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The 907 & 952 were both previously every 15 minutes. They've always had same/similar frequencies (daytime), even when they were the 107 & 52 respectively

Pretty sure the 107 at one point was every 10 mins, don't ever recall the 52 being that good

Just wondering what peoples thoughts on this are, the idea of fitting the timetables of different bus routes so they provide a joint frequency on common sections of the route.

Personally, it annoys me. As NX seem to have a tendency to do it with routes that are completely different. For example, the 33/51... Yes as far as Perry Barr they are the same, bit beyond they are completely different, and I'd say the 51 carries more people and as such deserves to be more frequent, especially of an evening and Sunday. Yes you can say the 51 has the 952 and X51 to help, but the 33 has even more routes to help it out. Also, the 907/952, similar problem I'd say the 907 needs to be more frequent than the 952.

Yes, sometimes they do get it right, such as the 61/63 Bristol Road at the moment.

First used to do similar books so you might find it's not really a Diamond thing, might be to do with the council

On the topic of redditch I never know where to take good bus pictures there-only place I managed was where I got a picture of K126URP which means you can only get some of the buses. Just if anyone has any ideas then please post them as its not like the bus station is great like any centro ones so you cant really take good pictures there either

If you want town center ones, I'd suggest the top of Unicorn Hill, come out the station turn left and just go up the hill past the Wetherspoons, seems a fairly decent setting on the corner at the top and a fair number of routes go up that way from the bus station

Its bad enough with 1 door, 2 doors...More people 'sneaking' on (Frauds) more chance for people to let themselves on & off, less control for the driver & extra work for the driver but how do the bendi's do in relation to all the posts on this topic?

As I said, pretty sure that coversation has been had before on here and the response was "actually it's not that much of a problem"

Just read the story and realised why I normally wouldn't bother, I just end up getting annoyed with people. I know the press have a habit of exaggeration but even then I find parts of this story ludicrous. And this woman is trusted with kids.....

So why is the 37 & 55 branding coming off and the 33/51 is not

Sorry but I have to say this.....
easier to steal from single deckers? lower down and all that?

JOKING

I think in a way London Buses have to have two doors (3 in some cases), Londoners seem to be a whole different breed of commuter.

They expect buses to come along when they want it (and moan if they just miss one even if the next one is in view), and believe me, if London Buses only had one door, there would be a running battle for people trying to get on against people trying to get off. Londoners only have time for one person and that is themselves.

You say that, but at least there is some order on escalators to the tube in London. Stand still on the right, walk on the left. I wish that rule applied up here and elsewhere in this country

I wish a lot of things in London applied everywhere else, constantly in awe of the place, whenever I need to go there I'll deliberately take extra time than I need just so I can watch it all

I can't see what point you are trying to make, but you certainly didn't understand my point. My point was double doors do not speed up unloading and loading that much because once people getting on get to the bottom of the stairs it grounds to a halt anyway.

London tried to cure this by moving the middle doors further back. In current vehicles they are one bay further back than on Fleetlines, Metrobuses and Titans. This has now been negated by moving the stairs forward on the latest buses

Perhaps my post previous to this wasn't worded brilliantly and was more or less responding to my own post so I can see why you didn't see my point, so I'll try again... My opinion is that (from experience of them) London buses don't have as much of a problem of having to get rid of so many people from a single bus, because there aren't as many people on the bus, which in turn is because there are a lot more buses, whereas here the buses aren't as frequent as they need to be.

In response to your post I did understand your point, but to me it's not a valid arguement, because even with having to wait for people to come down the stairs first, there's still a fair number of people that can get on the bus first, and those that are getting off can get off quicker because there's less of a crowd in the way at the only door, every little bit of time saved helps, especially when repeated a number of times along the route.

