Reduce bus stops to attract more passengers?

[Dai Corner]

Lots of bus users are time rich but money poor. For them, journey time is not a significant factor.

I can see both sides of this. Twenty years ago I commuted by bus and train. In theory I could catch a particular bus and make the onward connection to my train reasonably comfortably. In practice the bus journey time was unpredictable and I had to get up twenty minutes earlier and catch the previous one to be sure of getting to work on time.

Now I'm retired and time rich a few minutes delay is of little consequence if I'm not not going to an appointment or catching a train with an Advance ticket.

 

[bib]

Sounds somewhat like the principles of a BRT system. The Belfast 'Glider' system seems to have been fairly successful in increasing ridership. They did get new hybrid bendy buses but also increased station spacing from 150-200m to 400m, with ticket machines at the stops and additional bus lanes. I think kept running some of the original buses on the same routes but using parallel streets or re-routed through housing estates.

One is phasing of traffic lights, particularly on busy arterial routes in London. Junctions with traffic lights are frequent, usually with a bus stop between each set of lights.

I tried getting a bus during a trip to central London recently and gave up and got the tube after it went about half a mile in 15 mins. I was only trying to go about 2 miles and had about 40 mins so I thought it would be fine, but I probably should've just walked. Seemed to be stopping every 50-100m at a bus stop or traffic light.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sounds somewhat like the principles of a BRT system. The Belfast 'Glider' system seems to have been fairly successful in increasing ridership. They did get new hybrid bendy busses but also increased station spacing from 150-200m to 400m, with ticket machines at the stops and additional bus lanes. I think kept running some of the original buses on the same routes but using parallel streets or re-routed through housing estates.

It's just the default method of operation by countries who know how to operate buses. Calling it BRT is like the whole "Stagecoach Gold" thing when really all buses should be to that sort of standard.

 

[WM Bus]

They even gave away the latter on buses.

They still do.

 

[Dai Corner]

They still do.

Haven't seen the Metro here in south Wales since before the Covid lockdowns.

 

[Typhoon]

X1/X2 on the Coventry Road skip out several stops including a lightly used stop between the Swan and the Wheatsheaf.
900/957 which they replaced used to stop at some of those at one point.

Also on the Coventry Road corridor TFWM are currently installing enhanced stops for the new Sprint service to Solihull. Which could probably end up replacing the X2.

I believe it has 'worked' in parts of the West Midlands because it is a long-standing feature of public transport. I can remember when the 'Timesaver' services were introduced. Different livery, branding in big letters so there was no doubt as the bus approached that it would stop at a restricted number of stops. Even before that, the Birmingham to Coventry service was operated by Midland Red (159?) only stopped at key stops.
Birmingham is ideal for such operation - lots of radial routes, with some narrow sections bypassed (Small Heath Highway), junctions avoided (underpass at The Swan).

You need a demand which justifies having routes that have stops at some distance apart as well as those for whom walking a distance presents a difficulty; as well as the infrastructure to support it, and the political will to make it happen.

 

[WM Bus]

Haven't seen the Metro here in south Wales since before the Covid lockdowns.

National Express and Diamond still have them in the West Midlands. Normally have loads on them early on a weekday morning.

I believe it has 'worked' in parts of the West Midlands because it is a long-standing feature of public transport. I can remember when the 'Timesaver' services were introduced. Different livery, branding in big letters so there was no doubt as the bus approached that it would stop at a restricted number of stops. Even before that, the Birmingham to Coventry service was operated by Midland Red (159?) only stopped at key stops.
Birmingham is ideal for such operation - lots of radial routes, with some narrow sections bypassed (Small Heath Highway), junctions avoided (underpass at The Swan).

You need a demand which justifies having routes that have stops at some distance apart as well as those for whom walking a distance presents a difficulty; as well as the infrastructure to support it, and the political will to make it happen.

I don't think they'd use that underpass at the Swan these days though, as that stop serves the large shopping centre and tesco they built about about 10 years ago and heavy passenger usage to Airport, Solihull, City. Also it connects with the Outer Circle there.
They go down the Small Heath Bypass though.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Haven't seen the Metro here in south Wales since before the Covid lockdowns.

