It Wasn't All On Line!
When Roger French visited Leicester to hop on a Hop, he was impressed with the bus stops, all of which showed "real time information". The above stop was at Haymarket bus station so it may be right; but fbb is always profoundly suspicious when "real time" shows exactly the same "minutes past" on a ten minute frequency, Usually that means that the sign is showing scheduled times - often very unreal!
Young Roger also provided a picture of a frog hopping towards its nearest bus stop.
This would be an ideal way to guide potential passengers from St Margaret's bus station to Savoy Street and from train to the distant stops on London Road. The picture above is in one of the many pedestrianised city centre thoroughfare.
fbb was initially excited to see this web site as, outside of the PTE areas and a few keen local authorities, comprehensive information anywhere is a rare hens teeth occurrence.
Sadly twaddle and clutter fill the initial screens.
Leicester, despite its recent improvements, did not receive any of the Government's mega-bucks under the Bus Service Improvement Plan; so the city's aspiration may well be somewhat blunted with only a few coins and a couple of washers in the civic piggy bank. But we can dream.
One big irritation is that the graphic below keeps popping up and obscuring what you want to look at.
When will web site designers grasp the fact the by far the vast majority of users want to find a timetable and a map. End of.
Journey planners are usually only of use of you know what you want and they can be appallingly unreliable at giving sensible answers.
But everyone is gushing with enthusiasm for the Leicester Buses "partnership" - including Stagecoach which gushes prolifically.
Stagecoach no longer has any bus route into Leicester; their last one was withdrawn quite recently.
The timetables section is quite well hidden from the home page ...
... coming under "information".
Indeed there is a full and presumably complete list of services with a clickable link to the timetables. Google does highlight a similar link if you approach that way.
Deep joy!
fbb was immediately drawn to service 1005 ...
... and there is a timetable.
fbb has no idea why it is numbered 1005. Umpteen years ago there was a bus route in Derbyshire's timetable books, numbered 2000. It no longer exists.
But as fbb turned to the ever popular service 1005 he realised that the Leicester Buses web site did not make its own timetable pages but merely linked to the operating companies' web sites.
It Was VERY Bad News.
The web site was a horrific mess! Most of the First Bus routes appeared as this ...
... and most of the Arriva services dished up this unhelpful graphic.
Clearly young Gavin had not been v up front with up dates.
But the problem with linking to operator sites is simply that the operators might change their info and sure as fuel injectors are fuel injectors, you can b sure that nobody will tell you.
A lesser problem is that timetables are all in different formats and offering different technology.
So where is the partnership?
But The Good News
Since fbb first looked, Gavin has bucked his ideas up and all links are now working.
Also good news is that the excellent Leicester network map is also fully up to date. It is too big to show in its entirety, but an extract will confirm its quality.
One thing that is very clear from the map is that Leicester specialises in very complex routes. Because the network is complicated, you really do need a good map, ideally one for each route.
And not all maps are good!
So the big question for fbb is whether the less than ideal timetable presentation is as helpful as it needs to be.
The old man will return to the topic next week.
GOLDEN WEDDING CELEBRATION
Today the fbbs are travelling to Combe Martin ...
... for a family celebration.
The success of blogging will depend on the success of Internet connection.
Next Variety blog (hopefully) : Saturday 22nd April
Stagecoach certainly has buses into Leicester! There is the 148 from Coventry and Nuneaton and the X7 to Northampton.
ReplyDeleteCorrect but it's the L48 rather than 148. I fear fbb has picked up some fake news - it would be interesting to identify its source!
ReplyDeleteSince Sunday, it is one-four-eight, not L48 (or 48L).
DeleteApologies: I didn't check before my post at 08:32, and memory isn't always reliable as in this case.
DeleteThat Hop RTI display is showing real-time, in Leicester (as is normal) non-tracking is shown by showing a time rather than minutes. The preperation for introduction was quite careful with several running time checks and the timetable is quite robust so such a showing, particularly off certain stops where there is recovery such as outside Haymarket, isn't unusual.
ReplyDeleteLeicester doesn't particularly specialise in complicated routes but because it has retained more than one operator (that snippet shows routes by 3 different operators) the network is more complicated as some places as each operator can justify slightly overlapping but complimentary routes giving a fuller network (where a single operator exists the desire to simplify & concentrate on core corridors leads to some connections being lost to simplify the offering where a second operator would provide it as their core so you have 3 seperate simple-ish networks overlapping providing a much more complete network for residents. This may explain the relative success of recovery of the Leicester City Networks, with many routes at over 100% of fare payers (concessionary travellers have not recovered as well), compared to some other locations.
As others have stated, Stagecoach still have the same 2 routes into Leicester, one has been renumbered as part of partnership agreements at both ends to co-ordinate with a parallel Arriva service but they both still exist.
The Hop floor logo is not "in one of many pedestrianised streets" but at the exit from Haymarket bus station on to the road called Haymarket. Hop stops here rather than in the bus station.
ReplyDelete