Transport Tycoon Forums

No congestion, direct routes and guides to keep it going smoothly - it works and works quite well.

My last journey was on Saturday on a Plaxton Dart with Pointer2 body work and returning home on a Volvo 7900 Hybrid - one of about 30 in the UK with First.

andel wrote:No congestion, direct routes and guides to keep it going smoothly - it works and works quite well.

My last journey was on Saturday on a Plaxton Dart with Pointer2 body work and returning home on a Volvo 7900 Hybrid - one of about 30 in the UK with First.

Can you not achieve the same with a simpler bus lane on the same route, but that would allow any bus to run on it?

But with a Bus Lane, any idiot in a car could drive down it.

So stick a camera at the entrance and fine everyone who tries £200? It works well enough for conventional bus lanes in cities, and it's even easier if you're building a dedicated bus lane with only a handful of potential points of access. The corridor would still be the same, but it would be a tarmac road rather than this weird concrete track.

The principle is the same, but rather than the "track" and bus modifications, you use tarmac... the route can still be designated buses only.

This. And a regular bus lane can also be used by emergency vehicles if the road is congested.

Three reasons:

(1) If you haven't been on the busway yet, you'd be amazed at how smooth it is. It actually feels more like a tram, and not a bus. Anecdotal evidence from Cambridgeshire CC found that passengers often use make-up or attempt to use hair straighteners (with the power port) while sitting on the bus; ie: treating it like a train rather than a bus!

(2) By making it a busway, you put in permanence which encourages development nearby. If you slap in a busway, you guarantee that that premium bus service is going to be there in 40 years time, and it's worth building your housing estate next to the bus stop, since the land values will reflect that. The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway was very much built with a development agenda.

(3) By making it a busway, you prevent a popularist mayor walking in and abolishing the bus lane in favour of car drivers.

I can see the attraction of those reasons, and they're the first to make me think there were any pro's at all... although 3 seems wrong: if that's who people vote for, that's what they should get.

1 and 2, I can see the point in that it's more like a cheap tramway

audigex wrote:although 3 seems wrong: if that's who people vote for, that's what they should get.

True, although it does reinforce the second point. If you're building something for development, then you need to establish a sense of permanence.

JamieLei wrote:
(2) By making it a busway, you put in permanence which encourages development nearby. If you slap in a busway, you guarantee that that premium bus service is going to be there in 40 years time, and it's worth building your housing estate next to the bus stop, since the land values will reflect that. The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway was very much built with a development agenda.

Um, not nessescarily. The modern research says that, but it is written by public transport boosters. Most first generation UK tramway and trolleybus systems lasted about thirty years at best. And when they didn't fit the political agenda they were swept away very quickly with little consultation, often abandoned within two years. If politicians, or powerful economic or social interests want to close a system down, they can.

Currently on a Plaxton President, stuck going through Howden Clough en route to Batley because some twit has parked their car opposite another one, narrowing the road too much for the double decker to get through.

So far it would have been quicker to walk from Birstall to Batley. Curse my lazy ideas.

audigex wrote:So what's the point of a guided busway, anyway? It looks like it takes up about as much space as a 2 lane road, and apart from the driver being able to take his hands off the wheel (is this really an advantage?), I don't see that it gives any advantage over a regular bus, while adding costs?

If anything it seems slower, as it has an arbitrary speed limit of ~40mph, when the same space looks big enough for a 60mph A or B-road standard road...Would it not have been cheaper just to make a tarmac road and declare the whole thing a bus lane?

Despite appearances, it is significantly narrower than a 60mph road built to modern standards - the guidance allows very limited clearance between the buses (and the THUMP of a pair of double-deckers passing less than a metre apart is quite noticeable).

It's almost entirely on old rail formations - which are too narrow for a conventional road - and large parts of the northern section are on embankments while half of the southern section is in a cutting. The extra land purchase and earthworks to create a full-width road would have been quite expensive.

The extension to the new Science Park station (currently under construction) will be a conventional road with a short section of guideway to limit access.

Not quite my current bus journey, but it was this morning and will be later on!

The epic W1. Express from Weston-super-Mare to Bristol via the metropoli of Congressbury, Yatton, Cleve and Long Ashton. Cows, orchards, and other clichés of the west country are all veiwable from the top deck. £2.40 single is even more of a bargain when the ticket machine is broke.

It takes longer but there's always a seat, it has air con and (flaky) WiF compares to the terible trains. Its also half the price of the train.

Yay for the W1.

Currently aboard an Arriva Plaxton President to Batley Bus station. Where I shall proceed to do badly in a mock math exam!
or it will go well and by end of May I'll have an NVQ Level 2 in Maths! Then rinse and repeat with English.

Not strictly current...

Had a try on a Swansea StreetCar for the first time before they all bit the dust. They would've been ideal for London, I haven't heard of one self combusting yet...

My last journey was driving a 61-plate VDL SB200/Wrightbus Pulsar II for my employer .

Presently, I travel most frequently on the 662 "Shuttle" from and to somewhere between Bradford and Keighley; the 737 from Shipley to the Airport (LBA), the 757 from Leeds and the 760, which travels from Keighley to Leeds.

The 662 normally has Wright Eclipse Geminis running it, the 737 has a variety of buses including some London cast-offs, the 760 runs with Plaxton Presidents - whilst the 757 has spiffy new-ish Optare Versas, with plug sockets and WiFi.

Daf_the_ticket wrote:with plug sockets and WiFi.

I live near routes operated by Arriva Max & Arriva Sapphire buses, with sockets and wifi. They're quite sexy, as far as buses go!
You're not too far from me, either.

Redirect Left wrote:

Daf_the_ticket wrote:with plug sockets and WiFi.

I live near routes operated by Arriva Max & Arriva Sapphire buses, with sockets and wifi. They're quite sexy, as far as buses go!
You're not too far from me, either.

I've seen those at Leeds Bus Station. They do look rather fancy!

I'm starting to realise how little I travel on the bus, the last one I was on was the X1 from Cornbrook to Piccadilly Station, a tram replacement service. Magic Bus (141 route liveried) double decker, think it was an Alexander, I don't know my buses that well.

Before that it was Arriva Manchester's 19 from Sale Moor to Manchester Airport, a VDL Bus if I'm not mistaken.

Double Post.... sorry

Just thought I'd post to say I'm actually on a Bus, one of Burnley and Pendle's Volvo B9TL's (I think Wright Bodies) on the X43, all the way back to Manchester after getting on at Queensgate Depot