Hi there,
just want to share a few thoughts/ramblings on buses that have doors both by the driver and in the middle; sometimes even with yet another door at the back, or, indeed, several on articulated buses.
As a young kid, I wasn't even aware that dual door buses were a thing. All the buses in Liverpool were then (and are) single door. As the driver takes the fare, this seemed innately obvious and I gave little thought to it. Then, in the mid-nineties, Merseybus/MTL bought a whole load of second hand Leyland Titans from London. These were weird foreign things to me; the seating arrangement on the lower deck, the decor and of course, the extra set of doors. They even retained their all-red colour for quite a while. This door was kept out of use and I never saw it it in operation on any of them. There were usually signs saying "Doors Not In Use". I thought a middle door was weird. I wondered how it worked exactly and what stopped people bunking on. MTL even went to the trouble of having these doors removed eventually.
I've since used dual door buses in both London and abroad. In practice they seem to work perfectly well. Indeed, after living in Hong Kong for a short while I got so accustomed to them that it actually felt weird going all the way to the front of the bus to get off, when I came back to the UK.
A lot of people cite dual door buses as an example of London exceptionalism. That may be the case in the UK, but in the world as a whole, it's actually most of the UK that is unusual. Almost everywhere else I've been in the world, dual door buses are standard; and not just in big cities or on high capacity routes. Even quite small settlements which only have an hourly service and midi-buses still tend to have the second set of doors.
So my main query is: why is this the case? The big difference between London and the rest of the UK is that London has some control on the specification of bus services and so can mandate things like dual door vehicles. The rest of the UK is deregulated. This is actually pretty rare outside the UK and bus services in much of the world are either run by municipal corporations or at least have a some sort of franchising system. But whilst there seems to be a parallel between the UK (sans London) being deregulated and the prevalence of single door buses, I'm not sure deregulation can be the sole reason. For example, Liverpool had dual door buses (inclduing Leyland Atlanteans and the likes) but seemed to be phasing them out by the mid-70s; pretty much as soon as conductors were removed. But we're talking over a decade before deregulation and the PTE could've insisted on dual door buses if it wanted to. Evidently, they felt two sets of doors were now no longer necessary or perhaps even undesirable. Now, post-deregulation, the private bus operators could use dual door buses if they felt like it, even if the local authorities didn't approve but they generally don't. It seems the big companies who have both London and non-London operations go to the trouble of removing the door when cascading mid-life London vehicles. As such companies wouldn't go to such trouble and expense without deeming it absolutely necessary, they must feel dual door is absolutely a no-no for their services outside London. But like I said, it's the norm in much of the world so what are the specific local conditions that make dual door buses a negative in most of the UK?
I suppose the other question naturally is: which do you think is better? Does it even make much of a difference one way or the other? I must say I quite like dual door buses. I like the separation of those getting on and off, which helps during busy times. I'd certainly like to see a trial on some of the biggest routes here (i.e. 10, 86) but at the same time, it's probably not the biggest issue of the day and I cope well enough with the status quo.
Finally, I know the odd town/city outside of London has seen trials of dual door buses in recent years. I think Reading & Brighton are a couple. Anyone local to these areas know how these trails went and if they're still ongoing? I may as well point out here that Arriva cascaded some of its bendy buses, which had been expelled from London, to Liverpool to work the specially branded Airport 500 bus. I never got to go on one of these and I have no idea how the fare collection worked and even if any of the doors were in use other than the front ones. They disappeared after a couple of years, so were clearly not deemed a success; although articulated buses are quite a different beast to dual door standard length buses.
Sorry for the rambling post but it's a curious topic for me.
just want to share a few thoughts/ramblings on buses that have doors both by the driver and in the middle; sometimes even with yet another door at the back, or, indeed, several on articulated buses.
As a young kid, I wasn't even aware that dual door buses were a thing. All the buses in Liverpool were then (and are) single door. As the driver takes the fare, this seemed innately obvious and I gave little thought to it. Then, in the mid-nineties, Merseybus/MTL bought a whole load of second hand Leyland Titans from London. These were weird foreign things to me; the seating arrangement on the lower deck, the decor and of course, the extra set of doors. They even retained their all-red colour for quite a while. This door was kept out of use and I never saw it it in operation on any of them. There were usually signs saying "Doors Not In Use". I thought a middle door was weird. I wondered how it worked exactly and what stopped people bunking on. MTL even went to the trouble of having these doors removed eventually.
I've since used dual door buses in both London and abroad. In practice they seem to work perfectly well. Indeed, after living in Hong Kong for a short while I got so accustomed to them that it actually felt weird going all the way to the front of the bus to get off, when I came back to the UK.
A lot of people cite dual door buses as an example of London exceptionalism. That may be the case in the UK, but in the world as a whole, it's actually most of the UK that is unusual. Almost everywhere else I've been in the world, dual door buses are standard; and not just in big cities or on high capacity routes. Even quite small settlements which only have an hourly service and midi-buses still tend to have the second set of doors.
So my main query is: why is this the case? The big difference between London and the rest of the UK is that London has some control on the specification of bus services and so can mandate things like dual door vehicles. The rest of the UK is deregulated. This is actually pretty rare outside the UK and bus services in much of the world are either run by municipal corporations or at least have a some sort of franchising system. But whilst there seems to be a parallel between the UK (sans London) being deregulated and the prevalence of single door buses, I'm not sure deregulation can be the sole reason. For example, Liverpool had dual door buses (inclduing Leyland Atlanteans and the likes) but seemed to be phasing them out by the mid-70s; pretty much as soon as conductors were removed. But we're talking over a decade before deregulation and the PTE could've insisted on dual door buses if it wanted to. Evidently, they felt two sets of doors were now no longer necessary or perhaps even undesirable. Now, post-deregulation, the private bus operators could use dual door buses if they felt like it, even if the local authorities didn't approve but they generally don't. It seems the big companies who have both London and non-London operations go to the trouble of removing the door when cascading mid-life London vehicles. As such companies wouldn't go to such trouble and expense without deeming it absolutely necessary, they must feel dual door is absolutely a no-no for their services outside London. But like I said, it's the norm in much of the world so what are the specific local conditions that make dual door buses a negative in most of the UK?
I suppose the other question naturally is: which do you think is better? Does it even make much of a difference one way or the other? I must say I quite like dual door buses. I like the separation of those getting on and off, which helps during busy times. I'd certainly like to see a trial on some of the biggest routes here (i.e. 10, 86) but at the same time, it's probably not the biggest issue of the day and I cope well enough with the status quo.
Finally, I know the odd town/city outside of London has seen trials of dual door buses in recent years. I think Reading & Brighton are a couple. Anyone local to these areas know how these trails went and if they're still ongoing? I may as well point out here that Arriva cascaded some of its bendy buses, which had been expelled from London, to Liverpool to work the specially branded Airport 500 bus. I never got to go on one of these and I have no idea how the fare collection worked and even if any of the doors were in use other than the front ones. They disappeared after a couple of years, so were clearly not deemed a success; although articulated buses are quite a different beast to dual door standard length buses.
Sorry for the rambling post but it's a curious topic for me.
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