As anyone looking to properly understand London’s transport needs and network knows, context, background and best-practice are important. As readers might imagine, behind the scenes here at LR Towers we thus spend a lot of time sharing links and reading around the subjects we cover here.
We also occasionally share links containing good information about transport topics that we know we just don’t have time to cover. We also all, as authors, occasionally write elsewhere on this or tangentially related subjects.
This week’s reading list is below. If you’ve got something you feel we should read or include in a future list, don’t forget to email us at [email protected].
- How Cities Stopped Panicking About Fare Evasion and Made Transit Faster – Streets Blog NYC [I will do an article about fare evasion and perception vs enforcement on TfL services one day… JB]
- Consultation on draft guidance on Network Rail’s strategic business plans – ORR
- The Day The World Didn’t End – Lapsed Historian [Written by John Bull]
- These Old Bridges Will Become Inverted High-Rise Communities, Complete With Gorgeous View – FastCoExist
- The London Picture Archive [Be warned, many hours in LR Towers have so far been lost to this – JB]
- Who Installs the Mosaics on New York’s Subways? – NY Times
- Overhead Line Electrification for Railways – Railway Archive [An excellent free introduction to the subject – JB]
- Once Upon a Train (Railway Myths and Legends) – The Beauty of Transport
Nothing to add by way of reading, just to say thanks to John Bull for the outstanding “The Day the World Didn’t End”. Fascinating and frightening all at once.
THC
The NY Times article is not linked properly.
Fixed – cheers!
Certain american bloggers are obsessed about certain transport policies and one of them is no ticket gates. Basically they see gates as slowing the transit rider. Certain ones wax lyrical about German systems and seem to hate most aspects of British Public transport. Find our gates aggressive and an affront to the dignity of the travelling public. They don’t believe that fair evasion is a big problem that can’t be solved with roving teams or passenger security. I suppose fare evasion is not seen as a big problem in a land where fare recovery rates are often below 50%.
@rational plan – 26 November 2016 at 12:14
Certain american bloggers . . .. Find our gates aggressive
Wonder what they think of those on the Paris Metro,, then. (Assuming the Paris Metro still has those truly aggressive full height gates.)
@rational plan
I found that blog post surprising – for example the idea that some people aren’t going to pay anyway, so why not let them travel free? Personally my feeling is that people who cannot or will not pay are likely to be undesirable passengers in other ways. Perhaps this comes from having grown up on Tyneside where the metro was originally gated but unmanned so people just jumped the gates. My impression was always that a large proportion of passengers didn’t pay and that ticket inspectors would avoid challenging the ‘hard’-looking ones.
Can someone explain the quote from London about RPIs not giving out tickets – do they mean that they give penalty fares rather than fines? Does this concept not exist in the US?
A small promotion for Tom Kearney’s blog. A post from the unknown bus driver about the perils of driver distraction and cab communication systems.
http://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/guest-blog-no-13-by-bus-driver-x-why-is.html
I opened ‘safer Oxfordstreet by bus driver’ above, & what a fuss about nothing. Millions of people are used to talking to each other in their cars,including mothers with erratic children. We cope wonderfully without veering off the road the moment the conversation starts. Truck drivers choose to have radios on, music, conversation,even talking to one another,remember ‘rubber duck’. A normal able bus driver ,tram,train driver is easily able to cope with messages & driving. The only person,who it was said could not,was president Ford. We were told by his detractors that he could not talk & walk at the same time. If we select driving staff who are not damaged, sensible radio communication into the cab at any time whilst driving is easily safely handled by our amazing multitasking brains. I was even thinking of where we are going for lunch whilst writing this.
Jim Elson
I think they have a point. Having a radio button where it is is downright stupid. If you want the driver not to answer a radio on the move then put the radio where it can’t be reached at all. If you want them to answer on the move then put the button on the steering wheel. Don’t expect drivers to read an imessage on the move just like texting should be considered dangerous driving. Give the drivers a sat nav that gives route instructions only when the controller wants them to divert (or if they have gone off route).
A good system is a fusion of People, Process and Equipment. I saw in the bus driver’s blog, a Process that has been designed to deliver a particular objective (don’t respond to radio on the move), and Equipment that had been designed to deliver on this objective (and check compliance!). What seems to be missing here is the People element. I wonder if bus controllers or drivers have ever had to experienced each other’s worlds?
