Cambs. guided busway in trouble again.

[Johnuk123]

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/New...us-track-faults-discovered-20140404123426.htm

Serious faults with the guided busway which potentially affect every beam laid and could cost £20 million to repair have been discovered – prompting council bosses to question the long-term future of the track.

Blimey, more than a few minor repairs needed here by the look of it.

 

[WatcherZero]

Mmm, sounds like Bam Nuttall penny pinching bites them in the arse again after the fiasco where they second guessed the Councils drainage specifications, tried to cut corners on beams leading to work that has to be redone.

 

[455driver]

Maybe its time they admitted it was an exxpensive fu um muck up and put the railway back?

The (mis)guided busway pretty much shuts down at 6PM anyway, just when commuters from a certain large City would make use of it.

To my mind it was nothing more than a vanity project from a Council trying to look 'modern' but failing miserably.

 

[gingerheid]

Arrrrgh!

Now obviously I would prefer something rail related (I think it should be a tram line personally; solves the problem of it not being able to get to the important bit of Cambridge...), why else would I be a member of a rail forum? But now that what we have is a guided busway I'd like it to appear at least moderately successful so that public transport investment doesn't get a bad name.

Until this it had finally been starting to step out the shadows of bad publicity. In terms of passenger use it has been astoundingly successful. It seems passengers will respond to investment even if it's of a daft nature. Peak time buses every five mins wipes the floor with the pre guideway service on all levels; and this is despite the fact that the route is currently lacking the delayed new town that should have been built in the middle of it providing a major and almost captive market. Accidents on the A14 only seem to have become more frequent, and avoiding this does give it an advantage.

I'm certain Stagecoach could try harder with the evening and Sunday services, if there was any kind of competition then someone would be running more services on the southern guideway (it would be ideal for Haverhill and Royston buses), and if they hadn't penny pinched by missing out a Long Rd stop and making the southern guideway single deck only that would probably be close to capacity with excited users of Babraham and Trumpington Park and Ride car parks that would have needed extending.

It's just destined to limp to inevitable disaster, though When it turns to dust nobody will want to pay to rebuild it and even if they did its custom would disappear while they were doing it. It sounds like this is going to happen sooner than anyone expected (I thought 15 years, but that seems hopeful).

 

[fgwrich]

Mmm, sounds like Bam Nuttall penny pinching bites them in the arse again after the fiasco where they second guessed the Councils drainage specifications, tried to cut corners on beams leading to work that has to be redone.

Am I starting to notice a pattern here or could it just be bad luck on the contractors part - BAM were contracted to rebuild the Stirling to Alloa to Kincardine route for the predecessors of Transport Scotland which itself is now suffering from track layed onto poor foundations and facing heavy costs to put right (I know the weight of a 66 and loaded coal hoppers is significantly heavier than a Wrightbus) and now BAMs second rather large infrastructure contract seems to be suffering from poorly laid concrete 'track' on poor foundations. I might be putting 2 & 2 together here but 2 similar problems on 2 major contracts for the company hardly bodes well - even if there is a fair amount of penny pinching on the clients part as well.

I wonder how Luton Council are looking at this too given their crowning glory busway. As shown in Edinburgh through it doesn't take much to take up the busway and replace it with a Tram route - the section from Edinburgh Park towards Saughton used to be part of the Guided Busway up there.

 

[90019]

As shown in Edinburgh through it doesn't take much to take up the busway and replace it with a Tram route - the section from Edinburgh Park towards Saughton used to be part of the Guided Busway up there.

That'll be the section with cracks in the concrete that have been hastily repaired and hushed up.

Along with the repairs quietly done to the concrete at the West End a while back where it had already started to disintigrate.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

One can but hope that the news of this debacle will have reached the ears of the project management teams at both TfGM and at Balfour Beatty who have been charged with delivering the Leigh Guided Busway project.

