http://www.scotsman.com/news/alastair-dalton-our-lowly-bus-services-deserve-more-respect-1-4034340
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"Our lowly bus services deserve more respect"
(19 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
-
Very pro-Lothian bus article which is great, hopefully the ban on cars in bus lanes can be reintroduced, the writer maybe not aware of this retrograde step.?
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Similarly, letting buses pull out and go first should become mandatory."
It isn't mandatory? Oh that explains a lot... In Germany, public transport buses at a bus stop have priority when they indicate, traffic behind has to stop and let them out. I thought it's similar here only that it's ignored like most other traffic rules.
Is that the reason why most bus stops here are in the traffic lane, whereas in Germany most stops in a bay so that other traffic can pass while the bus is stopped? I guess here a bus would be stuck forever in the bus bay until there is a gap in the traffic...
Posted 9 years ago # -
It isn't mandatory?
I think it's Highway Code, therefore as useful as any other bit of "regulation" in that particular publication.
While Edinburgh might be "bus city", there's certainly more that could be done. Rolling back somewhat backwards steps around bus lanes (operating hours and allowing motorcycles in). Then there's fairly lax enforcement of bus lanes; Glasgow's gone in for bus gates and cameras and enforcement in a much more active manner than Edinburgh; the cooncil seemed to fill their pants and retreat with their tail between their legs the last time they tried to improve enforcement because of ill-informed sabre-rattling from the Chipwrapper. Given the dominant and well-regarded position of Lothian Buses in the city, its level of patronage and the unusually low-level of car ownership in the city, I think if the council were to stand its ground they'd very quickly win the day; the Chipwrapper has a short attention span and not nearly the stomach or energy to run a long campaign. It would soon get bored and move on to other things it doesn't approve of and find other grumpy people to pose for the camera pointing at speeding or parking tickets.
I think it would also be good to see Edinburgh explore the use of bus-prioritising traffic lights on some major routes/junctions.
I would refer the author to their final line, however;
The more that buses are given the advantage on congested roads, the more people will want to use them.
Let's take a road where buses have nearly total advantage (apart from the occasional tram every 8-10 minutes). I mean of course Princes Street. It's the one place in Edinburgh almost totally given over to buses, and yet it's more stagnant and congested than many other major streets. It's a rare example I know, but it does go to show that there's such a thing as too much bus.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I have used the buses a lot this week (discovered my freewheel was goosed after falling on ice, only fixed today, combined with a cold) so have had a decent run on buses/connections/comfort/ticket app etc.
I cant fault the first three - I got a day ticket on the bus yesterday and got 5 buses in the course of going to / from work / post work pub trip / home. Great value for £4 and the connections, info on bus arrival times were a dream.
Sister stays in Bath and the bus service is expensive and incredibly poor (Stagecoach I think?) hence everyone uses the car to go to city centre - hence........well you can guess the congestion, parking, fumes scenario?
The one (and its a biggie) criticism I have of our buses is the app / ticketing gubbins. I use it, but today my wife tried to buy some tickets (didnt have cash, a common issue these days) but the app wasnt playing. We had so scrabble around the house to find £1.50 worth of 5p coins - a bit of a PITA and she almost missed the bus.
As has been noted above, they need to get their contactless act together, its just not acceptable to be a cash only/poor online app business these days - even my office will let you pay for your lunch (no minimum) by tapping a contactless card FFS !!
Its a no brainer and until they sort it out they only get 3 out of 5 stars for me.
Posted 9 years ago # -
People who complain about Edinburgh's bus services should try those in other places. Lothian Buses do a pretty good job.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"in many other areas of Scotland the bus remains the transport of the poor"
...But, thanks to Lothian Buses inflation busting price increases, the car is now the transport of the poor in Edinburgh.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Colleagues in London used to refer to the bus as a "loser cruiser".
