Comprehensive or Comprehensible ... [2]

No 3 son (ex Watford resident) has used (attempted to use) the new-look Transport for London (TfL) web site, specifically the journey planner. He has struggled with the start point, namely Watford Junction station which is big enough and obvious enough to be straightforward; only it isn't.

He wants to travel to ...

Now there's another snag. Until 1966 it used to be known as London Airport; then it became London Heathrow with the appropriate IATA code.

But, nowadays, it calls itself just plain "Heathrow".

This is understandable as "London" is a bit overused, worldwide.

And in England

And the best of all:-

It's in Scotland, on Orkney, and otherwise known as Eday Airport.

So, using the TfL journey planner, let's be all "official" and seek a journey to "Heathrow".

And up pops ...

... a choice of Terminal 4 or Terminal 5 but no mention of the other 3. Strangely, we appear to need to name each one of them twice. fbb wonders why. fbb wonders why.

OK, let's help TfL out a bit. Try typing in  "Heathrow Airport". Bingo, we can now ...

... get to Terminals 1, 2 and 3 ...

... by train and Terminal 3 only by bus and coach. We can also buy a camera at the Heathrow Airport in Hillingdon (?). But we can't go to Terminals 4 or 5. And just to spread a further chunk of confusion, London bus timetables to Terminals 1, 2 and 3 are always show their terminus as ...

... "Central Bus Station"  with the three terminals only revealed on the route map.

fbb wonders what visitors will make of the post 2016 layout when Terminal 1 is closed and Terminal 2 extended to take its place. Then there will be no terminal 1. fbb once taught (supply) at a school which had a north hall, east hall and west hall. Helpful kiddies were known to advise their stand-in teachers that the lesson had been moved to take place in the south hall. Some (but not fbb!) fell for the ruse and were never seen again!

Back to the journey planner.

What about searching for "London Heathrow"?

Don't bother to ask!

And finally ...

... equally pointless.

At least we can get to the "other" Terminal 5 at Hillingdon.

fbb cannot decypher the sort and search routines that form the myterious and convoluted electronic innards of the TfL system but it is possible that it treats "Heathrow Airport" as a virtual town, and then looks for locations within that locality. "London Heathrow" simply becomes an "address" at the airport. Obviously it is not as simple as that but what fbb does know is that the now abandoned xephos system would never deliver such confusion as TfL's "award winning" journey planner. At least it would have not been so weird when it was being fully managed.

xephos was designed to use a system of "groups"; whereby any collection of names could be "bracketed" together to provide a generalised location; not rocket science and very flexible. But don't ask fbb exactly how it did it. The three Watford Stations would be grouped with bus stops in Watford Centre to cope with a plain "Watford" Enquiry and the five terminals would be grouped with each of  Heathrow, Heathrow Airport and London Heathrow.

And xephos, remember, held one single internally processed national database; it did not rely on electronic links with other suppliers' information. All data sources were thoroughly xephos-ised.

Sour grapes? You bet!

But xephos never tried to be comprehensive; the team recognised that answering 100% of possible questions sensibly was unachievable and aimed to satisfy 90% of the most likely comprehensible searches.

Tomorrow : what you have all been waiting for. A look at First Kernow's excellent new timetable book. And, even here, the comprehensive/comprehensible dilemma rears its ugly head.

 Next bus blog : Wednesday 11th June 

That's the Wonder of Woolwich

£6.20, £2.60 or nothing; your choice!

A big map, but a lot to take in.   Docklands Railway is the blue line via King George V station, curving in tunnel to its terminus at Woolwich Arsenal.   Proper big trains follow the orange line from central London; with "stoppers" calling at both stations and so-called "fast" trains serving Woolwich Arsenal only.

"Old" Woolwich was the High Street, near the middle of the map and beside the river, but the modern town centre now stretches along Powis Street to the main (Arsenal) Station.

So how does the Transport for London Traveline journey planner guide you across the river to North Woolwich?   It depends where you start from ...

... but, mostly, TFL will put you on a bus for a very short ride to Woolwich Arsenal Station (£2.20) and then the Docklands Railway to King George V (£4.00).  If you have an Oyster pay-as-you-go card this reduces to a modest (?) £2.60.

Alternatively, if you were "in the know", you could reject the official advice and take the FREE ferry - and it's free for vehicles as well - for FREE.  [The clue is in the name.]   The service began in 1888 and its present cost, borne by Transport for London, is about £7 million a year.  As fbb knows to his painful cost, there are no toilets on the boats!   1 million vehicles and 2.5 million passengers are carried each year with a boat every 10 minutes at peak periods.

But if you are aquaphobic, there is yet another way.

The foot tunnel was opened in 1912 and is accessed at each end by stairs and lifts, the latter operating daytime only.  The entrance buildings are similar to the Greenwich foot tunnel, situated a little nearer the centre of the metropolis, surprisingly, at Greenwich.

The Woolwich tunnel is also FREE.  Finding the entrance at the South end can be a bit tricky as it hides shyly behind the Waterfront Leisure Centre.

Or at least, there was a tunnel.   It appears that the foot tunnel is "temporarily" closed to rectify defects in the staircases and the tunnel itself.  "Hey, have you heard, there's a leak in the Woolwich Tunnel?"

"Yes; it fell out of my granny's shopping basket!"   [leak, leek : geddit?]   And talking of "you know what", the tunnel is fitted with a "leaky feeder" system.  (?)   Apparently it allows you to use your mobile phone.

Now the key question is this.  Why does the TFL journey planner advise you to spend £6.20 (or even £2.60) rather than going for a freebie?   The system knows about the ferry ...

