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Flow London Transport prepared for dial-a-bus

18th July 1975, Page 40
18th July 1975
Page 40
Page 41
Page 40, 18th July 1975 — Flow London Transport prepared for dial-a-bus
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, PAPER by A. A. S. Symonds nd D. J. Day of London Transort Executive provided inresting details of the training f dial-a-bus controllers and rivers for the experimental ervice Galders Green with flat fare of 15p for all pasengers, including children. Training of the controllers legan a fortnight before the [rivers' instruction. The first 'art of the training consisted deta:led consultations at neetings. with all members of he operating staff concerned. Great stress was laid on the flexibility of the dial-a-bus operation end on how drivers would be free to choose their own routeings to serve the needs of individual passengers, so long as the four fixed stopping places were observed.

Every driver would receive a specially drawn large-scale map with a Transpaseal surface mounted on a stiff plastic sheet; this would even show a selection of house numbers and clearly indicate which roads were accessible for dial-a-bus and those which were not. At the same time that drivers could have a wide scope for making their own decisions, they were reassured that assistance and guidance from the controller would be 'available immediately at the flick of their radio switch.

After two days learning the geography of the 10.18 miles of road open to the service in 0.62 of a square mile of Hampstead Garden Suburb, together with the 1.24-mile legs to and from Golclers Green, simulated service operation was started. This was devised on the basis of live telephone calls to the control centre, Where the controllers were then to pass the messages by radio to the bus drivers.

Initially, •a copy of the electoral roll for the entire dial-abus area was obtained and from this the electoral roll numbers were extracted and fed into the London Transport computer. The output was produced in two parts: (a) Random numbers, weighted against those residences close to the existing bus services, and in favour of those furthest away.

(b) Random time-intervals to represent the various rates at which telephone calls would be received.

Using this information, it was then possible to prepare lists manually of precisely timed calls using the names of real people and their real addresses. A large part of the clerical staff of the departmental traffic office took part in this exercise, during normal working hours. Each person was supplied with a " script" to play his part.

While most calls were simple and straightforward, some provided an element of difficulty involving inquiries about other his and train services, and roads outside the service area. Outside traffic office hours, the controllers were given lists to work from; in addition, drivers were given sealed envelopes containing messages representing all the various sorts of incident they were likely to encounter, such as hail-stops and booked passengers failing to appear.

At first, telephone calls were made at the rate of 20 per hour but this proved to be too intensive for the two buses to cope With the 15-minute service of departure from adders Green. Thereafter, •the call rate was dropped right down to five to 10 per hour. This brought the demand more to within capacity, but as the expectation was that 350-400 passengers a day would wish to use the service, the call rate was stepped up again. A third (spare) bus was ,put into service during the remainder of the training period and for the first eight days of public service, and arrangements were made for controllers to provide two-man cover daily for the bulk of the traffic day. This speedy action enabled the call rate to return to 20 an hour.

The combined effect of publicity and the visible impact of buses on their training runsthe buses carried postersproduced many genuine inquiries at the same time as the simulated calls were being dealt with by controllers. Also, there were frequent inquiries from passers-by when buses made a training stop. In the laSt three days of training, with three buses in service and with double-cover in the control room, calls were stepped up from 20 to 30 per hour, with some periods of 40, and these the team took in their stride. The confidence and enthusiasm of the personnel was most impressive.

When the service was opened to the public on Saturday, October 19, 1974, apart from some radio problems, things went well and the effort put into training was seen to have been justified. Over 500 passengers were carried on the first day and by the 10th thy the total rose to 695. Passenger enthusiasm soon equalled that of drivers and controllers.

There was a surprising lack of interest in the "lop off" promotional vouchers included in the house-to-house publicity distribution. In the period of 13 days when the 3,500 vouChers distributed were valid, only 154 were presented in lieu of cash by the total of over 7,000 passengers. This might reflect the level of affluence in the area!

It had been expected that most passenger journeys would be to or from Golders Green— a "many to one" operation. While this was generally so there was a significant movement within the Garden Suburb, and to shops and to doctors' surgeries.

In the six months' trial period authorised by the Greater London Council, 90,477 passengers were carried producing an average of 3,480 per week, with a maximum of 806 passengers on a single day. This compared with the original estimate of 350-400 passengers per day derived from formulae developed by the Mitre Corporation from North American experience.

The authors' conclusion was that in simple terms of costs and receipts the service was a failure and it was doubtful if the volume of traffic diverted from private oars would justify the net cot in social benefit terms. But in all other respects the experiment had been an overwhelming success. However, consideration of a continuing service suggested an examination of variations in the level of service; vehicle size; fares charged; area served/pattern of service; or withdrawal.


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