Who knows. But that is the preferred choice of most bus companies and most people who post on this forum.
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Dual Door Buses
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Who knows. But that is the preferred choice of most bus companies and most people who post on this forum.
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RailUK Forums
Can you quote one person from the industry who's said they want fewer passengers? You may feel that dual doors is some kind of magic wand however it only brings benefits where there are enough stops where people are likely to be getting on and off at the same time and, without it's applied universally, it just ends up confusing passengers and increases costs (loss of seating, extra parts to go wrong).
Are you from the industry? I've read a lot of your posts and you sound like you know a lot. You have essentially repeated what people have said on this forum on this topic. It is not worth having dual doors and the slower journey time (and therefore reduced number of passengers) is a price worth paying.
You said people in the industry want slower journeys and less people on the bus. Why would the industry want less people on a bus? Less people means less money....
But single door buses are cheaper, as just explained by carlberry. They would rather have fewer passengers than higher costs.
Bus companies would also like to have more passengers as well as lower running costs, and passengers will often want faster journey times.
700007
Established Member
Brighton is the busiest bus network outside of London. Brighton is very fixated (which they should!) on keeping journeys as fast as they can be on a bus network serving almost 70 million journeys every year. They're more than willing to invest in a bus with two doors and have the cash to do so if it means dual doors can rapidly speed up a journey. All the key bus routes (1s, 5s, 7, 12, 25s and 49) with the exception of the 12s have dual doors. If buses become too slow because of extended dwell times at each stop, passengers will revert to cars which is not what Brighton & Hove want, nor is it what society needs either. Look at London, bus routes that are the slowest have seen an huge decrease in passenger usage over the last decade. For as long as cars exist. buses need to be quick to be attractive, it is as simple as that.
Bus stopping arrangements in the city centre are also reviewed regularly and amended if the company and city Council think it is causing too much congestion (see North Street) and slow journey times through a particular area. They will also make a lot of bus gates and bus lanes throughout the city and the company prides itself on the fact it has a small portfolio of express routes (such as the 12X and 25X both which are very successful) for passengers who want to travel long distances even quicker. The Regency 28/29 bus routes are also limited stop within the Brighton area meaning buses effectively are express between Brighton and Lewes.
Bus stopping arrangements in the city centre are also reviewed regularly and amended if the company and city Council think it is causing too much congestion (see North Street) and slow journey times through a particular area. They will also make a lot of bus gates and bus lanes throughout the city and the company prides itself on the fact it has a small portfolio of express routes (such as the 12X and 25X both which are very successful) for passengers who want to travel long distances even quicker. The Regency 28/29 bus routes are also limited stop within the Brighton area meaning buses effectively are express between Brighton and Lewes.
I'm not from the industry. You keep on giving the impression that the number of doors is in someway responsible for a reduced number of passengers, when it is a fairly small issue for most of the UK. Without you have a high percentage of vehicles with dual doors they dont speed things up (because people get confused and use the wrong door anyway, or the driver dosent open the middle door) and, even with full usage, they dont speed things up at the majority of stops as they dont have conflicting flows. As shown in Brighton, and a few other places, dual doors do become useful where the operator commits to them but, equally, where the local authority allows enough space for bus infrastructure so the buses can get onto the stops and have the ability to achieve a good speed between stops. Saving a few seconds loading is pointless if you're then going to spend 5 minutes back in the queue of cars again before you get to the next stop.
That's easy to say. My local bus station has buses drive in in parallel. If you get off a middle door you're getting off into the path of another bus. This type of bus station is very popular - and makes it easy to change buses without having to cross roads with buses running on them.
If you change all these it'll cost a lot - does the benefit from two doors outweigh that. Brighton don't use bus stations like that (that I know of - there may be one somewhere). Most stops on my route only have people boarding or only have people departing so having two doors doesn't help a lot. The biggest single help is getting ticketing off bus which my local company are very good at - almost every ticket can be bought on a phone for 10% a discount if you buy 5 of them (including singles if you buy 10).