... but seems unwilling to find it as part of a through journey.   Perhaps TFL are tying to recoup some of their £7 million a year?   Or perhaps the people who build the technology don't know what goes on at Woolwich. The TFL "spider" map for Woolwich labels the ferry, but the tunnel remains anonymous - maybe because it is closed; or perhaps because ... no idea?

To add to the confusion, the London Bus map (South East) shows the ferry but does not even mention the tunnel!

 

While our reader ponders this one, enjoy a piccy of the older ferries (replaced in 1963). Bet they had toilets on them!

P.S. As you might expect, keen reader, xephos finds the ferry and thus gives you the slower FREE option. Also, please note, the foot tunnel is likely to be open again by the time this "pre-recorded" blog appears.

next blog : due on Tuesday May 3rd  

Ave RV! In praise of a bus route.

Ave?   A high church ecclesiastical  term meaning "praise" - say it as "ah - vay"!

But, first,the bad news.

Transport for London's journey planner [www.tfl.gov.uk] is often upheld as the acme of jp technology - almost certainly by those who don't have to use it for anything other than very simple journeys.

Consider a journey from Covent Garden to the Tower of London.   This is what tfl tells you to do ...

...take a three leg Underground journey with two bits of walking, including the lengthy and complex link between Bank and Monument stations - once shown on Underground maps as an "escalator link"; but now masquerading as a "normal" interchange.

Now, a question - actually THREE questions.

As the man says on the antiques programme, "is that the very best you can do?"

Which would you, interested blog reader, prefer?   A three legged troglodite trundle through the dismal depths of Londons "Tube" or, alternatively, a ride on a nice red bus?   If you are a pass-holding OAP there's no contest; the bus is free whereas the underground costs £4. [cheaper with "Oyster"].

Covent Garden to the Tower is a pleasant one bus ride, seemingly overlooked by the much lauded tfl journey planner.   Here is the offer from xephos:-

This is route RV1, started in 2002, designed to regenerate and rejuvenate the developing tourist and residential areas south of the Thames.   Just one simple bus ride and no changes!

According to tfl, the underground route is quicker - 4 minutes quicker and perhaps open to debate - and that's why its algorithms put the RV1 into the background.   fbb understands that the internal gubbins of xephos strives to keep the client on the one vehicle unless such a policy would create a really slow journey.   Almost inevitably a one leg journey will be cheaper as well.

A further bonus of the RV1 is a possibility that you might be riding on a vehicle powered by hydrogen.   Now, some of us "oldies" might have visions of a small thermonuclear weapon concealed in the engine compartment; but we are talking hydrogen gas here, probably the cleanest fuel possible.   If you remember your chemistry lessons (?) you might also remember that hydrogen and oxygen combine to produce energy and a little water residue.   The energy in the Hydrogen bus is in the form of electricty which drives standard electric motors. No stinkypoos from the exhaust pipe and no expensive technology to clean up the particulates - whatever they are!

Two thoughts remain.  At the moment the buses are astronomically expensive - will they ever become cost-effective?   And some are worried about the safety of such a volatile fuel, say in an accident; what happens if it escapes from its storage pods on the roof of the vehicle?   We are assured that "all is safely gathered in", but ...

... The Hindenburg was full of hydrogen! 

Occasional bloggers and those "new to the trade" may not be aware that you can cross reference earlier blogs on similar topics by clicking on one of the "labels" below and at the foot of each blog.  Enjoy your reading!

Metropolis Mystery

It is strange, but true, than in our capital city, London, the Mayor's transport system persistently refuses to publish timetables for most of its bus and underground services.  The Transport for London web site [www.tfl.gov.uk] claims that bus timetables are available but, in fact, only provides lists of departures from each stop with a (very) rough guide to how long it might take to get to your destination.   This means that planning a journey which needs to make reliable and achievable connections is totally impossible.

One user of the system tells me that he has to add at least an hour to every journey he may wish to make across the Capital - just to allow for lack of reliable information.   But, I hear you cry, is there not a superb journey planner on tfl's website?

Well, yes and no!   The site provides a useful guide to possible journeys but it often gives unrealistically complex results - misleading to the innocent observer - offering multi-change journeys and totally ignoring fares implications.   For example, from Heathrow Airport the system almost invariably advises the use of the premium priced Heathrow Express service to Paddington (not a good place for onward travel).   Not only is HEx expensive, but travelcards etc. are not valid.   Amazingly, many journeys are much easier when made by the apparently slower Piccadilly line on which cheap fares are available.   In many cases total journey time is only a few minutes longer, taking into account the complex interchange facilities at Paddington - with, effectively three different underground stations depending on line and destination.

What is spectacularly frustrating is that all bus timetables are published unofficially on at least one web site and most are available on xephos. [www.internet.xephos.com].

And please don't tell me that buses are so frequent that timetables are not needed.  Try standing at an unsheltered bus stop in the pouring rain peering at a departure list that says "then about every 12 minutes"!  At one stage departures from Lewisham on the Docklands railway were advertised as (something like) 0812 and then every 14 (sic!) minutes until 2200.   Try working that out!

So some on Boris!   Comb your hair, look a little less befuddled and tell us all when your buses run!

A little puzzle

Try this little puzzle.

Go to Traveline [www.traveline.org.uk] OR Transport Direct (aka Transport Defunct) [www.transportdirect.info] and try to make a journey from Grove Park [the one near Chiswick] to Grove Park [the one near Lewisham] - post your comments!   Also  try it at www.internet.xephos.com - this is a subscription site but you can get freebie goes before you have to pay.

Now...

Transport Defunct has a budget of £50 million of your money and mine.   The xephos people have offered to provide a better service for £2 million.

Which would you prefer to pay for from your rapidly increasing taxes?

P.S. ALL the answers you may get on an "official" website are either misleading or just plain wrong!   The "right" answer is extremely simple and involves only one change.