Posted 9 years ago # -
Lothian buses must be cheapest in UK?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I used to get a weekly pass on the stagecoach student specials in Manc for £9, iirc. Bought on bus too, so no need to faff with an app or visit a shop.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Similarly, letting buses pull out and go first should become mandatory."
First time my sis-in-law (from Bromley) was driving in Edinburgh, she was utterly gobsmacked at seeing no-one letting the buses out. She says that down there, it's socially unacceptable to fail to do so.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"...But, thanks to Lothian Buses inflation busting price increases, the car is now the transport of the poor in Edinburgh"
Really?
A bus pass is £50 a month on the direct debit scheme.
Good luck financing, insuring, maintaining and filling up a car for that.............
Posted 9 years ago # -
'Colleagues in London used to refer to the bus as a "loser cruiser".'
That is reminiscent of American attitudes towards the bus as transportation. I'm surprised to see Londoners holding similar views: maybe they prefer the tube or train? Certainly used to be true that property was cheaper in areas without a tube station nearby (e.g.. Stoke Newington, Hackney, Dalston, etc.).
Posted 9 years ago # -
My London mate uses the bus all the time he says the bus app telling you when the next one is coming and the Oyster card so you don't need change has made it easy. Also safer then the tube and you know where you are.
Posted 9 years ago # -
...But, thanks to Lothian Buses inflation busting price increases, the car is now the transport of the poor in Edinburgh.
An adult single was 90p when I moved back to Edinburgh after uni in 2005. And Lothian Buses now carries significantly more passengers than it did then, so I think there's more to it than the 60p price increase in 10 years (2014 was a 25 year passenger high, I can't see they've published the 2015 figures yet)
Posted 9 years ago # -
When I moved to Edinburgh from Glasgow in 1997 I was pleasantly surprised by the price of the buses (65p at the time I think), the quality of the service and also the respect for the queuing system. Although I have noticed that orderly queues are being observed less now.
Union Street in Glasgow was (and probably still is) hell for getting a bus. Everyone tries to pile on at once and a lot of the buses would just stop in the middle of the road without pulling in to the stop.
Posted 9 years ago # -
'Colleagues in London used to refer to the bus as a "loser cruiser".'
I think that the bus service is good in Edinburgh. Buses are washed and cleaned each evening and look generally well maintained.
Due to the compactness of the city, and the "respectability" of the bus service, you are as likely to be sitting next to a solicitor, doctor or someone of higher perceived status, as a shop or factory worker. In other cities that I've travelled in, the bus is seen as the poor mans transport, and it's not held in that regard here. I think we're better for it.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Worst thing is having a buggy and having to sit downstairs. Definitely a higher probability of having to mix with oddballs if you can't get upstairs!
And then you get annoyed by all the people who would be perfectly capable of going upstairs who clog up the downstairs.
Posted 9 years ago # -
What would be useful is some integration between the MyBusEdinburgh timetabling/routing app and the ticketing app, so that you can jump straight to unleashing an electric ticket if you've been keeping an eye on the expected arrival time at stops with a broken/no electronic display.
Tesco have been trialling an app thing which (when it connects and doesn't suddenly demand an update (and when I am compelled to shop there seeing as we're supposed to be avoiding them because they tried to run over recombodna)) combines payment method and Clubcard as a means of identifying you to the till and authorising the payment required. When opened, you enter a PIN and the app displays a QR code (which lapses after a few minutes but can be regenerated), which is then scanned. Once the till knows who you are you're then charged via the method set up within the app and receive a confirmation of the charge via the app. Something like that would then know what to charge you for bus tickets based on what the driver/conductor racks up on the till, so multiple people could be covered. Perhaps simpler for the current bus-ticket-app would be a means of cueing up a short stack of expected tickets (adult, adult, child etc.) which would be temporarily created in draft but only finally activated (one by one) when given an appropriate signal, which would have to be manual in the absence of the ability of the bus to communicate to the server end of the app that it had received the ticket.
Posted 9 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