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
It's all a bit more nuanced than that
First of all, across the UK, most bus infrastructure is designed around single door buses and has been for many years. That is evident in such things are bus stop design (e.g. how much raised kerb is there, and where?) or bus stations that are nose in (en echelon to use the proper term). Therefore, there are simply obstacles on that basis.
However, the main consideration is this and considering all the above... Do the cons of having dual doors outweigh the benefits?
Cons
- There is an extra cost in dual door buses, in terms of initial capital cost and ongoing maintenance
- Loss of lower deck capacity so a smaller vehicle capacity may require more buses
- Note: you might be able to specify longer wheelbase deckers to compensate for that but if manoeuvrability is a problem, then you won't have that option
- Shorter dwell times at stops
- More attractive to passengers and so improving/maintaining patronage
- Faster journey times may require fewer buses
Interestingly, in Bristol, they have both. Long wheelbase dual door e400mmcs on services that serve only a limited number of appropriately designed stops which also have sufficient passenger churn (getting on and off) and don't penetrate estates or areas with tight bends or parked cars. Conversely, most city routes still use shorter, single door vehicles.
markymark2000
On Moderation
Another few Cons for your list.
Revenue protection because as London shows, people do use the middle doors to try and avoid paying. This then either holds up the bus while the driver gets revenue protection staff or it means people are travelling without paying. Both are cons.
Also, you have bus shelters as a big issue as they need moving to accommodate the 2nd door normally. Due to pavement widths, overhangs, disability stuff, it seems to me that when dual door buses are being used, there are less shelters as obviously the back of the shelter has to then be against a house or someone's land rather than the back being to the road. I can't remember the full thing but there is legal constraints making it harder for shelters to be put up.
Finally, layby bus stops need to be built out (as unless there is a long layby, the middle doors will likely be quite far from the kerb). This then means on frequent routes buses can bunch easier as it's much harder for them to overtake at bus stops (think like bus lanes, it's hard to move over when it's congested so buses just bunch rather than nip into a layby and everyone else goes past). Also any free flowing traffic gets a hit with a bus stopped blocking the lane.
If you have only alighting passengers at a stop, the dwell time is actually longer because of the door alarms and delays. Depending on which bus you compare it to as well, you could argue the door lock also increases the dwell time quite substantially.
I certainly echo you 2nd to last paragraph though. It will be perfect in some areas and not for others. You kind of have to build the infrastructure around the fact you intend on using dual door buses and if the area is built suitable for dual door buses, you then have less cost and the radios work out better. I think that in Brighton, the move to dual door deckers was helped that they have ran bendy buses for a while so the main city centre, where there can be a lot of issues, was dealt with and they knew of the fare evasion percentages from running bendies.
If, like in most places in Britain, ridership is low, is it possible to say that this type of bus station is "popular"? It sounds like you are locking yourself into low patronage if bus stations cannot be altered to allow dual door and basically admitting you will never have ridership like what Brighton has. What if London had gone in for this kind of bus station 30-40 years ago? They would be in a right pickle now.
As you say, ticketing has more of an impact on journey time, and you give an example of how mobile ticketing cuts journey times, but what percentage of people are still paying the driver?
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Thanks for that. I did mention bus stop design in the para above; the points you rightly mention are what I was suggesting without going into the detail. Also, fair point about revenue protection; hadn't sprung to mind but maybe it's because I'm so honest
(and NOT suggesting you're not 
)Think you're probably right in that the experience of bendis and other factors means that Brighton is starting from a different position than most places.
Most intensive local bus services tend not to use bus stations. Using West Yorkshire (as that's @Deerfold 's area) as an example....
