And this also explains the growing trend of amending routes to not serve certain roads or areas due to issues navigating around the areas.
This seems like a major flaw with the design of housing estates and lack of communication between bus operators and councils if bus operators have to compromise the length of buses to fit through them. Or an inevitable side affect of spending years merging interurban and urban routes, increasing journey times and increasing car use.
Now back in the real world...... unless the new fare is free, lowing fares does not stop people fare evading. A very quick visit to London will confirm that where the fares are some of the lowest in the country, people just walk on and refuse to pay. If anything, cheaper fares means people go 'come on drive, it's only a quid, let me on'.
The 2 real issues here is a growing entitlement amongst some of the lowest classes of people, and secondly drivers are all told they are not allowed to challenge anything, and companies will quite happily discipline a driver or say 'serves you right' if anything happens when challenging.
I'd also add that outside of London, the issue isn't so much people walking past a driver and avoiding a fare, it's is more buying a cheaper ticket which the person isn't entitled to. Such as adults buying child tickets. Hence all of the ID checks coming in with operators forcing verification for child tickets on the apps
Fare evasion is a problem, but it's not as common as some people might think. The buses on my local routes (outside London) have been dual door for many years and people rarely fare evade, I've only ever seen 3 this year. (Is there official data on how many people fare evade compared to those who pay in London?) I really don't think lowering fares would increase fare evasion, other countries like Germany have much lower fares than the UK and it's not a big problem over there.
I'm also going to add some cities in Germany have adopted all door boarding, and it's been a standard practice in Eastern Europe for over 40 years. There will always be a few people who avoid paying, but limiting passenger flow and increasing dwell times is not a good way of preventing it.
I'd put good money on the fact it's more than a few stops which will need sorting.
To make an area fit for dual door buses, you need all bus stop clearways/cages to be somewhere around TFLs standard of 37 metres to give buses enough space to pull in and be close enough to the kerb so that passengers can alight safely and wheelchair ramps deploy properly. This means most layby bus stops are out of the question and so you'd have to rebuild laybys or move the stops into the carriageway. If you're lucky and can just get away with bigger bus stop cages, good luck getting that through as it decreases parking spaces. For any stops which already would be suitable road layout wise/kerb wise, you then need to amend any street clutter and shetlers to make the entire bus stop completely clear as the bus stop is no good if the shelter is in the way of the rear doors etc etc.
And if, as you say, places such as bus stations just use the front doors. Well buses with centre doors have the wheelchair ramp in the middle doors. So do we just exclude wheelchair users? (for the record, you can not do this, and nor should anyone engage in the attitude that most current local authorities are employing with coaches, which is 'as/when needed, use the single accessible stand or stop around the corner'). And surely anyone can see that bus stations are the key place where dual doors would be beneficial. If you aren't updating the stops where dual doors would be most effective, what a waste of time and money updating all of the other stops where there is little-no benefit
Perhaps the government should review the rules and regulations for bus stops if they can't accommodate certain types of buses. Where I live layby stops can fit dual door buses, but I don't know the lengths of them, it wouldn't be difficult to move or replace shelters which block a 2nd exit.
The position of the wheelchair ramp depends on what the operator specifies, my local buses have them at the front door on dual door buses.
Most bus stations, especially drive in, reverse out examples tend to be located in towns where cross-city services (which would benefit the most from dual door buses) are largely nonexistent. Routes that go into bus stations sit for long periods of time so dwell times aren't affected. Many cities and larger towns don't have proper bus stations, and much of the routes are cross-city services.
And how are we to pay for the rather extensive wishlist of financial commitments? Think of it from a political point of view... Taxing people more is always a surefire vote winner and whilst it might work for the NHS or Defence, there are few votes for politicians from taxing people more and not for public transport. And if not taxes... what would you instead cut? Removal of the triple lock, or perhaps reducing disability benefits? What of the other major policy issues that are also demanding investment? Like Defence, or building more council houses, or investment in SEND and social care?
It's not that we can't fund it, we just choose not to. For a number of years there's been a sentiment among politicians and some of the public that funding public services is always bad (except like you said, the NHS or Defence), and buses are a burden on the public wallet who are only for the lowest earners or those on benefits.
All operators manage costs. In fact, we all manage costs in our every day lives. I'm sure you do in your daily life?
Yes, it costs less to have one door instead of two, but it also costs less to have plastic seats instead of padded ones, have no air conditioning, have paper displays instead of LED ones, or run breadvans instead of full size buses. At what point does it turn into cost cutting to maximise profits from budgeting?
Erm... Yutong E12s seat about 39 passengers... less than long Streetlite or an Eclipse. Reducing them to 35 seater dual doors for more standees...
The 11.5m Streetlites and MMCs aren't as popular as the shorter ones, and I believe the E12 capacity has something to do with ZEBRA requirements specifying 2 large disabled bays.
Firstly, it is very unlikely that you can readily compete with cars. They provide virtually ultimate freedom if you have one. However, if you want to level the playing field...
You have to make it more difficult for people to drive into cities AND to park. That is potentially politically toxic. The cost of private car ownership has also become much cheaper so whilst fuel prices have outstripped inflation (and that affects bus operators just as much), the other costs such as insurance or purchase costs are lower. Also, because cars have become more efficient, that fuel cost is actually lower overall, whilst buses are held at a higher bar and so their fuel efficiency is often worse as they have to meet more stringent emissions targets.
Public transport can compete with cars if you build adequate faster infrastructure such as trams with dedicated lanes, or suburban railways in large cities akin to those in France or Germany.
The shelter would need to be turned 180 degrees and the Kassel kerb moved because were you to stop the bus with a centre exit level with the kerb, you are blocking an access. On this particular road, some additional bus priority would be immeasurably better in making bus services quicker and more reliable. So there would be thousands of examples around the UK to tackle and, in many places outside the major cities, it simply isn't worth the money.
Many DIRO bus stations would have issues so you'd have to be dropping off elsewhere.
This is one example, I'm sure there are other examples across the country where the stop can't be adapted, but bus stops like this can be moved, if it's possible of course.
Like I said above, most drive in, reverse out bus stations are present in towns, while dual door buses would benefit most in cities where bus stations are much rarer and the majority of routes are cross-city.
Yes, but we're in the UK. Saying we should be somewhere else is rather like my comment in #1... We wouldn't start from here, but here is where we are!
We should take much needed inspiration from other countries though, our public transport system is very outdated and inadequate for a country our size, especially when you consider we're in Western Europe. There's a very good reason why other countries look to France, The Netherlands, Swizerland and Spain when taking inspiration for their own public transport and not the UK.