I'll certainly give you the point people can alight faster, that is nothing to do with bus design, but the ignorance of many people waiting to board trying to get on or just stand in the way of people alighting, If people queued properly and stood back until everyone was off it wouldn't matter where the door was

Therefore it would make things quicker...? I wasn't just going on the single stage of people transferring between bus and pavement (christ if I had my way some of them would be head first from the upstairs window), but the whole process including the massed hoardes waiting to scramble past the driver so he gets as short a glimpse of their out of date daysaver as possible, and the useless idiots who forget where they wanted to get off and have to barge their way through the people blocking the entrance because everyone else has already got off.

I can't see what point you are trying to make, but you certainly didn't understand my point. My point was double doors do not speed up unloading and loading that much because once people getting on get to the bottom of the stairs it grounds to a halt anyway.

London tried to cure this by moving the middle doors further back. In current vehicles they are one bay further back than on Fleetlines, Metrobuses and Titans. This has now been negated by moving the stairs forward on the latest buses

Perhaps my post previous to this wasn't worded brilliantly and was more or less responding to my own post so I can see why you didn't see my point, so I'll try again... My opinion is that (from experience of them) London buses don't have as much of a problem of having to get rid of so many people from a single bus, because there aren't as many people on the bus, which in turn is because there are a lot more buses, whereas here the buses aren't as frequent as they need to be.

In response to your post I did understand your point, but to me it's not a valid arguement, because even with having to wait for people to come down the stairs first, there's still a fair number of people that can get on the bus first, and those that are getting off can get off quicker because there's less of a crowd in the way at the only door, every little bit of time saved helps, especially when repeated a number of times along the route.

Lets be honest, it's going to be just like the "Birmingham needs / doesn't need nightbuses". People have different opinions with different evidence to base their opinions on, other people try to say "no it's a stupid idea shut up". I'll just accept in some peoples' eyes I'm wrong, it's probably easier

A full bus comes, takes forever to unload people with lots of shopping / pushchairs etc, then takes forever to load with pretty much the same amount of people, some of them using their smartcards that take longer to register sometimes than it takes to put money in the machine, then waddle slowly down the bus picking up a metro on the way. Total up to a few minutes at the bus stop, multiply this by usually a good 5 times on the busier routes...

Or.... put a door in the middle so people can get off while others get on at the front.....
Yes, ok, people could get on without paying.... I seem to remember a conversation on here a while ago about "how many people get on the 67 bendi's without paying" and IIRC the answer was actually "not that many"

That was my point above it doesn't help, last people off are usually from Upstairs, no one can get past or up the stairs until they are off

Was going to suggest a response of "that isn't a problem in London" but then forgot the obvious, London buses aren't as crowded as here, because there's less people on them, because there's a reasonable amount of buses on the road.... silly me, how could I forget. Sorry guys, we're stuck with buses that take ana age to unload and load because the buses aren't frequent enough

The transferable aspect worries me slightly, yes OK people can borrow your card, but how about theft and loss, unless you notice its gone immediately someone could easily build up a huge bill

If it's anything like every other smartcard I've ever heard of, then there is no bill. The card has money on it and when you use it some money is taken off until it runs out, then you top it up. So if someone tries to use it when there's no money on it, or not enough, then the card is rejected.

A full bus comes, takes forever to unload people with lots of shopping / pushchairs etc, then takes forever to load with pretty much the same amount of people, some of them using their smartcards that take longer to register sometimes than it takes to put money in the machine, then waddle slowly down the bus picking up a metro on the way. Total up to a few minutes at the bus stop, multiply this by usually a good 5 times on the busier routes...

Or.... put a door in the middle so people can get off while others get on at the front.....
Yes, ok, people could get on without paying.... I seem to remember a conversation on here a while ago about "how many people get on the 67 bendi's without paying" and IIRC the answer was actually "not that many"

The problem is, there won't (at least initially, I understand there will be eventually) be a daily price cap, so the whole "doens't matter what I get it will only charge me for an nBus ticket" isn't valid. To me that's the sort of thing that needs to be ready in time for the launch of any sort of smart card system, otherwise people are going to get confused and end up paying more than they wanted to