Still as noticeable as ever in Greater Manchester, when I visit that area.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Surely what the OP is suggesting can be achieved, (assuming of course that there is sufficient demand), by running, alternately, "all stops" and then limited stop services, along the same bus route and numbering them accordingly, maybe the 500 and then the ("faster") x500.

All that serves to do is alienate passengers who want to use the stops which aren't the "limited stop" ones, and there are so few places in the UK where there are enough services to alternate between stopping and fast services as this becomes an irrelevance.

Slightly dismissive comment.

As I stated in my post, limited stop services only really works where there is sufficient demand, perhaps on a busy bus route such as in London or along the Wilmslow Road corridor in South Manchester.

Particularly so along any (busy) longer distance route to/from a major centre where the inner city part route duplicates one or more local services, but passengers on the limited stop bus are mostly all travelling to the end destination. The limited stop bus could, perhaps use a slightly different route for part of its run.

Can be of use in certain, but not all, circumstances.

 

[Magdalia]

I can see both sides of this. Twenty years ago I commuted by bus and train. In theory I could catch a particular bus and make the onward connection to my train reasonably comfortably. In practice the bus journey time was unpredictable and I had to get up twenty minutes earlier and catch the previous one to be sure of getting to work on time.

Now I'm retired and time rich a few minutes delay is of little consequence if I'm not not going to an appointment or catching a train with an Advance ticket.

It still is - in particular if it's the morning, as sleep is a valuable thing and often you'll need to get up much earlier to go to work by bus than by car. Fiddling with a smartphone does alleviate boredom but isn't a good use of time.

I have commuted, but only used buses in one part of the journey. At the home end, I always lived within walking distance of the station, but I didn't have that luxury at the work end. I used buses much more in the morning than the evening, when onward connections made getting stuck in traffic a high impact risk.

Express buses do work for commuters, and there are various examples. But it needs sufficient demand and works better if the buses do not have to mix with the traffic lights and the delivery vans, such as on motorways and expressways or on dedicated busways.

But if there are no motorways and expressways, getting the dedicated busways built is a huge challenge, as the situation in Cambridge demonstrates. The guided busway is a good example of a dedicated route for buses, but they have to slum it with all the other traffic through the city centre, and getting other busways built, such as from Cambourne or Haverhill, is turning into a real struggle.

 

[Dai Corner]

I have commuted, but only used buses in one part of the journey. At the home end, I always lived within walking distance of the station, but I didn't have that luxury at the work end. I used buses much more in the morning than the evening, when onward connections made getting stuck in traffic a high impact risk.

Express buses do work for commuters, and there are various examples. But it needs sufficient demand and works better if the buses do not have to mix with the traffic lights and the delivery vans, such as on motorways and expressways or on dedicated busways.

But if there are no motorways and expressways, getting the dedicated busways built is a huge challenge, as the situation in Cambridge demonstrates. The guided busway is a good example of a dedicated route for buses, but they have to slum it with all the other traffic through the city centre, and getting other busways built, such as from Cambourne or Haverhill, is turning into a real struggle.

The coaches from Kent to Docklands and the City did OK until lockdowns and working from home became a thing I believe. Those from North Somerset to the north Bristol fringe didn't.

The Cambridge 'misguided busway' has been said to have a dedicated right of way where it doesn't need one but not where it does.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But if there are no motorways and expressways, getting the dedicated busways built is a huge challenge, as the situation in Cambridge demonstrates. The guided busway is a good example of a dedicated route for buses, but they have to slum it with all
the other traffic through the city centre, and getting other busways built, such as from Cambourne or Haverhill, is turning into a real struggle.

If you accept that you can provide for public transport and cycling/walking at the expense of car travel*, you can provide effective infrastructure pretty much anywhere. Yes, including Cambridge. The Dutch and Germans have done it for years.

* e.g. if the road is too narrow for a bus lane both ways plus a car lane both ways, bin off one of the car lanes or make the road bus only except for direct resident/business access.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 May 2022 ==

The coaches from Kent to Docklands and the City did OK until lockdowns and working from home became a thing I believe. Those from North Somerset to the north Bristol fringe didn't.

