TfL’s Central London Bus Review
Part One: Its Appalling Presentation
3 June 2022
(Additional pictures added 4 June)
(Additional pictures added 4 June)
ABOVE: To be no more... Go Ahead WHV 131 (BV66 VLK) on route 14 at Tottenham Court Road station, on Saturday 4th June 2022. Yes, I know this article was published on Friday 3rd, but I’ve since tidied it up!
Transport for London (TfL) has announced a major series of changes to Central London bus routes, including the withdrawal of 16 routes in their entirety. I will consider the proposals themselves in a subsequent article, but first I want to talk about how this consultation has been presented.
I’ll be honest. Some of us are simple folk. We just like to be told, nice and clearly, what is changing with our bus and what service we will need to use instead of the one we currently use to complete our journey.
Not much chance of that here. There are 56 separate documents on the consultation page. There’s no simple summary of the proposals – I had to make my own.
That’s once you find the consultation of course! There’s no link from the Home Page of the TfL website, apart from via the “Consultations” link. (I’ve put a link to the consultation here.)
ABOVE: TfL Home Page – where is the advice about this critical consultation?
But you have to know that you need to look for a consultation to find this vital information. If you don’t know that the consultation is running, then you’re not likely to find it.
Even going through that link, it took me a couple of goes to find the right page. It’s not a ‘featured project’ and you have to go through the ‘Project Hub’. Takes a few clicks, so we’ve lost a few people already…
So, having found the right page, where to start? The Survey button is far more prominent than the actual information about the changes. You get a quick paragraph and then have to click to “continue reading”. Do they just want people to skip to the survey and not look at the detail?
All the proposed changes have been arranged into ‘neighbourhoods’ of north, east, south and west London, “to provide a picture of how the bus network in that area would change”. All very well but these are central London changes, so why the distinction?
Probably to cover off the fact that the changes are described in 19 separate documents. Yes that’s right, 19 documents (15 for day routes and four for night services). And you need to study them all to really understand what’s happening.
Each document focuses on a small area and a select group of routes. Each one starts with a section headed “What we would like you to know”.
And what they would like us to know is that we might have to wait 12-minutes for a so-called ‘high frequency’ service, but at least the Hopper Fare means that we won’t pay any more. Oh and we’re told which interchange stops are lacking Countdown information or seats.
What we’re not told, in simple language, is exactly what changes are being made (but see the ‘Equality Impact Assessment’ section below).
Current routes are described in full; for example, in the Baker Street document, route 113’s current route is described as:
“Between Edgware bus station and Marble Arch Via, Mill Hill Circus, Hendon Central, Finchley Road, London Central Mosque and baker (sic) Street”.
And I can view it in full on the TfL website – a link is helpfully provided. But no-one has bothered to produce an equivalent diagram for the new-look route.
But the proposed changes are far less detailed. For example, the 113 “would be re-routed to operate between Edgware Bus Station and White City. It would no longer serve stops between Swiss Cottage and Marble Arch. This would replace a section of route 31 if it were to no longer run”.
And that’s it. So I assume this to mean that the 113 would run from Swiss Cottage via Kilburn, Westbourne Park, Notting Hill, Holland Park and Shepherds Bush to White City. But the document assumes that you know the route of the 31, and you have to work that detail out for yourself.
To be fair, there are then two route diagrams, showing the route as now and the revised route. Except that these are too small for me to read on my mobile phone, and become blurred if you try to expand the picture.
They also list every single stop rather than just the main points. Some route diagrams are split into two (eg, route 259), and all only show the affected sections, with no reference to the bits that are not changing.
All very confusing, and that for route 27 is a complete mess, as the details for old and new go in opposite directions!
The left-hand column shows the route of the 27 from Kensington Church Street to Camden Town – the bit that isn’t changing. The right-hand side shows the proposed route from Kensington Church Street to Clapham Junction – the new section that would replace the section between Kensington Church Street and Hammersmith.
There are no route maps showing the proposed changes next to the existing routes. Something like this, for example, for an old consultation:
ABOVE: This clearly shows before-and-after details for routes in the Wallington area, from an earlier consultation by TfL. All I need is something like this!
Instead, there are separate ‘before’ and ‘after’ maps. There are eight of these for the day routes – before and after representations for each of north, south, east and west, and the same for the night routes. You have to compare the two sets of maps, to gauge even the vaguest notion of what is going on.
It’s like a particularly challenging version of those “Spot the Difference” games, but without being told how many differences there are to spot, or being given a solution.
