
London has a far better population density, but still needs to subsidise its buses. The way you make buses work is by identifying those areas where it makes sense to run them viably, and focus on delivering a high quality, reliable service there in order to get a modal shift.
Universality just means the entire model becomes entirely reliant on subsidy, which will inevitably get cut when it is proven to fail.
O-bot54 on
Everyone is very negative in the comments but investment is needed .
I think we should focus on rail and roads first when it comes to transport under government ownership and scrap the planning bill that doubles the cost of any development but i will take any investment as a positive , the country has become a rotting corpse of what it was in the 70’s .
Questjon on
Bullshit. Buses in London work because they’re frequent enough that you don’t need a passenger timetable. That’s undoable outside big cities because the passenger density isn’t there. What non-london buses need is a unified API so we can have a national travel app that ties in buses and trains and provides reliable realtime information. I also think we need to look at standardising taxi services and bringing them into the public transport fold a) because the data is valuable for planning bus routes and b) in some communities it makes more sense to subsidise taxis (or some flexible taxi/minibus service) than to run a bus timetable.
FewEstablishment2696 on
You used to be able to buy crack upstairs on the number 38 bus to Clapton Pond. Is this what they mean when they say “London-style” buses?
Purple_Feature1861 on
I like the sound of this, though I think if this does come about they need to put it in the right areas
newnortherner21 on
Building more buses fairly easy with the money. The point about being frequent enough to remember and not have to look at a timetable also important to get a step change in use.
Need to get the DVLA to function so bus drivers can be recruited quickly (if you have to wait they will accept another job). You need to have the police and CPS support them so anyone who commits crime on a bus is prosecuted, and proper planning of roadworks so buses don’t end up being delayed in March because of ‘essential roadworks’ (‘essential’ spending of council budgets).
This seems to need some joined up thinking, otherwise it will be limited in what it achieves.
AsianOnee on
This is a joke. I would avoid taking bus in London because they take forever. Frequent detours and you never know where the fuck you are going to end up. Tube is actually doable in medium size city. But the strike is going to fuck it all up. Nothing works in this country.
Marble-Boy on
I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any for having to raise the prices..
*”who cares that it’s a tenner one way? We’ve got a whole fleet of new buses, baby!”*
ChickenPijja on
While this is a welcome boost, I fear that this money will be wasted on a few tweaks that won’t actually improve services. Last few times we got improvements round here we had: Raised kerbs at bus stops, 12 months later the bus companies introduced kneeling busses. New busses where the main feature was that it announced the stop name, which customers found loud and annoying and so was switched off. Finally “dynamic” bus timetable displays at stops, but the busses didn’t have any way to communicate with the signs to say when the next one was due, then the grant ran out so they were switched off.
Seriously just improve the timings, cost and frequency of the services and people will use them, fuck around with a novelty that requires more money in the long term, and you’ve just wasted a billion.
xander012 on
2 doors for Liverpool and Birmingham would be a nice upgrade
aegroti on
as someone who went to London recently and hadn’t tried their buses in a decade I don’t see how they could work unless they rapidly increase bus frequency. The three door buses make it easier getting on and off but it also means they lose about a third of their carrying capacity.
I’d rather not be getting onto a bus which has almost no seats downstairs when it’s busy.
I quite like the modern West Midlands buses, good amount of seats, charging ports (although I don’t really use them and they charge extremely slowly) and sometimes even limited public wifi.
If there was investment I’d prefer better bus stops with accurate timetables. I’m sure we’ve all had the issue where you’re waiting for a bus that says 5 minutes and it passes by saying not in service. There’s no excuse, IMO, why they aren’t able to update the timetable so you’re not waiting for a not in service bus. Delays are understandable though in traffic/bad weather/unforeseen issues.
13 Comments
At an increase of £3. Gurl please.
Many will stop using buses.
For context London subsidises its buses by about £760m a year (excluding capex).
This is inevitably doomed to fail.
London has a far better population density, but still needs to subsidise its buses. The way you make buses work is by identifying those areas where it makes sense to run them viably, and focus on delivering a high quality, reliable service there in order to get a modal shift.
Universality just means the entire model becomes entirely reliant on subsidy, which will inevitably get cut when it is proven to fail.
Everyone is very negative in the comments but investment is needed .
I think we should focus on rail and roads first when it comes to transport under government ownership and scrap the planning bill that doubles the cost of any development but i will take any investment as a positive , the country has become a rotting corpse of what it was in the 70’s .
Bullshit. Buses in London work because they’re frequent enough that you don’t need a passenger timetable. That’s undoable outside big cities because the passenger density isn’t there. What non-london buses need is a unified API so we can have a national travel app that ties in buses and trains and provides reliable realtime information. I also think we need to look at standardising taxi services and bringing them into the public transport fold a) because the data is valuable for planning bus routes and b) in some communities it makes more sense to subsidise taxis (or some flexible taxi/minibus service) than to run a bus timetable.
You used to be able to buy crack upstairs on the number 38 bus to Clapton Pond. Is this what they mean when they say “London-style” buses?
I like the sound of this, though I think if this does come about they need to put it in the right areas
Building more buses fairly easy with the money. The point about being frequent enough to remember and not have to look at a timetable also important to get a step change in use.
Need to get the DVLA to function so bus drivers can be recruited quickly (if you have to wait they will accept another job). You need to have the police and CPS support them so anyone who commits crime on a bus is prosecuted, and proper planning of roadworks so buses don’t end up being delayed in March because of ‘essential roadworks’ (‘essential’ spending of council budgets).
This seems to need some joined up thinking, otherwise it will be limited in what it achieves.
This is a joke. I would avoid taking bus in London because they take forever. Frequent detours and you never know where the fuck you are going to end up. Tube is actually doable in medium size city. But the strike is going to fuck it all up. Nothing works in this country.
I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any for having to raise the prices..
*”who cares that it’s a tenner one way? We’ve got a whole fleet of new buses, baby!”*
While this is a welcome boost, I fear that this money will be wasted on a few tweaks that won’t actually improve services. Last few times we got improvements round here we had: Raised kerbs at bus stops, 12 months later the bus companies introduced kneeling busses. New busses where the main feature was that it announced the stop name, which customers found loud and annoying and so was switched off. Finally “dynamic” bus timetable displays at stops, but the busses didn’t have any way to communicate with the signs to say when the next one was due, then the grant ran out so they were switched off.
Seriously just improve the timings, cost and frequency of the services and people will use them, fuck around with a novelty that requires more money in the long term, and you’ve just wasted a billion.
2 doors for Liverpool and Birmingham would be a nice upgrade
as someone who went to London recently and hadn’t tried their buses in a decade I don’t see how they could work unless they rapidly increase bus frequency. The three door buses make it easier getting on and off but it also means they lose about a third of their carrying capacity.
I’d rather not be getting onto a bus which has almost no seats downstairs when it’s busy.
I quite like the modern West Midlands buses, good amount of seats, charging ports (although I don’t really use them and they charge extremely slowly) and sometimes even limited public wifi.
If there was investment I’d prefer better bus stops with accurate timetables. I’m sure we’ve all had the issue where you’re waiting for a bus that says 5 minutes and it passes by saying not in service. There’s no excuse, IMO, why they aren’t able to update the timetable so you’re not waiting for a not in service bus. Delays are understandable though in traffic/bad weather/unforeseen issues.