The reason the Docklands coaches did well was principally that they could compete with rail on time, because rail from that side of London is rather slow, but also because going to the Docklands mostly involved going into London and back out, whereas the coaches could miss that double-back out.

Commuter coaches from the other side of London have never done well - the Green Line from Hemel was slowly dying (and now has), and NatEx's MK experiment was an abject failure - who would take a 2 hour coach journey when you can do it much quicker by train?

 

[WelshBluebird]

The better thing to do would be to tackle buses getting stuck in traffic. Add new bus lanes where you can and ban private cars from certain areas.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The better thing to do would be to tackle buses getting stuck in traffic. Add new bus lanes where you can and ban private cars from certain areas.

Not bus lanes, but well-designed infrastructure that is designed on the premise that the bus should only stop when it wishes to do so. So many bus lanes (e.g. the ones in central MK) are utterly pointless.

Traffic-light overtakes with a short section of bus lane the length of a typical queue at the lights are about the best option so far as I've observed. It would really help if the UK allowed buses to run on tram signals, as to do that here requires a traffic island, in most of the rest of Europe it doesn't.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

The coaches from Kent to Docklands and the City did OK until lockdowns and working from home became a thing I believe. Those from North Somerset to the north Bristol fringe didn't.

The Cambridge 'misguided busway' has been said to have a dedicated right of way where it doesn't need one but not where it does.

That being a common problem. Build / paint a bus lane, not where it is needed but where there is plenty of road space and little traffic!

BRT is the better answer but that requires a large capital investment and probably demolishing large chunks of a city to fit it in. I've briefly looked at several. Dar es Salaam has one where the stops are widely spaced and are substantial affairs, not dissimilar to an LRT or heavy rail stop ie several bus lengths of platform and with overtaking lanes for buses. They have feeder 'minibus' routes connecting areas to the trunk BRT routes. Lagos has a similar network but, like all things Nigerian seem to be, it is chaotic. Nairobi has one under construction.

Somewhere there is a table showing the relative carrying capacities of traditional bus, BRT etc. All three of those African cities actually need proper LRT/Metro/heavy rail solutions given their size, population density and congestion issues.

Google Streetview will reveal all.

Stick this into the Google maps search bar -1.281321225538098, 36.82264650972426 - Koja bus terminal looks sort of reasonable on aerial, then flick to Streetview and look from all angles!
This location -1.286640347604315, 36.82875695963487 is the main bus station, once home to Stagecoach Kenya part of the Stagecoach we all know and love.

This location is the outer terminus of the main Dar es Salaam BRT route -6.787056822865243, 39.16688417154883 follow the route for a feel of the scale etc

This location is the outer terminus of the main Lagos BRT route 6.621178966684949, 3.502175512852991

 

[Bletchleyite]

That being a common problem. Build / paint a bus lane, not where it is needed but where there is plenty of road space and little traffic!

BRT is the better answer but that requires a large capital investment and probably demolishing large chunks of a city to fit it in. I've briefly looked at several. Dar es Salaam has one where the stops are widely spaced and are substantial affairs, not dissimilar to an LRT or heavy rail stop ie several bus lengths of platform and with overtaking lanes for buses. They have feeder 'minibus' routes connecting areas to the trunk BRT routes. Lagos has a similar network but, like all things Nigerian seem to be, it is chaotic. Nairobi has one under construction.

I'm not so convinced by that sort of BRT except in specific situations like Cambridge where you have a demand pattern of "along a trunk route then fan out to masses of small places". If you're going to build all that fully dedicated infrastructure you might as well build it with rails and OHLE and call it a tram.

The basic principles of BRT, though (that is, "the bus stops only when it wants to") should apply to all bus routes and not be a special thing.

 

[philthetube]

I'd like to rephrase that a bit if I may - "the clunky Ticketer ticketing system is not fast enough". We should give Ticketer its credit for (finally) bringing in universal contactless acceptance across the UK, but processing a transaction is slower than cash, and this is a huge design flaw.

