Ah, thats a shame those were quite nice. The single deck hybrids they use on the 1 are a bit clunky when they switch from battery to ICE.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Bus latest
(725 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
-
Presumably those hybrids were fairly early and the equipment (maybe the battery?) has possibly become life-expired. Presumably easiest to convert to diesel (then sell on?) rather than retrofit with some newer system. Hopefully this isn't the start of a big backpedal. Hybrid equipment on the new Routemasters had problems as well didn't it?
Fully electric buses still seem to be running fine through Marchmont :)
Posted 6 years ago # -
Whatever their engine type, travelling by bus is still much more environmentally friendly than jumping in a private car.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@jonty, battery life was my initial thought too.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Such a shame that Wellington removed their trolley buses in 2017, as they were perfect for going up the steep hills there. And no battery (or only a small one).
Posted 6 years ago # -
Porty diversion single decker constraint woes (and insight into how LB & CEC work) -
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is a scary looking bus -
https://twitter.com/adlbus/status/1046737854053920768
Coming past you soon.
Posted 6 years ago # -
New 'monster' six wheel bus fleet for Lothian. Unclear which routes yet: maybe 26? Note the middle door for alighting!
Posted 6 years ago # -
For once I agree with Nick Cook: "Huge missed opportunity from Lothian Buses - with these new buses offering only one space for wheelchair OR buggy."
Quite often the wheelchair / buggy space is full, and the bus has to wait while a buggy is folded up.Posted 6 years ago # -
I've also seen wheelchair users point out that, er, quite often they are friends with other wheelchair users and it would be nice to be able to get on the SAME bus when going somewhere together.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The middle door will definitely help speed up services. Now they just need to sort out the payment system, so boarding is fast too.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Announcing Phase 3 of our West Lothian expansion
Lothiancountry have today, 19th October, announced a further expansion of their network in West Lothian from the start of December.
https://lothiancountry.co.uk/announcing-phase-3-of-our-west-lothian-expansion/
Posted 6 years ago # -
@neddie: Now they just need to sort out the payment system, so boarding is fast too.
My understanding is that contactless payment is due to roll out across Lothian buses from January 2019. I'm told it's dependent on completion of the replacement of the old ticket machines with the new Wayfarer 6 model, which has already been done for buses running from the Longstone and Central depots, and is in progress this month for Marine depot. I noticed last week that the buses on the number 4 route now have them.
What I would be interested to know is whether they will just use contactless to sell paper tickets, or operate a similar system to TfL whereby it just tots up your journeys and caps your spend at the relevant travelcard rate. So in Lothian's case, the third time you tap in you'd be switched automatically to a day ticket, and pay nothing more for the rest of the day.
Even if they don't do that, at very least they should not have the ludicrous minimum spend for contactless like they do on the ticket machines at the tram stops, which means that you can't buy one bog standard adult single with a card :(
Posted 6 years ago # -
There's a question about bus/tram ticketing on the city centre transformation consultation questionnaire which sounds like they'd like a single-ticket system. No mention of Oyster-style most-effective-multi-journey-option, though.
The most irritating feature about the m-Ticket thing is that I can't buy singles for children with it, particularly now that the smallest one is chargeable. I can electrically buy an all-day family travelcard, but that's only the cheapest option if all four of us do more than two journeys and requires that the ticket-buying adult's phone is on all those journeys.
Posted 6 years ago # -
If they're worried about the cost of handling contactless payments, they were last time I complained about the tram ticket machines, it would probably be cheaper in the long run to batch up the payments and only submit a single auth request for the highest amount rather than sending 3 or 4 £1.70 off-line requests.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@wingpig, "The most irritating feature about the m-Ticket thing is that I can't buy singles for children with it, particularly now that the smallest one is chargeable. "
You can still buy big books of Child City Single tickets from the Lothian Buses shop on Waverley Bridge. That's what we do, it saves ferreting for change every time one of our kids wants to get on a bus. Rather than use a smartphone, we have a LB CitySmart card which you can top up with adult bus tickets, just like an Oyster card. When using the kids' tickets or the card, the driver prints off a paper ticket.
When contactless payment arrives, that ought to simplify things considerably.
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is Lothian tho
They’ll make it impossible to use in some way or other, like for day tickets only
Posted 6 years ago # -
"You can still buy big books of Child City Single tickets from the Lothian Buses shop on Waverley Bridge."
@Crowriver You don't even need to go there to do that. You can buy them online and get them posted to you free here.
You can even buy the Citysmart cards online and get free postage too.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The point of stating that the m-Ticket app doesn't let me buy child tickets for children I am herding is to highlight the current inconvenience of the only electronic ticket solution available to occasional bus users, which is why I have used it only extremely rarely. I usually just use cash, which can also be used for other things.
Posted 6 years ago # -
If the buses ever require a smartphone I will be a riot.
I asked about exclusion from the BurgerBikes and they excluded the possibility of answering me.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@IWRATS, not only does the hire bike service require a smartphone, it also requires a mobile contract, unless you're happy to pay extortionate mobile data rates on PAYG (I'm not). Similarly with LB's app, though at least on the more modern buses there is free wi-fi.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@condor2378, that's handy to know. I usually just pop in to the travel shop, but this postal service will be useful as No.1 son takes the bus to school a couple of days per week (when he has his cello with him).
Posted 6 years ago # -
@crowriver: The m-ticket app doesn't need a data connection at the point you activate a ticket, see: https://www.lothianbuses.com/mobile-ticketing-faqs/ under Do I need an Internet connection to use m-tickets?
(I don't use the m-ticket app: it refuses to run on my rooted phone.)
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ejstubbs, I was thinking of the TfE app, that has the live bus times, etc.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Err, OK. Through I'm not sure how that app can provide live information other than by some form of live internet connection.
There is free wifi in the city centre: http://www.edinburghfreewifi.com. And SIM only contracts can be had for as little as £5 a month these days: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-sim-only-contracts/
In pre-smartphone days there used to be numbers posted on each bus stop that you could text to get an SMS with the times of the next buses due at the stop. I don't know whether that service still operates.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Oh, and mobile data on Three PAYG is 1p per MB. If you only used it for the TfE app I reckon that would be 1p a day.
Posted 6 years ago # -
TfE should really follow more of what TfL does rather than just mimicking their name.
1) Under 16s travelling with an adult on London buses are free. It makes life so much simpler when boarding public transport.
2) Oyster credit doesn't expire. Once you have topped your card up the credit will remain on the card indefinitely. Meanwhile Edinburgh ripped of their customers. When they stopped issuing the paper vouchers they invented a painfully short expiry period after which they banked your money with no further refunds available.
3) The minimum charge when paying at a tram stop (and in app) is a farce. Given the range of micropayment solutions on the market I can't believe TfE isn't large enough to negotiate a deal which wouldn't require this.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@acsimpson. There have been several times when I've eschewed a single tram journey because I would have had to buy an unneeded return ticket.
Anyway I qualify for free bus travel so the skinflint in me forces me to take longer journeys to get the free ride.
Posted 6 years ago # -
paulmilne - if you qualify for free bus travel under the national concessionary fares scheme, and live in Edinburgh, then you can travel on the tram for free - including to the airport.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Morningsider, ah, there's the rub. I don't live in Edinburgh.
Posted 6 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