It is generally the case that good employers ban using even hands free mobiles whilst driving, and I can see this good practice on the buses, but this good practice appears to be subverted by the impatience (or workload) of the controllers, challenges of pilling into the side of the road to take the call and possibly limitations of the system.
Purley Dweller’s proposal is a jolly good idea in my view.
Jim elson: Recent research has shown fairly clearly that any conversation with any driver while driving is dangerous. It is not a question of whether a driver “can cope” with more than one thing at a time, it is whether the public should be endangered by making them do this.
Yes, the danger is close to minimal when the conversation is taking place at the driver’s choice, particularly when the other person is in the vehicle. It is also minimal when it happens on a main road where the driving is fairly incident-free. It is sometimes also inevitable (as with a child misbehaving in a car, when their behaviour, if ignored by the driver, would be more dangerous if ignored than if dealt with).
But on buses, there must be a firm rule. Either conversation on the move with a bus driver is to be taken as sometimes acceptable, and the rules banning it should be rescinded (and the button resited). Or it should be (as, officially, it currently is) completely banned. In which case, the phrase “Driver are you receiving?” is quite wrong. It should be something like “Driver, please prepare for a conversation”.
@PurleyDweller, 130
I thought the saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.co.uk Guest Driver blog was excellent insight – The controller demands instant response from the driver, yet the design is such that it cannot be accommodated safely because of poor design. Given the pressure from the controller (effectively management), accidents result. So instead of designing a safer communications layout in the bus, monitoring cameras are installed, effectively protecting the bus company, but not helping the driver. The mind boggles. I say this as an engineer and as a one-time bus driver. In Toronto we were instructed to respond to voice calls only when safe – sometimes when driving if the driver so determined, but generally at a stop with blinkers on. Control accepted this. Being 12 years ago, amid changes in general driving laws, I don’t think bus drivers talking to Control on the phone whilst driving is acceptable (but is probably still being done). It also seems that private bus companies may be more concerned with good schedule statistics, hence urgent communication requests, than safe driving.
TfL really needs to look at this communication design and bus company operating procedures to prevent more unnecessary deaths and injuries, in my opinion.
On the subject of reading, I note that the Paolozzi ‘sculpture’ outside Euston station seems to have got lost in the shuffles of closing down BR. One for Lord Dawlish? 😛
( https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/28/paolozzi-sculpture-london-euston-facing-decay-because-no-one-wants-to-own-it )
@Alison W -it shouldn’t have got lost but simply be transferred to Railtrack* as part of the fixtures and fittings of Euston station (as with, say, war memorials). The Board’s own art collection (including Frith’s “Going North”, was still there in 24 Eversholt Street and BR Property Board HQ, when I left and would have passed to BRBR and later to the NRM,I imagine).
*What RT , in their role as Vogon destroyers, did with it is another matter…
One issue with fare evasion here in San Francisco is that it is very easy to get on our suburban metro (BART) without going through a gate and then having a two hour sleep in the warm and dry train to the end of the line and back, and if one wake’s up early one can flip the seats looking for coins or ask the other passengers for money. And as San Francisco has a large homeless population who are accepted by the city and the transit authorities this is a major, though ignored, issue.
Most passengers aren’t too worried about fare evasion due to the financial or “fair play” aspects, they just don’t like standing on a peak time train whilst seats are taken up by people using the trains as homeless shelters.
I’m shocked by the bus blog. Concerning how a driver has to manhandle a vehicle of unusually large proportions (width and height), deal with lost tourists, infirm passengers, through a stressful city keeping an eye out for jaywalkers, cyclists, drivers, people banging on doors, variable weather (affecting comfort, safety, vision), delays, detours, often unpleasant passengers, full buses (often to the front foot well), fare evaders, not a huge amount of pay whilst trying to drive smoothly and only now we find out that they have an in cab radio system that is utterly useless yet they’re getting (unintentional?) agro from the controller?
Rail and tube technology keeps getting better and the #13 fleet isn’t that old. Why can’t our bus drivers have head up displays for example? The technology is there, it appears they have to deal with large amounts of info and would require less interaction, less stress for the driver (more data available on screen) and could be personalised per route and synced with GPS.
Would probably also save the controller many issues, making their life easier, too.
From what little I know, buses are the Cinderella of the transport network.
