Going Loopy At Luton (Part 2)

Loopy Routes With Loopy Loops

Contrary to popular opinion, it is NOT "illegal" to reverse a bus with passengers on board. There are plenty of locations where this happens on a daily basis. 

Not far from fbb mansions is the village of Otterton. 

Here the Stagecoach 157 does a double run through the very attractive village and reverses on Ottery Street. Here there are clear warning signs ...

... and obvious road markings!

Whatever? Everybody knows that the 157 reverses here every hour Monday to Saturday and four times on a Sunday.

But, in general, reversing is less than ideal. The Traffic Commissioners don't like it (If they ever notice as they apply their rubber stamp to a registration!), the Police don't like it and bus operators don't like it - all on safety grounds.

So you either persuade someone to build a turning circle or you use a loop of roads.

Another reason for using a loop is that you, as an operator, perceive you will be serving more cash customers for the same amount of time and fuel - often a misplaced optimism. Confusion can lose passengers!

And so to Lutin Airport.

Arriva Route 100

This is part of a 15 minute frequency (Monday to Friday) between Stevenage and Luton.

The 101 just serves Luton Interchange whilst the 100 serves the other Luton Interchange (!) before trundling on to the airport. A naive blog reader might suppose that it runs direct like the A and the F70/F77.

Aha, that would be too easy. It loops, but not for reasons of safety or ease of turning the bus around.

It runs OUT via Wigmore and returns direct before hurtling off back to Stevenage.

Wigmore? Why?

The answer is A Simple Diversion Aimed at shoppers.

So if you were inspired to travel from Stopsley Inspire to ASDA, you would have to trek via Luton Interchange! 

Convenient, eh? 

But having shopped, you may wonder how to get home.

Don't expect Arriva to tell you!

There are no route 100 buses from ASDA to anywhere! ASDA does not exist.

 

Good, innit?

Arriva could, if it were a VERY clever company, put an ASDA time on the top of the TO Hitchin table at xx57 amd xx27. But that would be helpful!

Thinks! Might it not make more sense to have the 100 hang a left at Stopsley Green ...

... and tun via ASDA and the airport on the way into Luton. It surely wouldn't add much to the through running time compared with grinding along the Hitchin Road! and it would make the timetable simple. 

But that might be a bit brave and risky for Arriva!

Then, if you were aiming to use service 100 on a Saturday ...

... the combined service has been reduced to every 20 min with buses to ASDA and the airport every 40 minutes. This follows the well known rule that, if you want to reduce your passenger numbers even further (to the square root of nothing)** then run a bus every 40 minutes.

You might carty more passengers if you made it hourly!

But fbb does have a really loopy loop for his excited readership! And loopy in several different ways.

Stagecoach MK1

This is already loopy in concept as it is a concatenation of buses from Bedford to Luton and Buses from Milton Keynes to Luton, the together-route being a huge "V" shape.

Actually it is not a straightforward one-way loop at Luton, It is just that the route follows an unconventional "hook" via the airport but in both directions.

Let us approach from Bedford.

In we come to the Luton Interchange ...

... which is huge! The MK1 then ought to run direct to the airport, but it doesn't. It, too, runs via Wigmore ASDA. Having arrived at the airport and deposited/embraced its airborne passengers, it sets off to Milton Keynes.

But NOT via the Interchange.

It zooms via the A1081 New Airport Way to join the M1 well south of Luton. So if you were travelling from Luton to Milton Keynes, you could enjoy a jolly trip via ASDA, the airport and beautiful Bedfordshire countryside, pylons and all. 

At least Stagecoach shows the full "V" shaped timetable in one go, so you can work that out.

Oh dear! Despite the blue lines on the map, the timetable shows the MX1 returning to the Interchange via the direct route. 

Confused.com?

So what's with the pylons and the additional joy of the extra bit of the M1? What's with the full blue line loop?

Sadly fbb cannot tell you, as Stagecoach East does not provide their customers with any route map of the Luton area. Actually Stagecoach East is sadly lacking in useful maps of any kind.

But you wouldn't want your potential customers to know where the buses go, would you?

Stagecoach LAX

But they do have yet another route from Luton to the airport!

Yes it does! on a very small blind display!

The LAX combines with the MK1 (please note the easy to follow route numbers) to provide a bus every 30 minutes at Luton, to and from the airport.

The table is headed Bedford - LAX ...

... because it doesn't serve Bedford! It runs, as does the MK1, via Wigmore. The table indexed for the opposite direction ...

... shows the service from Luton to the airport again.

There is no timetable for buses FROM the airport which, logically, should run in the opposite direction.

Who knows?

From a commercial point of view, fbb wonders why Stagecoach is wasting a whole bus plus drivers, plus positioning journeys from Bedford, to provide a 30 minute frequency from Luton to the airport - when Arriva runs direct, there and back, with EIGHT buses an hour.

Now that IS loopy!

** Fbb is indebted to correspondent Julian for the phrase "the square root of nothing" which undoubtedly will describe loadings on route LAX!

 Next Weekend Variety blog : Sat 27th July