The major cities (Leeds and Bradford) use the bus station for the inter-urban or long-distance services though I think some Bradford ones may use the Interchange; I'm sure @Deerfold will put me right. In the main, intensive local routes use on-street stops. This makes sense as passengers for lower frequency, inter-urban routes may have a longer time to wait for their next bus whilst the high frequency local routes will be there for perhaps 5 to 10 mins typically. In smaller towns, such as Keighley, the use of "en echelon" bus stations (even for local routes) is much less of a constraint. Headways are typically lower and would never justify dual door buses.
The use of technology has massively reduced cash fares; in Brighton, they declared it is now less than 10% (in Jan 2020) and as we've seen over recent months, Contactless overall is much more prevalent across all parts of society.
(Aside on bus station design.... the use of "popular" to describe nose-in, en echelon designs is to reflect that they are quite common. They also have their advantages in that they take up a smaller amount of expensive land in town centres than run through designs. Also, one passenger concourse means you can have all facilities concentrated in one place and reduce the risk of pedestrian/vehicle conflict. Again, it really does depend on the specific town/city requirement).
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Does that 90% include people paying the driver by contactless? Mobile is quick, Oyster/contactless in London is quick, but paying the driver by card is still pretty slow. Although Brighton, like London, allows contactless payment without paying the driver.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
They said cash fares so the 90% would include contactless. However, they do have tap in and tap out so exactly the granular detail on cash vs contactless types vs other methods, we can only guess.
markymark2000
On Moderation
You don't have to have dual doors on a bus for it to be high patronage. There are plenty of bus routes out there which are very high frequency and cope with single doors. Manchester Magics and 192 come to mind. Just in the past few months, Manchester opened Ashton Interchange which is part DIRO (Drive in reverse off), part DIDO (drive in, drive off) and all bus stations which TFGM and West Yorkshire have opened in recent years have been majority if not all DIRO stands. I always prefer DIRO bus stations as a passenger. As TGW says though, the very frequent routes do tend to not use bus stations which reduces the issues with stands but your point that you imply you are locking yourself into low patronage if you don't have dual doors is rubbish.
I am certainly honest but I know plenty that aren't so honest. There was a show on Channel 5 recently 'At war with fare dodgers' and that showed plenty of people using Londons buses without paying by using other doors. It's certainly not a majority thing but it's certainly a cost that needs to be looked at since it could lead to a lot of fare evasion if staff aren't proactive.Thanks for that. I did mention bus stop design in the para above; the points you rightly mention are what I was suggesting without going into the detail. Also, fair point about revenue protection; hadn't sprung to mind but maybe it's because I'm so honest
Think you're probably right in that the experience of bendis and other factors means that Brighton is starting from a different position than most places.
Those routes are very frequent, and are they running at a higher frequency than they need to be given the usage levels? London buses don't seem to run that frequently, every 10 minutes is typical, but maybe that is because they can get more people on and off the buses quickly because of the dual doors and Oyster.
The reasons buses are so frequent down the Oxford Road is because they pass by two of the largest Universities in the country. I studied at Manchester Metropolitan and oftentimes it was quicker to walk into town rather than queue up for the bus. The 192 and Magic Bus are two routes that really need dual boarding, in fact I’d go further and make them cashless.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think we are getting a bit fixated on bus stations in arguing against dual door. Bus stations are mostly used to terminate routes, and as such people are either getting off or on, not both at the same time. Thus, there is no problem with this being done through the front door.
Where dual door works well, and is really important in keeping dwell times down, is on routes that have stops where considerable numbers of people board and alight at the same stops. This is much more the case in places that have "cross town" type routes, which will gain and lose passengers at each of a set of town centre stops. I'd include in that the likes of Oxford Road, where the University site and Fallowfield are both effectively "town centres" in that regard.
On routes in smaller towns, which are typically based around one key destination (the town centre), dual-door has little value - you'll get things moving much quicker with off-bus ticketing, which like many tech-based things has been pushed along nicely by COVID.