Agreed, the hand held machines used on Blackpool trams are much quicker, not sure why though possibly just because the customer holds onto the card and just places it against the machine instead of putting it down and waiting to be told to pick it up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed, the hand held machines used on Blackpool trams are much quicker, not sure why though possibly just because the customer holds onto the card and just places it against the machine instead of putting it down and waiting to be told to pick it up.

Use of a card on Ticketer machines is counterintuitive - you have to state destination, the driver has to put the destination in, then you have to place the card. If you place it too early it confuses the machine and it has to be reset. A really poor design.

Tap on, tap off is the best approach. You can do that in both directions without breaking stride provided there's a clear "beep" and red/green light.

 

[Magdalia]

If you accept that you can provide for public transport and cycling/walking at the expense of car travel*, you can provide effective infrastructure pretty much anywhere. Yes, including Cambridge. The Dutch and Germans have done it for years.

* e.g. if the road is too narrow for a bus lane both ways plus a car lane both ways, bin off one of the car lanes or make the road bus only except for direct resident/business access.

Some Cambridge City Centre streets are just wide enough for two horse drawn carts to pass. Many of them do not even have cycle lanes because there is not enough room, and with only narrow pavements for pedestrians.

Access for residents and businesses doesn't do away with the delivery vans, which are often the cause of delay and congestion.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Use of a card on Ticketer machines is counterintuitive - you have to state destination, the driver has to put the destination in, then you have to place the card. If you place it too early it confuses the machine and it has to be reset. A really poor design.

Tap on, tap off is the best approach. You can do that in both directions without breaking stride provided there's a clear "beep" and red/green light.

Which is now available on First Potteries, although 'without breaking stride' would overstate the speed achievable.

You place your contactless card on the reader on the drivers ticket machine to tap on - so convoluted wrist twisting required to pass the protection screen and a separate reader for tapping off - some behind the drivers cab, some on the left side by the luggage rack. No need to state destination etc, automatic calculation of fare, daily etc. capping as per Oyster. Trent have had tap on/off for years, initially Mango now contactless.

 

[GusB]

We are discussing whether or not we should reduce the number of stops on a bus route, not ticketing. Please remain on topic. Thanks

 

[telstarbox]

If there's enough demand on a corridor which can be served by stops 800m or further apart, that points towards light or heavy rail being the better solution.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

With regards to the "limited stop" option mentioned earlier in this thread, The V1/V2 guided busway services from Manchester to Leigh/Atherton have limited stops on the long section with certain bus lanes between Pendleton and the busway itself at Ellenbrook. I think this was all part of the original project planning stage.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

If you want to increase bus ridership you need the following
Reliable buses that run on time
Modern clean buses
Simple affordable fares (Inc cross operator tickets)
Well designed bus stops (the standard ones in Glasgow are poorly designed with one side open meaning you get soaked when it rains)
Proper connections and internetworking
Large hub express link services

 

[lachlan]

I feel like most of the time buses are stopped its due to traffic or to catch up on time, not due to actually calling at bus stops. The way to resolve this is to create bus lanes and reduce car usage, allowing timetables to be tightened up.

As many bus users are elderly and/or disabled, I don't think removing stops is an option as these people can't always walk very far. I do support express services though as long as they are as well as, and not instead of, local stopping services.

 

[telstarbox]

With regards to the "limited stop" option mentioned earlier in this thread, The V1/V2 guided busway services from Manchester to Leigh/Atherton have limited stops on the long section with certain bus lanes between Pendleton and the busway itself at Ellenbrook. I think this was all part of the original project planning stage.

Indeed - the Vantage can be considered more as a 'tram with tyres' in its operation than a classic bus route.

 

[GusB]

Once again I would like to remind everyone to stay on topic. I have moved a couple of posts to this thread, which is more appropriate:

What must be done to make buses more relevant outside London?

Someone wrote on a different thread "Buses on the other hand, now there’s a transport mode in terminal decline (outside of London)…" Is this actually true, and if so, what needs to be done to change things for the better? Not sure if this "speculation" but if so please move the thread elsewhere!

www.railforums.co.uk

Any further off-topic posts will be removed.