 

[radamfi]

It might be worth mentioning that numerous guided busways have been built in the UK and elsewhere in the world without such project management problems or technical glitches.

 

[Robertj21a]

It might be worth mentioning that numerous guided busways have been built in the UK and elsewhere in the world without such project management problems or technical glitches.

Any by BAM though ?

 

[jopsuk]

It might be worth mentioning that numerous guided busways have been built in the UK and elsewhere in the world without such project management problems or technical glitches.

they're all much shorter! The previous longest, the Adelaide O-Bahn, is about half as long (in terms of track miles)

 

[glbotu]

There was an interesting article from someone in Washington about the concept of BRT Creep, which explains about how the point of using Bus Rapid Transit (the US term for Guided Busway), is about cutting costs in the first place, hence why it will always go wrong. The article moved on more about the fact that usually the service offered would be insufficient, but I think in this case it can be seen that the issues lie with the construction. I mean if they hadn't wanted to cut costs they would have built a tramway or re-instated the railway line. As such they have and it's come back to bite them.

 

[317666]

Lived in Cambridge for 18 years and always thought that a Guided Busway was the wrong way of going about this - had I been in charge (and given unlimited funds!), it would be a light rail system with a north-south 'pre-metro' tunnel through the city centre, with many of the city bus routes also converted to trams to run through this tunnel. It would mean they avoid the city centre traffic, which the guided buses just get stuck in anyway when they run on the road!

 

[radamfi]

There was an interesting article from someone in Washington about the concept of BRT Creep, which explains about how the point of using Bus Rapid Transit (the US term for Guided Busway), is about cutting costs in the first place, hence why it will always go wrong. The article moved on more about the fact that usually the service offered would be insufficient, but I think in this case it can be seen that the issues lie with the construction. I mean if they hadn't wanted to cut costs they would have built a tramway or re-instated the railway line. As such they have and it's come back to bite them.

The term BRT actually refers to all busways, not just guided ones. Only a small percentage of the busways in the world are guided. Usually a busway will be a normal road open to buses only, or a segregated lane. In these cases, there is nothing that can 'go wrong', in a technical sense, as it is just a road.

I suppose it can 'go wrong' in the sense of the system getting too popular for its own good. Systems in Curitba in Brazil and in Bogota are world famous and they are very crowded:

http://www.streetfilms.org/curitibas-brt/
http://www.streetfilms.org/bus-rapid-transit-bogota/

The Netherlands has a lot of busways (none guided) and are building more. One busway route in Utrecht is being converted to tram because the three part bendy buses cannot no longer cope with the demand. The spectacular busway between Haarlem and Amsterdam via Schiphol was built so that it could easily be converted to tram should demand justify it in the future.

The suburbs of Paris are building a lot of tram lines, but also many busways:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Île-de-France_-_plan_des_bus_en_site_propre.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Île-de-France_-_plan_des_tramways.png

The existing busways south of Paris are busy, provide useful connections between rail lines and shopping centres and have near universal segregation.

There are systems in the US where they advertise the service as BRT but in actual fact the service is not well segregated, due to cost cutting, and gets delayed in traffic. Perhaps this is where the term 'BRT creep' is appropriate.

 

[WatcherZero]

While I favour BRT's in principal, I do find myself wondering about the long term economics, whether its right to try and fight the long term decline. Bus usage outside London has crashed over the last two decades as more people have become car owners and more people are using trains, even in London despite the large population increase and lack of cars usage has been barely treading water. Bus usage has always been seen as the poor mans choice which people move out of when they can afford too, in some parts of the country more than half of bus users now arent paying customers but pass users. BRT attempts to fix that by providing a 'luxury' or 'prestige' route and I think that does work in the short-medium term, but it will wear off like it did in Leeds once the shiny new infrastructure or pristine buses start to fade.

