INFORMATION, INFORMATION, INFORMATION
11 December 2022
ABOVE: Abellio London 2574 (YX17 NVW), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, heads east through Southall, West London, in the mid-morning fog of Sunday 11th December 2022
“We want information... Information... Information...” (THE PRISONER, THE INCORPORATED TELEVISION COMPANY, 1967)
The fantasy TV series The Prisoner was made long before the Information Age came into being (in fact it was broadcast in the year I was born)! In that series, the “information” being sought by the chief antagonist, Number Two, was verbal – wanting to understand why The Prisoner himself, Number Six, had resigned from a seemingly very secret, top job. A very weird series and I’m not sure I understood exactly what was happening, but there we are!
Nowadays, we are in a world where information is available at the touch of a button, or the click of a mouse. But bus information is often lacking, and those who should be world-leading are way down the pack in terms of quality of information provided.
I make no apologies for picking on Transport for London (TfL) again. As the organisation behind an operation of about 7,500 buses, you would think that its website presentation would be world-class. It’s not even ‘best in class’, sadly.
The fantasy TV series The Prisoner was made long before the Information Age came into being (in fact it was broadcast in the year I was born)! In that series, the “information” being sought by the chief antagonist, Number Two, was verbal – wanting to understand why The Prisoner himself, Number Six, had resigned from a seemingly very secret, top job. A very weird series and I’m not sure I understood exactly what was happening, but there we are!
Nowadays, we are in a world where information is available at the touch of a button, or the click of a mouse. But bus information is often lacking, and those who should be world-leading are way down the pack in terms of quality of information provided.
I make no apologies for picking on Transport for London (TfL) again. As the organisation behind an operation of about 7,500 buses, you would think that its website presentation would be world-class. It’s not even ‘best in class’, sadly.
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I was planning to write an article a couple of weeks ago about the outcomes of TfL’s consultation into the proposed Central London Bus Review (much of what was proposed has now been dropped), but Roger French got there first, and said all that I was going to say, but far more eloquently. (I think my article might have been called something like: “What was the point of that, then”?)
TfL’s website clearly favours rail-based transport over buses. Yes, many people want to know how the tubes are running, so it makes sense to keep that prominent. But trying to find almost anything else – especially about buses – is extremely challenging, and sometimes you’re only going to find something if you know you’re looking for it! As I started writing this article on Wednesday 30th November, two London bus companies were due to go on strike for three days from the next day. There was no information at that point on the Home Page of the website’s mobile version. Only by entering the word “strikes” into the search facility could I actually get to the relevant page. And even then, I still had to look into the detail to see what was happening. |
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ABOVE: Metroline's VWH 2705 (BL64 MHX), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, crosses the Southall Town Hall junction on a lunchtime working of route 120 (Northolt to Hounslow), on Sunday 11th December 2022
The two affected operators were Abellio London and Metroline. For those of you who don’t know, Abellio runs services in West, South West and South London, whilst Metroline runs mainly in North, North-West and West London (I had a day out with Metroline at the start of the year). People like me, in West London, would get the effects of both strikes, as would people in the centre of town. (Those in central London might feel it less, but the absence of routes such as the 24 – Pimlico to Hampstead Heath – on strike days is being noticed.) There were some days where both companies were due to be striking, and other days when it was only one of the two. Metroline drivers subsequently called off the first three strikes late in the day on Wednesday 30th November, and then cancelled the remainder a week later; the Abellio ones are continuing. |
A view of Abellio's Southall Bus Depot, taken from an Elizabeth Line train, just before dusk (3.15pm!) on Friday 9th December 2022). Being a strike day, there are many more buses parked up than one would normally see.
Looking at the information provided by TfL regarding the strikes, let’s start with the basics.
The information about the Metroline strikes was only published around Monday 28th November, when the first strike, on Thursday 1st December, must by law have been notified to the operator no later than 17th November. Why the delay? Because TfL doesn't like admitting that its services are going to be disrupted... I’ve written about this before as well...
When I looked at the website on Wednesday 30th November, the strike dates for the two operators were transposed; the dates when Abellio was likely to be affected were listed as Metroline dates and vice versa. That of course gave the impression that services would be affected when they weren’t, and, more importantly, the other way around. The former just means that people desert the buses when they don’t have to; the latter can cause real difficulty, if a bus that is expected to be running is not.
I dropped a message about this error to TfL last Sunday evening (4th December), via its website "Contact" form (mind you, I had to provide “details of my journey” to do so!) and, to be fair, by the evening of Monday 5th, the error had been corrected.
BEFORE AND AFTER: Website information from Wednesday 30th November 2022 (left) and Monday 5th December 2022 (right)
But why did it take me, as a member of the public, to notice this? Did no-one within the organisation spot the error beforehand, or quality check the information, before or after publication?
This correction didn’t even filter right through the organisation, though. On Thursday (8th), I received the Weekly Travel Update email from TfL, which listed the correct dates for this week’s Abellio strikes (9th / 10th), but the wrong dates for next week’s (15th / 16th instead of 16th / 17th).
