Double doors on buses

[598]

Who Thinks we should have two doors on our buses, but NONE of the other london features, such as the ramp in the middle door

Talking of London features, why on earth do all London buses have roller blinds??

[Stuharris 6360]

Wasn't the last batch of Midland Red D13 Fleetlines dual door too?

Certainly I seem to have heard it mentioned that the ones that passed to WMPTE had their centre doors removed.

Most of them had the middle door removed, although the odd one kept it for some reason.

[Stuharris 6360]

Who Thinks we should have two doors on our buses, but NONE of the other london features, such as the ramp in the middle door

Talking of London features, why on earth do all London buses have roller blinds??

TFL specifies that London Buses have roller blinds, although the dayglo yellow blinds are now being replaced by black and white ones, as the former are said to be to expensive.

[nitromatt1]

Green Bus have 6 dual door Volvo Olympians (4 single door Olympians) and 9 dual door Tridents

[Stuharris 6360]

Green Bus have 6 dual door Volvo Olympians (4 single door Olympians) and 9 dual door Tridents

Are the middle doors ever used Matt

[The Real 4778]

Wasn't the last batch of Midland Red D13 Fleetlines dual door too?

Certainly I seem to have heard it mentioned that the ones that passed to WMPTE had their centre doors removed.

Most of them had the middle door removed, although the odd one kept it for some reason.

D13s were double-door, it was a fairly common regional version of the Alexander body at the time, plenty of SMT and other fleets' buses had them.  WMPTE singled the majority - I recall it was garage specific, but I'd have to check which ones kept them.

[598]

Who Thinks we should have two doors on our buses, but NONE of the other london features, such as the ramp in the middle door

Talking of London features, why on earth do all London buses have roller blinds??

TFL specifies that London Buses have roller blinds, although the dayglo yellow blinds are now being replaced by black and white ones, as the former are said to be to expensive.

But why cz they just look rubbish in this day and age!

[Stuharris 6360]

Who Thinks we should have two doors on our buses, but NONE of the other london features, such as the ramp in the middle door

Talking of London features, why on earth do all London buses have roller blinds??

TFL specifies that London Buses have roller blinds, although the dayglo yellow blinds are now being replaced by black and white ones, as the former are said to be to expensive.

But why cz they just look rubbish in this day and age!

Very true!!

[The Real 4778]

TFL specifies that London Buses have roller blinds, although the dayglo yellow blinds are now being replaced by black and white ones, as the former are said to be to expensive.

But why cz they just look rubbish in this day and age!

It's all part of the more strict accessibility regulations in London.  Guide Dogs find dot-matrix displays difficult to read, so they have reverted to plain roller-blinds.

[Kevin]

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"

[Tony]

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

[Sh4318]

I can see the advantages - an extra door for passengers. But as stated before, the whole infrastructure of bus stations would have to change, & there would be a fleet of both single door and double door buses, no point trying to change the standard now

[Kevin]

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

[Dylan4579]

Green Bus have 6 dual door Volvo Olympians (4 single door Olympians) and 9 dual door Tridents

VIP have a dual door dart

[don]

Wasn't the last batch of Midland Red D13 Fleetlines dual door too?

Certainly I seem to have heard it mentioned that the ones that passed to WMPTE had their centre doors removed.

Most of them had the middle door removed, although the odd one kept it for some reason.

D13s were double-door, it was a fairly common regional version of the Alexander body at the time, plenty of SMT and other fleets' buses had them.  WMPTE singled the majority - I recall it was garage specific, but I'd have to check which ones kept them.

They were indeed - and you would have been hard pushed to find any driver using the 'centre' door on a D13 when they were so equipped - it was actually just behind the front wheel arch so was less use than, say on an SOE Fleetline.

The other problem with the NOV and SOE/TOB/TOC vehicles was that the notional reduction in boarding/dwell times by having a centre door was completely cancelled out by the delays caused by the speed of operation of interlocks to prevent the vehicle driving off with the centre door open (driving off with the centre door open was the apparent cause of initial accidents). Thus along with all the other downsides mentioned, there was little point in specifying two doors in the West Midlands (and it appears more or less everywhere except London and Lothian - who stuck with double doors).

As for TfLs white and black roller blinds - well I've just seen a brand new E400 from my office window with black and white blinds - I couldn't read them properly but can read all the dayglo yellow ones - they're meant to be visible to the partially sighted so it shouldn't be too long before TfL get pulled up over this apparently daft decision which seems to be coincide with the introduction of the New Bus for London - presumably the 'artists' involved in that design required the white on black blinds, along with the narrow upper deck windows etc etc to reflect the Routemaster design? Remember London introduced rooves on buses, driver's windscreens, driver's doors etc etc long after the rest of the country had adopted them as standard and essential - although sometimes quite trail blazing in their specs, London have also dragged their feet and sometimes been apparently illogical in some of their choices over the years!