Before:
After:
There isn’t enough detail on the maps to pull out, for example, the change of routing of route 19 between Chelsea and Knightsbridge, or the fact that it replaces route 14 over that section. It doesn’t show the alternatives for those no longer covered by the 19.
Oh and the West London maps do not include any of the multiple changes affecting Victoria – see all three other pairs of maps for that. Nor do the West London maps show the changes to the 31 and 113 – those only appear on the North London version – even though White City, Shepherds Bush, Holland Park, Notting Hill, Westbourne Park and Kilburn could conceivably be considered to be west?
But have no fear – there’s an ‘easy read’ document. Hooray! A summary of all the changes in one place?
No such luck. The list of routes to be withdrawn is certainly there, and then there’s a second list of routes “that may change”. No details, just a list of route numbers – fifty of them, including the 349, which should be on the list of routes to be withdrawn, and the 2, which doesn’t feature at all (it’s a typo that should say 23).
And the 259 is included on the list of routes to be withdrawn, where it should be on the list of routes that may change. Doesn’t anyone proof-read these things?
ABOVE: For the chop - Arriva London North LT176 (LTZ 1176) on route 349 in Fore Street, Edmonton, on Saturday 4th June 2022
There’s limited information about frequency changes. The documentation confirms that there will be some, but doesn’t generally go into details. This is vital information if I am to make an informed assessment.
There is also the following statement in several of the consultation documents:
“Our proposals would also result in a lower frequency of service for a small number of routes. Here, some customers may also have to wait longer at stops.”
Apart from stating the obvious (lower frequencies can mean longer waits!), again this is vital information that is relevant to this consultation, and should be shared now. I just can’t accept that frequency plans for every route haven’t already been sketched out. I would put in a Freedom of Information request for this information, but I know this just creates work for poor long-suffering junior staff, and it would probably be refused anyway.
I wonder how many people it took to produce the 18 Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) that are included in the documentation? Curiously, the EIAs all start with a clear statement of what is planned for the routes under consideration.
“Our proposals would also result in a lower frequency of service for a small number of routes. Here, some customers may also have to wait longer at stops.”
Apart from stating the obvious (lower frequencies can mean longer waits!), again this is vital information that is relevant to this consultation, and should be shared now. I just can’t accept that frequency plans for every route haven’t already been sketched out. I would put in a Freedom of Information request for this information, but I know this just creates work for poor long-suffering junior staff, and it would probably be refused anyway.
I wonder how many people it took to produce the 18 Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) that are included in the documentation? Curiously, the EIAs all start with a clear statement of what is planned for the routes under consideration.
This is exactly what is missing from the main documents.
However, some of the information contradicts that of the main documentation. For example. the 507 (Waterloo to Victoria) is apparently proposed to be extended to Fulham Broadway via route 11, but the Horseferry Road EIA (above) says that the proposal is to “withdraw route 507”. You have to delve deep to fully understand that the proposal is just to withdraw the 507 from Horseferry Road. Poor wording.
You have to register to complete the survey online. This is another modern obsession – you can’t use my website unless you tell me who you are. I’ve not registered, so I have no idea what questions they might be asking; when I respond, I will probably send my thoughts via email or post.
Go North East, with whom I recently enjoyed extensive travels whilst in the north-east of England, is unfortunately proposing various service cuts of its own. It has managed to present this information as a single web page (extract below).
It’s succinct, presents each route in route number order and explains what is proposed. I only spent a week up there so cannot claim to understand the network the way I understand the London one, but I do understand what they are planning to do to the routes I used whilst there, and I only had to read it once to do so.
ABOVE: Extract from Go North East’s simple presentation of its proposed service changes.
I’ve just discovered the following wording, buried away in the introductory text:
“Linear maps, and area maps; geographic neighbourhood maps will be available from 6 June … From week commencing Monday 6 June you can access British Sign Language video, including audio”.
That gives me a huge impression, alongside other issues already described, that this consultation has been rushed out before it was ready. I wonder whether the new maps will be any better than the maps and diagrams we have so far? And why the rush? To influence funding negotiations?
This has all the appearance of a consultation that TfL doesn’t want people to study too carefully. Unfortunately, pig-headed people like me will delve into the detail all the more if it looks like it’s being hidden from plain sight.
The presentation is way too complicated and not at all giving thought to the people who will want to understand it – if they find it at all.
TfL consultations are a foregone conclusion anyway – it’s going to happen even if 98% of responses object. But it would still be nice to know what it is that is being proposed without needing a degree in analysis to figure it out.
In my next blog, I will consider the actual changes being proposed.