They got the NBfL and Euro V to VI engines for some of them. Ok, electric / hybrid buses too. But nothing for the driver except a CCTV camera to ensure he doesn’t use the radio illegally nor stick gum under his seat.
Obviously HUDs cost but given that bus accidents are in the rise, that buses take the majority of the load in London, isn’t it about time we looked into better systems?
How much does each accident cost in terms of physical damage to vehicles, humans, property, delays to traffic and to passengers on board, emergency service call outs, credibility/trust/fear/respect of the mode and of the drivers by others? But above all, driver stress and receiving calls.
Could also give sequencing info regarding next set or two if traffic lights given plans to upgrade traffic signaling?
Distance/time to next two buses on same route number in front and behind?
Radio is a bit antiquated and not fit for purpose. Could even project a camera from blind spots onto it, though controversial if it were to fail. I know people aren’t keen on blind spot cameras for trucks, but for bus drivers who roam the city 24/7? Use infrared cameras at night?
I quickly googled ibus, didn’t seem much cop, though perhaps I’m wrong.
Something for TfL and our nation of bus builders to think about?
The comment about former President was a tad inaccurate if more politely expressed.
Some bus controllers do have driving experience but many of the current generation are direct recruits. whose selling skill is sometimes that they’ve worked in another control function, which ain’t buses.
The diversion info given out by Centrecomm is not only incomprehensible in many instances, it also comes out like greased lightning and where more than two roads to be used are unfamiliar to the driver, getting lost or de-roofed are some of the resulting outcomes. The point about sat-nav, given TfL’s buses are already linked to GPS, is excellent but you can see it now – ‘it’s a good idea but it costs too much’.
All other form of conversation while driving, other than a bus (or coach) is based on the driver knowing the other person is beside them already and the topics are likely to be limited. The sudden proximity of someone in central London who doesn’t speak English well and can’t follow the iBus displays / announcements, can be a major distraction. These events start suddenly and rarely if at all take account of traffic conditions. The very clear interior sign ‘Do not distract the driver … while the bus is in motion’ is either ignored or not understood.
I’ve never been a bus driver with real passengers (my childhood dream evaporated a long time ago) but I’m a daily bus passenger and as a former driver (I no longer feel safe on the roads), I see risks developing on every journey.
London traffic is a plethora of accidents which miraculously don’t happen. More should be done to reduce risk to buses (and the people on board) than protect cyclists and others whose behaviour is never questioned in a bus incident.
Is it possible that the need to use your right foot for the ” press to talk ” function is deliberately made that way so that drivers can’t be distracted by using it whilst in motion? In which case controllers need to be told that his is how it’s supposed to work.
I’m getting a very bad sensation reading these accounts of the current bus communication system. I just hope that someone really responsible in TfL’s higher management takes notice, before there is a serious multiple fatality & some poor sucker of a driver gets blamed for a gross system-design failure
Timbeau @19:19 30 November 2016: If the idea was that push-to-talk isn’t usable whilst in motion, why does the loudspeaker stay on? Surely there should be a corresponding left foot switch for push-to-hear? Then all control could do would be switch on a single “attention” light to notify the driver that control want the driver to call them? Obviously, this would make life a lot harder for control – but they are not driving at the time.
Interestingly the (pseudo-duplex) systems used for backstage communication in theatres nearly all have a “call” light for reclaiming users who have removed their headset to do, or concentrate on, something else.
Richard Ash: One would need to have been a driver or a controller (preferably both) to be sure about this, but I can imagine a need for an always-operating loudspeaker in the cab to pass on urgent messages (e.g. “you must stop right now”, or “do not proceed beyond the next bus stop”, or similar). But for all other situations, where the message is more complicated, such as a rerouting, and/or less urgent (a rerouting several miles ahead), a message requesting the driver to open a 2-way conversation as soon as possible is required. This is probably be best done by using a suitable phrase on the loudspeaker.
@Malcolm
An always-on loudspeaker is fine, as long as control understand that drivers may have more urgent things to attend to than replying. A simple “message acknowledged” or “please repeat” button might be a useful addition though.
> I will do an article about fare evasion and perception vs enforcement on TfL services one day
You should. One of the links from your site Not sure it was the StreetsBlog on here or somewhere else) led me to another page (will root around in my browser history to try to find it) which reported that the DLR were doing much better with revenue protection since the change in franchise.