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As someone who has in the past used those routes extensively, I would say "only just cope". It's interesting to compare the (1)4x with Hamburg's old 102 - they are both very similar corridors, but Manchester's is multi-route, multi-operator, single-door and pay-on-board, whereas Hamburg's is single-route, single-operator, multi-door (bendy) and mostly off-bus ticketing. Manchester's buses move incredibly slowly - cycling is pretty much always quicker, and walking often so too - and take many minutes to load and unload. Hamburg's are like trams - quick stop, alighting and boarding at every door (3 sets on a bendy), bus moves on. You won't need to spend much time working out which I think works better for a route like that.
Where dual door works well, and is really important in keeping dwell times down, is on routes that have stops where considerable numbers of people board and alight at the same stops. This is much more the case in places that have "cross town" type routes, which will gain and lose passengers at each of a set of town centre stops. I'd include in that the likes of Oxford Road, where the University site and Fallowfield are both effectively "town centres" in that regard.
On routes in smaller towns, which are typically based around one key destination (the town centre), dual-door has little value - you'll get things moving much quicker with off-bus ticketing, which like many tech-based things has been pushed along nicely by COVID.
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As someone who has in the past used those routes extensively, I would say "only just cope". It's interesting to compare the (1)4x with Hamburg's old 102 - they are both very similar corridors, but Manchester's is multi-route, multi-operator, single-door and pay-on-board, whereas Hamburg's is single-route, single-operator, multi-door (bendy) and mostly off-bus ticketing. Manchester's buses move incredibly slowly - cycling is pretty much always quicker, and walking often so too - and take many minutes to load and unload. Hamburg's are like trams - quick stop, alighting and boarding at every door (3 sets on a bendy), bus moves on. You won't need to spend much time working out which I think works better for a route like that.
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Agree with the points about infrastructure being required to support them.
In Cardiff it wasn't really a problem driving the bendies as around 90% of the bus stops on the routes they're used on have fully extended raised kerbs - or in the absence of them there's no street furniture in the way.
Having driven a handful of the dual door B9TLs in Edinburgh in the last few months while they were at my depot I constantly had problems safely aligning the rear doors at stops with them as there's no proper infrastructure/accommodation at hardly any bus stops. Can't speak for the tri axles myself as I haven't had the pleasure of driving one yet.
In Cardiff it wasn't really a problem driving the bendies as around 90% of the bus stops on the routes they're used on have fully extended raised kerbs - or in the absence of them there's no street furniture in the way.
Having driven a handful of the dual door B9TLs in Edinburgh in the last few months while they were at my depot I constantly had problems safely aligning the rear doors at stops with them as there's no proper infrastructure/accommodation at hardly any bus stops. Can't speak for the tri axles myself as I haven't had the pleasure of driving one yet.
Geordie driver
Member
There are large parts of the country when revenue protection consists of the driver, even before deregulation a driver in the North East calling for revenue protection due to a passenger not paying would be wasting their time. Add in a middle door and you would lose a large lump of revenue. Look how much the metro loses even with its own dedicate police team and loads of checkies.
My home city ( Newcastle) is plagued by " just a minute" selfish car parking at bus stops with no one to ticket them.
My home city ( Newcastle) is plagued by " just a minute" selfish car parking at bus stops with no one to ticket them.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It has long surprised me that this is not done with a forward facing camera on the bus, which would photograph the offence, the driver would press a button to indicate that one had occurred (so the CCTV would be kept) and then passed to the Police for a NIP[1] to be posted, or the local Council if decriminalised in that area.
[1] sorry, Notice of Intended Prosecution.
Not sure why you'd assume ridership is low in my area. This bus station is far better than the one it replaced - it's certainly been popular with bus users. Previously you may have had to cross 2 roads to change buse or get to the bus station newsagent, travel shop or adjacent shopping centre. Most routes from here have a bus station at one or both ends of the route - these are by far the busiest stops. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times someone has boarded the bus as I've got off at the stop outside my house. Most people are travelling to or from one (or both) end(s) of the route. Pre-Covid I've regularly had to stand on my local buses. One of the routes has recently increased from Solos to double deckers - a change planned pre-Covid. But outside of cities like London (and Brighton) where a significant proportion of people will board and alight away from the ends of the route there seems little advantage in having dual doors.