 

[edwin_m]

While I favour BRT's in principal, I do find myself wondering about the long term economics, whether its right to try and fight the long term decline. Bus usage outside London has crashed over the last two decades as more people have become car owners and more people are using trains, even in London despite the large population increase and lack of cars usage has been barely treading water. Bus usage has always been seen as the poor mans choice which people move out of when they can afford too, in some parts of the country more than half of bus users now arent paying customers but pass users. BRT attempts to fix that by providing a 'luxury' or 'prestige' route and I think that does work in the short-medium term, but it will wear off like it did in Leeds once the shiny new infrastructure or pristine buses start to fade.

You may be right, but another reason for people not to use buses is that they are often slow and unreliable due to traffic congestion. BRT (if done properly) sorts this out by providing exclusive roadspace for the bus. Bus use decline is not inevitable, London illustrates that and even in the deregulated environment Nottingham and a few other places have achieved growth in bus passenger numbers. This is, at least partly, because their local governments are pro-bus and prepared to fight their corner on bus lanes and other priority measures.

 

[yorksrob]

At the very least, we can hope that these things are no longer seen as the cheap and cheerful panacea for all future non-urban public transport infrastructure projects that they seemed to have become of late.

 

[Deerfold]

even in London despite the large population increase and lack of cars usage has been barely treading water.

Table 2.1 in http://origin.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/travel-in-london-report-5.pdf shows bus use in London increasing by 59.7% between 2001 and 2011 and by 2.5% between 2010 and 2011 - rather more than "treading water".

(These figures include the Croydon Tramlink but that's pretty much a rounding error compared to ~8000 buses running)

The same table shows that even in London there are more than twice as many trips by car as by bus (though down from five times as many in 1993).

At the very least, we can hope that these things are no longer seen as the cheap and cheerful panacea for all future non-urban public transport infrastructure projects that they seemed to have become of late.

Really? I can't think of more than a handful that have been installed recently or seriously proposed.

Perhaps we should be arguing for better regulation/inspection of contractors - the Cambridge busway when working well seems to have been quite a sucess in encouraging passengers and extra services (though this could clearly be better still in the evening and on Sundays).

 

[radamfi]

Table 2.1 in http://origin.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/travel-in-london-report-5.pdf shows bus use in London increasing by 59.7% between 2001 and 2011 and by 2.5% between 2010 and 2011 - rather more than "treading water".

I think he was talking about the slight decline in London bus patronage in 2012:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24315738

Obviously usage in London had gone up so much before that, so eventually the continuous rise had to slow. TfL has been cost cutting in recent years, allowing the average vehicle age to increase and reducing some frequencies. Overcrowding is now a serious problem and probably suppresses some bus travel. So if the expansion of the bus system had continued, undoubtedly there is room for more growth.

There is still plenty that could be done in London. The large increase in patronage has occurred despite operating in severe congestion, although some extra bus priority has helped. If a lot of routes were upgraded to proper BRT standard then there would be another large increase in usage. On some routes, even existing patronage levels could justify conversion to tram.

 

[transmanche]

I think he was talking about the slight decline in London bus patronage in 2012:

The first fall in passenger numbers in 15 years - in which time passenger numbers almost doubled (from 1.2bn to 2.3bn).

Apparently that equates to about 280 journeys per person per year - compared to just 50 in the rest of England.

 

[Hophead]

Table 2.1 in http://origin.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/travel-in-london-report-5.pdf shows bus use in London increasing by 59.7% between 2001 and 2011 and by 2.5% between 2010 and 2011 - rather more than "treading water".

(These figures include the Croydon Tramlink but that's pretty much a rounding error compared to ~8000 buses running)

The same table shows that even in London there are more than twice as many trips by car as by bus (though down from five times as many in 1993).

And, between 2000/1 & 2008/9, subsidy increased by approximately 2300% (£24m -> £563m, source: TfL business plans, quoted in London Reconnections), also rather more than 'treading water' - they do get a good deal, don't they?