This correction didn’t even filter right through the organisation, though. On Thursday (8th), I received the Weekly Travel Update email from TfL, which listed the correct dates for this week’s Abellio strikes (9th / 10th), but the wrong dates for next week’s (15th / 16th instead of 16th / 17th).
LEFT: Corrected TfL website information, and RIGHT: the Weekly Travel Update email of Thursday 8th December 2022
London has an integrated bus network. Many people do not realise that a range of private bus companies actually run the services. And why should they – generally they don’t need to.
The problem comes when some of those operators suddenly cannot run the services they are contracted to run. TfL just provides vague statements that buses in, for example, “West London”, could be affected.
Lists of affected routes rarely appear until a few days beforehand. Even when they do, they are not well presented. The current Abellio list shows affected “Day routes” first, but listed separately underneath are “24-hour routes”. The presentation is such that I fear people could miss the latter section (I did at first), which includes some of the most important routes affected. Why not just list these routes twice, under “Day routes” and “Night routes”?
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Bus strikes do not hit the news headlines in the way that train and tube strikes do. The first Abellio strike on 22nd November drew some publicity on BBC London News, but the second one (25th / 26th November), as far as I saw, did not, and there’s been no coverage of the subsequent stoppages (and no coverage of the fact that a new series of strike dates has just been added). It’s just not newsworthy in the grand scheme of things. So people get caught out. I have recounted previously how I had arrived in Sheffield on one of my researching days (OK, holidays), to discover a strike underway that I had not previously heard about. But efforts to publicise away from the internet are not very encouraging either. I travelled on an Abellio bus on the day before the first strike. You would think that a message could have been put onto the display screen, or even an audible message via the technology, to the effect that “this route may be affected by strike action tomorrow”. |
Such messaging can be arranged – I remember hearing Boris reminding me that the Olympics were going to disrupt buses back in 2012.
But all we have are A4 posters at bus stops, stating that “disruption is expected to some bus routes from this stop” on “…various dates during November and December 2022”. These posters replaced earlier ones that mentioned the specific dates of the Abellio strikes, before the Metroline ones were announced. Some stops have both posters on display!
Included is a QR code, which one might assume would take one to the strike page on the website? It does say "scan to plan your journey"? But no, it takes you to a “Maps”, “Nearby” page.
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On a trip to Uxbridge this morning (Sunday 11th December), I did find a large poster, stuck on the shelter at Uxbridge Bus Station. This is a bit more like it, to be honest (although the dates are wrong!), but sadly seems to be a one-off. Surely posters like this in bus shelters, where available, are more likely to be seen by regular customers than A4 posters in timetable cases? Evidence suggests that people don't always notice the latter, as one can tell by the number of people one finds waiting at a 'closed' bus stop, where all timetables have been removed and replaced with a "Bus Stop closed" sign. |
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Many other operators have a fairly standard page for disrupted services, such as the one below, from Go East Yorkshire. Click on the route you’re interested in to see what’s disrupting it. Easily see whether other routes are also disrupted – in fact, get the full picture in moments.
There is no such facility on the TfL website. You first have to find the Buses section, and then put in the relevant route number. You’re offered a choice of directions, and a route diagram comes up, listing every stop. You can choose a stop and gradually drill down into timetable information and journey time detail for that stop.
What you can’t get is a proper timetable for the route as a whole. Information like that can be obtained from the excellent London Bus Routes website, but that’s an independent website, of course, so there’s no link.
In terms of disruption, once you have your route diagram, you need to look for a “Status Alert”. If there isn’t one (and wait a moment as it might pop up a little after the page has loaded), it means there is nothing wrong (that TfL knows about, anyway – see below).
Don’t be fooled by the words “Clear Route” – it’s not advising that there aren’t any problems – it’s just telling you to click there to ‘remove’ the service you are looking at in favour of another one.
When a Status Alert comes up, you may need to click a couple of times to get to the detail.
If you want to check several routes, you need to do them one at a time.
On the day of Her Late Majesty’s funeral, I wanted to know which local buses were affected by the cortege’s procession through West London to Windsor. A summary of expected disruption would have been helpful, but, no, I had to check each likely route in turn to see what was going on.
And the information isn’t that comprehensive. I get the distinct impression that there is only a very limited web presence outside working hours. On the day that the Elizabeth Line was linked up, Sunday 6th November, there was a vey big event in Southall, which brought an awful lot of people onto the streets for a party. The main north-south road through the town was closed, affecting seven bus routes. There was nothing recorded on the TfL website about any of them being affected. Surely TfL was aware of the event?
Party time in South Road, Southall, on Sunday 6th November 2022: The road is closed to enable this religious festival, affecting seven bus routes, but there was no information about any diversions on the TfL website that day.
Lots that TfL needs to do to improve in my opinion!
I have mainly considered disruption information in this rant… sorry, blog. But bus information in general seems to be low on the TfL priority list; a topic that I will maybe return to another day.
Route U7 between Uxbridge and Hayes is another one that is affected by Abellio London strikes. On a non-strike day, Sunday 11th December 2022, 8767 (YX12 DLZ), an ADL Enviro200, is heading down Vine Street on its way to Uxbridge Station.