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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 14:37:47 GMT
Too bad in my opinion. You can serve a lot more people with these late night tubes than early morning ones. For the very small group of people going to work in the early morning buses should be very reliable since there's not much traffic around.
People seem to forget there are also a lot of people working in bars, restaurants etc. that have to go back home late at night... but I don't think that travelling for entertainment purposes should be seen as less important that commuters.
And I'm saying that as someone who wouldn't actually use these late night tubes much... If I go out I'll usually stay out all night and go for an early morning train, and maybe eat some noodles in Chinatown at 6 AM!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 14:47:25 GMT
This is the problem, finding the balance of having a later service at night into the wee hours, or having a later morning start...
Which do you choose? Go one way, the other suffers.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 14:52:47 GMT
Which is why the mayor is IMHO wrong to change the current status quo.
There are still many areas of London with no nigh bus service, rather than spend millions of getting the train ops to work 30 mins later, use this money to provide and increase the night bus network.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 14:57:39 GMT
Well, I strongly suspect a lot of Humble Pie will be eaten over the coming months...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 15:03:20 GMT
This whole issue has opened alot of cans of worms for very little benefit.
It's all well and good having a slightly later tube, but if you can't get from the tube station to your house, then it's pointless.
What's wrong with having a fri/sat night N bus service on some day routes to compenate?
Cheaper, easier, friendlier
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 15:18:52 GMT
Thing is, Ken keeps saying that the fare increases are to pay for improvements. All I have seen is new buses and stations being wrecked in so called 'upgrade' works, admittedly, the shambles that was once Chalk Farm, has now been sorted, but still looks a mess, where the half-job has been patched up.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 15:27:13 GMT
From a station prespective, the trouble is the station remains open during the work. So you get used to the 'new' bits before you see the whole picture. It also takes soooooooo long for work to be completed.
It's a nightmare working at a station being refurb'd, so as my location is due in about a year, with the Northern Line ATO and MIP lifts, could explain my Supervisor 1 interview tomorrow.
The biggest problem with the buses is they're knackered lumps of plastic that may have looked good the day they're produced but after a group of school kids travelling free AND about a million miles in London traffic, they look knackered.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2007 23:06:53 GMT
I find that the extra half hour on Fridays and Saturdays offers nothing substantially practical to serve the crowds for Londons late night entertainment.
And the hour later start on Saturdays is far more damaging. Clubbers would stay at their clubnights/gigs until around 2am at the earliest - as things only ever kick off so late anyway. Its a regular occurrence now that clubbers hang around tube stations for long periods Sat or Sun morning, waiting for them to open to catch the first tube trains. One station I know this to be a big problem is Farringdon with the many nightclubs nearby. (Fabric and Turnmills etc) - if extended hours went ahead, I don't think that crowd would understand that first trains were later, and would probably agitate further.
There's an obsession that with any change to first and lasts happen on a weekly basis. I think something that would be more feasible and would work for both clubbers and extreme hours workers is to have overnight running, but not every week - say every couple of months to start off with. And progress that to every month in due course. So people generally don't expect any changes to firts and lasts, but the overnight running weekends would come as a welcome surprise to late night traffic, and the entertainment industry could co-ordinate events around these special weekends when overnight running occurred.
It could even be less frequent than that - just have overnight running over Bank Holiday weekends perhaps.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2007 10:20:02 GMT
How much would it cost to have the tube run overnight on Fridays and Saturdays? I don't think it's technically possible, although it probably would be on the DLR.
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Post by ongarparknride on Feb 9, 2007 13:26:23 GMT
I apologise for sticking my oar in here, but would like to make a point.
Providing ANY anti-social hours service requires people to be willing (yeah, they might want the overtime or whatever) and able to Staff it, PLUS they MUST HAVE backup against hassle, drunken passengers or whatever.
Providing 24/7 on LU would cause massive problems re: conflicts between running services and necessary engineering and cleaning works.
Providing "night" buses must - on any grounds - be more cost efficient, but who is willing to drive a bus and be responsible for passenger safety and revenue collection etc. just on their own - in the centre of London, let alone a suburb?
Speaking just for myself, (a wannabe PSV - as it was known in the good old days - driver) I wouldn't get much comfort if I had a "problem" at 02:45 knowing that although my controller was warned by my pressing a "panic" button, any "useful" response was unlikely to arrive in under 15 minutes....
On traditional accountancy concepts, an "overnight" bus service actually costs very little in overheads - indeed it "costs" direct costs such as fuel and crew. A two-person crew is quite viable on such costings.
To encourage more use of night buses for those people who NEED them to get to and from work out of traditional commuter hours, and to provide a safe service for them and the bus crew, a basic reworking of Costings seems called for.
And demand may exist for legitimate passengers in late-night travel in areas that do not have a good neighbourhood reputation. Further, there might be multiple uses of taxis or mini-cabs serving many trades of late-night working staff into specific such areas.
Is it the case that a variation of "dial a bus" could - if centrally managed - provide a secure door-to-door pickup and delivery of such workers?
Just a thought...
cheers,
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