 

[transmanche]

And, between 2000/1 & 2008/9, subsidy increased by approximately 2300% (£24m -> £563m, source: TfL business plans, quoted in London Reconnections), also rather more than 'treading water' - they do get a good deal, don't they?

Well the bus "subsidy" has since reduced to £378m. Since 2001, London's population has increased by 12%, bus usage has increased by 65% - but car usage has dropped by 6%. (Same source.)

What isn't clarified is what is meant by "subsidy" for the bus network. People generally assume that this means direct subsidy by tax payers. My understanding is that this is cross-subsidy by TfL; by using profits from elsewhere (such as congestion charge) - as well as part of the overall subsidy given to TfL.

 

[edwin_m]

Cross-subsidizing from the congestion charge is a good idea. Less congestion means the buses move faster, and buses are the only way of increasing public transport capacity quickly to provide alternatives to paying the charge.

 

[Robertj21a]

I think he was talking about the slight decline in London bus patronage in 2012:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24315738

Obviously usage in London had gone up so much before that, so eventually the continuous rise had to slow. TfL has been cost cutting in recent years, allowing the average vehicle age to increase and reducing some frequencies. Overcrowding is now a serious problem and probably suppresses some bus travel. So if the expansion of the bus system had continued, undoubtedly there is room for more growth.

There is still plenty that could be done in London. The large increase in patronage has occurred despite operating in severe congestion, although some extra bus priority has helped. If a lot of routes were upgraded to proper BRT standard then there would be another large increase in usage. On some routes, even existing patronage levels could justify conversion to tram.

So many trunk routes should have been converted to trams, years ago, that it's getting rather embarrassing to realise the size of the problem now. Some forward planning 5-10 years ago would now be reaping benefits.

Robert.

 

[WatcherZero]

Table 2.1 in http://origin.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/travel-in-london-report-5.pdf shows bus use in London increasing by 59.7% between 2001 and 2011 and by 2.5% between 2010 and 2011 - rather more than "treading water".

But falling since, just as the economy is recovering.

 

[overthewater]

I have to ask does the current guided busway have enough spare room for even more buses to be added at peak times?

 

[transmanche]

But falling since, just as the economy is recovering.

Bear in mind that unemployment in London is higher than the national average.

In any event, a decrease of 9.3m to make a total of 2.3bn is just 0.4%... a mere rounding error.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

So many trunk routes should have been converted to trams, years ago, that it's getting rather embarrassing to realise the size of the problem now. Some forward planning 5-10 years ago would now be reaping benefits.

Matters do indeed appear to have turned full circle from the time period in-between the Great War and the Second World War, when many of the British tramway systems saw their demise.

 

[WatcherZero]

Bear in mind that unemployment in London is higher than the national average.

In any event, a decrease of 9.3m to make a total of 2.3bn is just 0.4%... a mere rounding error.

Falling 0.4% at the same time the population of inner London is increasing by 1.3% (108,000) a year is hardly a rounding error. Thats a fall of two and a half percent per capita.

 

[transmanche]

Falling 0.4% at the same time the population of inner London is increasing by 1.3% (108,000) a year is hardly a rounding error. Thats a fall of two and a half percent per capita.

So you're comparing the total number of bus journeys for the whole of the TfL bus network, with the change in population for just part of the TfL bus network. So apples and oranges...

In their Travel Report 6, TfL note:

When differences in the number and pattern of public holidays between 2011/12 and 2012/13 are taken into account, underlying bus patronage in 2012/13 is estimated to have grown by 0.5 per cent. This is due to 2012/13 having two additional bank holidays over 2011/12, which was also a leap year.

 

[Deerfold]

Falling 0.4% at the same time the population of inner London is increasing by 1.3% (108,000) a year is hardly a rounding error. Thats a fall of two and a half percent per capita.

Funnily enough TfL pointed out that the biggest fall was during the Olympics when most tourists used the tube, more people took leave and people were advised not to travel if they didn't need to.

What do you mean by 2.5% per capita?