43-m-o blow
Page 24
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from Which?
• Yet another blow to protagonists of one-man bus operation in urban areas has come this month from the consumers' magazine, Which? The magazine carried out a survey of two London Transport routes — 44 and 46 — before and after conversion to one-man operation. About 200 journeys before, and a further 200 journeys after conversion were studied. A total of 13,800 stops was analysed.
The Which? report follows a Transport and Road Research Laboratory survey (CM, January 12) which concluded that a one-second reduction in London bus stop times would mean an annual saving of £500,000.
The magazine found that buses spent longer at stops after conversion for two reasons. Opening and closing the doors on o-m-o vehicles added an average of seven seconds at each stop and a further three seconds was taken by each passenger boarding. Journey times increased between 16 per cent on Saturday morning runs and 24 per cent on weekday runs. At the same time frequency on one route went down by 2+ minutes to 15 minutes. On the other an extra vehicle was required to maintain scheduled frequency.
0-m-o buses are more likely to become "bunched" says the report and are more likely to be turned short (in five days only one two-man bus was turned before destination; in six days 13 o-m-o buses were turned). The researchers found that nearly four per cent of passengers on two-man buses got on between stops. Passengers were unable to do this on one-man vehicles but Which? reports that LT's passenger accident rate has decreased by half on converted routes.
When the magazine conducted its initial research only seven per cent of passengers on one route used the automatic fare apparatus, and 28 per cent did so on the other route. To assess whether passengers had in fact, as LT claims, learned to use the machines, a further survey was carried out several months after conversion. On the worst route usage had risen by only three per cent. On eight other routes surveyed seven had old-type machines and usage was an average of 5+ per cent. On the single route studied on which a new machine was fitted the usage was 12 per cent.
Which? concludes that o-m-o buses are slower and less convenient for passengers, increase traffic congestion and lead to a cut in bus mileage. It recommends that LT seriously considers a fare-free rates-borne service and advises other provincial undertakings not to convert to o-m-o.
An LT spokesman told CM this week that it had never been claimed that one-man buses gave as good a service as two-man vehicles. "But one-man buses are better than no buses at all," he said. He said that Which? was incorrect in stating that no cut in operating costs was possible. Savings of 20 per cent are being achieved, even if extra buses had to be provided.