As a daily user of the DLR I can point out that this is a nonsense.
Yes, checks are more frequent and higher profile. That doesn’t mean they are any more competent.
For lots of reasons (privacy and security to name but two) I refuse to use my main bank card to touch in / out.
I have a totally separate (Mastercard) used for travel. This card isn’t issued by one of the big banks, and is funded by me topping it up online from time to time. So, in essence, it’s PAYG Oyster Mk2. My only exposure is whatever credit I have loaded on the card, and being an online service, I could cancel the card in seconds if I lost it.
This card works perfectly on the platform readers on the DLR, and gate lines on the Underground, Overground and National Rail stations.
I’ve also used it in Croatia, Dubai, and several other countries. So there’s little doubt that, providing I have sufficient funds loaded on the card, it’s a fully functioning Mastercard.
Now cue one of the DLR revenue protection staff or train captains. With one of their handheld card readers.
At least 50% (and probably more) of those readers can’t identify my card.
The following conversation ensues:
Them: “This card isn’t valid or hasn’t been touched in.”
Me: “Yes it has, and I can show you the payment history on my phone to prove it.”
Them: Looks confused, but seem to understand they haven’t caught a fare dodger here.
Me: “I have this conversation with your staff almost every day. Your hand-held card readers are not fit for purpose. Why is that when I explain it to you repeatedly.”
Them: “It’s a new card that’s not registered on our system”.
Me: “It’s the same card I’ve being been using for the past year. So your system clearly isn’t up to date.”
Them: “Is it a pre-paid card”
Me: “Yes.”
Them: “Ah. That’s probably the cause.”
Me: Marvels at why it’s a problem for hand-held readers but not the gate lines. But thinks this is a faintly plausible explanation.
The other 50% of the staff, having failed to read the card, just shrug their shoulders and walk away.
@ Steve – speculation on my part as I’m not up to date with hand held readers but I can certainly recall there being issues in the past in readers being “returned to base” frequently enough for them to be updated. While that may sound implausible given how whizzy technology is these days unfortunately hand held readers / ticket machines for roving staff have been a difficult area for many years. Complex requirements and low production volumes made them very expensive. The basic Oyster card reader was simple enough but it’s still kit for a closed, bespoke technology. Adding in reading capability for bank standard cards probably wasn’t hard but I don’t know how the updating process works.
All the gates and validators are connected to a network and I believe the infrastructure is such that data and software updates are a breeze compared to how things were 20 years ago (when it was a nightmare!). The other problem is ensuring staff are actually up to date with changes. I think the acceptance of pre paid contactless bank cards was a bit of a grey area when contactless started but I assume that things have stabilised as take up of CPCs for travel has grown hugely thus encouraging more financial institutions to offer convenient products and for TfL to accept them.
I don’t know who does DLR’s revenue checks (apart from train captains) and whether they are employees or contract staff. My experience of contract staff doing “revenue” checks is that most have no idea what they’re looking at nor the many nuances that exist with ticket products. Ensuring all staff involved in revenue checks are fully conversant with the basics, then the complexities and also fully up to date on all changes is a task all of its own. Contract staff are unlikely to be motivated enough to feed back their experiences of rejected / difficult to read cards to the right people in DLR or TfL.
@ Walthamstow Writer
> there being issues in the past in readers being “returned to base” frequently enough for them to be updated.
Yes. I understand that. So in the first month or two with a new (issuer’s) card I wouldn’t have been that surprised.
But either:
Some of the readers have been updated (I must remember to ask a DLR person who checks my card to show me the screen on their display). Which begs the question as to why the rest haven’t been updated.
Or none of them have been updated and I’m just seeing an increasing number of staff giving up because they know the handheld readers are useless.
> and whether they are employees or contract staff.
An interesting point that I hadn’t considered until now.
I suspect (and will keep an eye on this) that once you explain this to a train captain they file it away and don’t hassle you again. Which could be part of why I’m seeing an increase in “they shrug their shoulders and walk away” moments (it’s not hard to spot the times when they can’t read the card).
I’m guessing that some of the RP teams are contract. Or on a “bonus scheme” based on how much extra revenue they create (I’ve seen this on several mainline TOCs).
There are probably a lot of FOI requests to be created here.