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Many central London bus routes run at a higher frequency than every 10 minutes. I'm not sure how having faster boarding means you don't need as high a frequency. The most frequent routes in the high peak are the 38 at every 4-5 minutes and the 521 every 2 minutes.
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I suppose it depends on what you call "low". Public transport usage is well known as being low in Britain, so it would have to be quite exceptional if it isn't low.
If boarding protocols take too long (I'm thinking mostly about ticket issuing) then it can be difficult to get away from the stop if people arrive more quickly than the amount that can be processed by the driver. So you need more buses to carry the same number of people compared to if you had quick boarding.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
And this is why the typical UK bus company conservatism in places like Oxford Road is laughable. The buses wait so long at stops to load and unload that the PVR must be hugely elevated over what it would be with even a London style cashless, dual door operation, let alone if they went further and operated it like a tram with open boarding and RPIs.
The Magic Bus Dennis Dragons were interesting - one narrow front door only, so they took about 20 minutes to load with more or less everyone paying cash fares, plus time to unload through a single narrow door. Unlike most step-entrance buses which had a central pole to direct people, you couldn't even have one paying while others left. This is just plain silly and chucking money away on extra buses and drivers; a 3 door 18m bendy with open boarding would load and unload fully within about a minute.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Being devil's advocate, if the PVR savings are there and so it's cost effective to do so, then why would commercial operators NOT go for dual door buses? Open boarding would be a revenue nightmare unless, as in London, the revenue risk sits with someone else.
Much of the problem though is the transport infrastructure and in particular, stops and that isn't in a bus companies' gift. What HAS to happen is that local authorities would need to make the investment AND there needs to be an underwritten investment agreed with the operator (in order to ensure their buy-in and that the payback is assured). That being said, there are bigger fish to fry - no point in saving a minute or two by faster egress if you're still stuck in traffic!!
However, I would again stress again that in many places, aside from a bit in the morning peak, there are few instances where dual doors would be required. Brighton really does have a sweet spot of a good, pro-bus LA coupled with a savvy bus company. I could see it happening in places like Bristol but in somewhere like Gloucester or Plymouth.... not really.
Busaholic
Veteran Member
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Absolutely agree, dual or even triple door buses should be the standard on any modern city centre bus service, and London were getting there with the bendys until Boris Johnson chose to focus on them as the first rung on his proposed ascent to being World King, which unfortunately was not thwarted then as it should have been with consequences which we are feeling now! No, bendys didn't suit every route, and there are historic/mediaeval cities where they wouldn't be appropriate, but on the whole a city aspiring to be an international one, especially a capital one, should be able to accommodate these buses and provide the infrastructure to allow it, with dedicated bus lanes/roads/gates and traffic light altering equipment standard. Oh, and rigourous enforcement.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think its value very much depends on the style of operation in smaller towns where there's really only one destination (the town centre). If you use simple radial routes terminating at a central bus station, almost no value, the 4-6 seats that could go there would have more value. If you use cross-city, or "in, lap the ring road and back out", you have a number of stops where people both board and alight in large numbers, and so it has more value.
The Oxford/Wilmslow Road services are basically cross-city services with multiple "city centres" - the University and Fallowfield, mostly - where both boarding and alighting happens in both directions. In large cities, you'll get a fair bit of this.
Milton Keynes would benefit from it because almost all the routes are "cross city". Bedford wouldn't, as everything comes in from a suburb and terminates at the bus station, pretty much.
Indeed.
Taking a big city that runs a lot of cross-city services... Leeds. Would work well.
Reality:
What's the local authority view?
Dual door buses are banned from all Metro bus stations.
Great forward thinking there...
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
How ridiculous - why not just, er, not open the rear door?
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