Are we to blame for Bristol bus delays?...Bristol post at it again

[mjr]

Why does he assume the extra passengers would otherwise have cycled? It could equally have been people who would otherwise have driven but didn't want to risk their cars. Besides, when I get on a bus to go somewhere I am not a cyclist so it's a nonsense to refer to those additional passengers as such.

What, you mean you don't dress in Lycra and waggle a pump at the driver when you board a bus?

 

[glasgowcyclist]

What, you mean you don't dress in Lycra and waggle a pump at the driver when you board a bus?

Not after that last time...

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Why does he assume the extra passengers would otherwise have cycled? It could equally have been people who would otherwise have driven but didn't want to risk their cars.

Maybe he used his own eyes and observed that there were less cyclists than normal around, and more bus passengers? It's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to arrive at. If there was heavy traffic, it's unlikely that it was motorists leaving their cars at home.
The real root cause is most likely to be incompetence on the part of the Highways Authority, by creating the congestion as a result of disruptive roadworks and bad traffic flow management. It only takes a few badly timed traffic signals and a bit of badly designed road to create chaos at peak hours,

 

[mjr]

The real root cause is most likely to be incompetence on the part of the Highways Authority, by creating the congestion as a result of disruptive roadworks and bad traffic flow management.

You seem to have written "disruptive roadworks and bad traffic flow management" when you should have written "failing to de-ice cycle routes".

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

You seem to have written "disruptive roadworks and bad traffic flow management" when you should have written "failing to de-ice cycle routes".

That's because it's the traffic congestion that would have caused lost bus mileage, resulting in more overcrowding anyway. The non-cyclists would just add a bit to it. You cant make up lost time in heavy congestion, all they can do is cut some of the bus journeys or turn the bus short of it's normal destination. You've only got a certain number of drivers and buses, and you can't magic extra ones up out of thin air. Either way it means less buses serve a particular stop per hour, and if the passenger numbers stay the same or even increase, you get packed out buses and unhappy commuters.
Whether a cycle route was de-iced or not would not make much difference in the scheme of things, but you just like to be obtuse for the sake of it.

 

[Mike_P]

Bus operators not taking measures to decrease delays is a big problem in most places. Once upon time buses stopped so briefly motorists often did not bother to try to overtake but then conductors became a thing of the past. There must be a case to either employing conductors on some routes or sections of a route to speed up journeys or alternatively have ticket machines, or sellers, at busy bus stops. Faster journeys would generate more custom while buses sat less idling would become more fuel efficient so mitigating staff costs.

 

[mjr]

There must be a case to either employing conductors on some routes or sections of a route to speed up journeys or alternatively have ticket machines, or sellers, at busy bus stops.

Don't need them. They could just install London-style (or Belgrade-style, if you prefer) payment card validators for contactless credit cards and Oyster-like smartcards by the driver on both sides. At the moment, we've got the crackers situation where you can tap your contactless card as you board the bus... and then they just print you out a normal bus ticket, taking almost exactly as long as if you paid cash.

A bigger problem is a widespread lack of bus lanes to get buses through the traffic lights on the first green at most junctions, bus gates on bypassed routes and so on. Councils don't seem to want to spend money to really help buses, just like they don't spend to help cycling. Do they have a conflict of interest from running town-centre car parking?

 

[Mike_P]

Contactless seems to take longer IME
To speed boarding at Leeds bus station during daytime Transdev normally have member of staff selling tickets but they still appear to need to be checked by the driver, the quickest is usually someone holding a pass or rover ticket but its amazing how difficult operators typically make finding the details of such. My local operator use to sell a day ticket through its mobile app that worked for a full 24 hours which was great when I broke my collarbone. Somehow managed to wrangle Friday afternoon visits to the hospital, thereafter a walk to Sainsbury's to do some shopping and then, typically around quarter past four starting the ticket which meant I had the use of it for most of Saturday daytime. The app has now had what seems to be a downgrade as the full 24 hour mobile ticket ceased.

 

[mjr]

Contactless seems to take longer IME

I can quite believe it if your experience is in the UK. Elsewhere, you tap, wait for the green light and beep and job's done faster than a ticket can be printed. The bus/tram leaves the stop with a few people still queuing up at the two readers. Random (but frequent in Belgrade! Including everyone getting off at a few busy stops where the bus deposits you at a taped-off platform) ticket inspections catches people who haven't tapped in and fines them.

Of course, this probably requires a willing to play the averages over lots of journeys and flat or zonal fares, which state-run or area-franchised public transport can do much more easily than a patchwork of battling bus companies.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Bristol roads not safe for cyclists in Winter

 

[hatler]

Bus operators not taking measures to decrease delays is a big problem in most places. Once upon time buses stopped so briefly motorists often did not bother to try to overtake but then conductors became a thing of the past. There must be a case to either employing conductors on some routes or sections of a route to speed up journeys or alternatively have ticket machines, or sellers, at busy bus stops. Faster journeys would generate more custom while buses sat less idling would become more fuel efficient so mitigating staff costs.

Not only would faster journeys be more fuel efficient, but a massive win for the bus company is that you need fewer buses. If you promise a service of one bus every ten minutes, and the route takes an hour there and back, you need six buses. If you can do it in half an hour, you only need three. Given that buses cost hundreds of thousands, this is surely the most powerful reason why bus companies should do all they can to reduce congestion. I'm pretty sure the London Mayor has got this.

 

[confusedcyclist]

buses sat less idling would become more fuel efficient so mitigating staff costs.

Fuel still costs much less than a conductor, NI contributions and his pension, as criminal as it is to waste such a finite and valuable resource.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I can quite believe it if your experience is in the UK. Elsewhere, you tap, wait for the green light and beep and job's done faster than a ticket can be printed.

Here in That London this is true. We don't stand for shilly shallying round here. Tap and get on, or get out of the way.

 

[captain nemo1701]

You seem to have written "disruptive roadworks and bad traffic flow management" when you should have written "failing to de-ice cycle routes".

There are grit bins on the B2B Railway Path. I tried using one but Ace Lager cans & crisp packets aren't very good at cycling on