Tuesday 31st May 2022 TfL are set to announce further major cuts to its central London bus network today with speculation mounting they'll include the withdrawal of some iconic routes including low numbered jewels 11, 12, 14, 16 and 24. Of course these may just be scurrilous rumours as the Mayor and TfL negotiate future... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd January 2022 One of the proposals London Mayor Sadiq Khan has put forward to help shore up TfL’s finances in ongoing funding negotiations with Government to replace the current arrangements ending on 4th February is the end of the Travelcard. If this goes ahead it will confirm without doubt the wheels have well... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th January 2022 Today's the last day to submit comments in response to TfL's consultation on the proposed withdrawal of routes 168 and 271. Regular readers will be aware I've been chronicling the relentless reductions in London's bus routes since August last year and uncharacteristically for TfL noted none of these have been subject... Continue Reading →
Sunday 3rd October 2021 I wrote about TfL's new route 497 on its first day of operation back on 25th January 2020. Here's a quick recap: the 497 links Harold Wood station with new housing in Kings Park (the former Harold Wood Hospital site) passing a Polyclinic and London South Bank University's Havering Campus as... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 1st September 2021 Apologies for the London and South East centric blogposts of late. That’ll change in the next few posts, but here’s just one more featuring a quick tour I did on Monday to check out three recent transport developments in the Capital. Aldwych goes two-way On Saturday 21st August Aldwych became a... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th April 2021 It's not often TfL's bus stop contractors manage to install new bus stops in time for the start of extensions to bus routes. (Readers will recall my recent ride along new route 456 featuring 'dolly stops' and temporary flags despite plenty of notice before the service started.) But in Wandsworth, they've... Continue Reading →
Monday 29th March 2021 TfL's newest bus route numbered 456 began a couple of weeks ago on Saturday 13th March. As I remarked in my 6th March blog, introducing a brand new route when TfL is running a huge deficit with no certainty about future funding as well as during a pandemic lockdown seemed like... Continue Reading →
Saturday 12th December 2020 If you're thinking nothing quite matches the lengthy delays between new trains being ordered and when they finally enter service, you're ignoring the world of bus network developments in London. Today sees the implementation of TfL’s bus review in the Richmond and Twickenham area. It follows a public consultation held way... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th August 2020 Readers may recall my ride on route 404 earlier this month highlighting TfL’s penchant for circuitous bus routes wandering around the back streets of London's suburbs making sure everyone lives within 400 metres of a bus stop. But up in Barnet, it's all change for circuitous route 384. From today it's... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th December 2019 It's quite a day for fans of new bus routes in London. Christmas has come early for those who love new route numbers added to an already comprehensive bus network - I can't remember the last time four new routes were added all on the same day. The Mayor has been... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st November 2019 Following last Friday's try out of TfL's latest Demand Responsive Transport trial in Ealing, I found myself back in the Borough with two bus industry colleague friends to give it another try yesterday afternoon. There was a Slide vehicle parked up waiting for custom as we came out of Ealing Broadway... Continue Reading →
Friday 15th November 2019 It's all change in the world of Bus Demand Responsive Transport (DRT). This week sees the final foray for Arriva Click's pioneering 'pilot' in Sittingbourne and Zeelo's scheme for pilots (and others) living in Crawley and working at Gatwick Airport. The former ends tomorrow having been launched with much fanfare back... Continue Reading →
Friday 11th October 2019 TfL's next round of reductions to bus routes servIng central London begins tomorrow. This one is much less extensive than in June, involving changes to just a handful of routes, most significant of which is the complete withdrawal of route 48 between London Bridge and Walthamstow Central station. Introduced as part of... Continue Reading →
Friday 20th September 2019 Well done UNO Bus, operator of TfL bus route 383 between Woodside Park and Barnet, for today's community led launch of the first decent route branding on a London bus route for a few decades. The 383 may be a backwater north London bus route which takes a circuitous route east... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th August 2019 TfL's first foray into the new fangled world of App based Dial-A-Ride (aka Demand Responsive Transport) in Sutton is now in its twelfth week and yesterday a rather impersonal email popped into my inbox announcing an exciting extension of the area served by the swish exec style wishy-washy liveried Mercedes Sprinter... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th June 2019 Today saw the much heralded cuts to a large number of central London bus routes including many changes to termini and amended routes. I previewed the changes in a post on 5th June foreseeing a major challenge as getting bus stop plates, timetables and spider maps updated. Having had a good... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th May 2019 TfL jumped on the digital DRT bandwagon today launching its own version of Arriva Click and Oxford Pick Me Up. This latest app-based Demand Responsive Transport has landed in upmarket car dominated Sutton and Carshalton using six minibuses out of a fleet of eight between 06:30 and 21:30, seven days a... Continue Reading →
Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station is renowned for its deliberate policy of directing unfamiliar passengers via strategically placed signs to take the longer circuitous route from Kings Cross National Rail station exit via the northern ticket hall and barriers to reach the deep level lines. Those in the know ignore the signs and within... Continue Reading →
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