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TfL Bus Maps

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Mojo

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I think once I saw some kind of London bus route map superimposed over OpenStreetMap data though I didn't save a link unfortunately
This is provided (with a Google Maps) on the TfL website page for each individual bus route on its route page (eg. https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/603/), just click on the 'Map view' button at the top.

You can also see the route overlaid onto a map on various apps such as Citymapper (on the front page of the app type in the route number in the 'Find a bus or line' search box) and Bus Checker (this works nationally, even outside of London, you can type the route number in the search box or click on the route when on the departure board for any stop).
 
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Mojo

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In my case, my destination was 'any bus stop that's within reasonable walking distance of any of any station east of - say - Camden Road - along the North London line'. Without knowing the names of every single stop that meets that requirement, there's no way I can tell from a spider map how best to make that journey - or even whether the journey can reasonably be done.
The spider maps display all stops within the yellow tinted area and all major stops outside of that which seems to include stops with an interchange, although you are right in that they won't display an opportunity to connect if the connecting route doesn't originate near where you are. Having had a look at the Wood Green map I linked to above, I can see that there is one daytime route from Wood Green to Camden Rd and two to Dalston Kingsland which would appear to meet your requirements.
 

plcd1

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Do you have some links to back up those assertions? If they are correct, then that sounds like something that I'd be strongly inclined to contact my GLA representatives about, as it does sound a fairly bad state of affairs. But would want to be sure of my facts before I do contact them.

Assertions?

I FOI-ed the presentation that was made to TfL Board Members which set out the plan for cuts to bus network kilometrage and the financial cut. TfL now list out the documents they've released through FOI on their website so it should be traceable (look for 3 Aug 2017). There was an agenda item for the Customer Service Cttee about "the future of the bus network" but instead of a paper emerging there was a decision to do a presentation internally because of general election purdah. That is how I knew there was something to FOI. Again this is traceable by looking at the minutes / matters outstanding papers for the relevant Cttee during 2016 and 2017.

The position re a Walking and Cycling Directorate is on the public record and London Assembly webcasts from the previous administration so back prior to May 2016. Whether it is created is speculation on my part but the desire on the part of key London politicians to have such a part of TfL is not. Ms Pidgeon and Ms Shawcross have both felt that Surface Transport was too big and too roads and buses focussed to properly tackle cycling and walking issues. They wanted a separate department / directorate to give these issues more visibility and, no doubt, to create more "challenge" to what they considered the "orthodoxy" about road and bus investment in TfL.

The webcasts for all London Assembly meetings, including the Budget and Performance Committee, are accessible via the london.gov.uk website. It is the work of a couple of minutes to find them. Anyone is free to watch those and see what TfL directors and officers said in response to Member questions. The September 28th Budget and Performance Cttee is the one where TfL attended. TfL have not claimed a saving of £61m on bus contracts in any of their published reports - Financial Cttee periodic reports, Commissioners Reports or anything else. The budget vs actuals analysis shows no saving anywhere near £61m nor a forecast that such will be achieved. It is also a matter of public record, via TfL's own Service Change Documents, and the excellent Londonbusroutes.net website as to what services have had frequency cuts or route changes. Other websites keep track of timetable and schedule changes stretching back years. I maintain a bus patronage spreadsheet in which I also track all of the frequency changes and adjust the relevant numbers in terms of buses per hour. This is a personal source of info that uses TfL released data and other info to pull together a picture of what is happening / has happened.

I'm not going to provide an endless list of urls but I've given enough pointers above that anyone can do a bit of research if they are so minded. As far as I'm concerned I've provided a reasoned commentary with supportable sources. I would add that I have contacted my Assembly Member setting out a range of concerns and potential Mayor's Questions on bus issues. It is also worth noting that a couple of Assembly Members are aware of bus cuts in their areas and are not happy. Andrew Dismore has been perhaps the most vocal and persistent. Again all Mayor's Questions and Answers are on the London.gov.uk website and are easily searchable by meeting date or specific question.

I hope the above makes it clear that I don't just scatter wild remarks around. I do research and read a decent amount of TfL and London Assembly papers to try to keep track of what's going on.
 

Be3G

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This is provided (with a Google Maps) on the TfL website page for each individual bus route on its route page (eg. https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/603/), just click on the 'Map view' button at the top.

Well yes that exists, but it's not what I'm talking about, hence the reference to OpenStreetMap. ;) I'm thinking of something similar to the maps being discussed in this thread: a city map with all the roads buses used (and the relevant route numbers) displayed simultaneously.
 

Busaholic

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The quadrant maps were still available at London Bridge bus station yesterday evening.

In reality, the bus maps were mostly out of date because changes occur regularly without the maps being updated. In the Netherlands, for example, they mostly change the timetables once a year, the same time as the annual rail timetable change, and a new map comes out to coincide.

The maps did get regularly updated, though, and in reality from the time when the Congestion Charge was introduced, which produced a few new routes, up until the changes this year in central London bus routes there have overall been fewer changes per annum in the vast majority of routes probably since the creation of the LPTB in 1933, especially now that weekend services are exactly the same as weekday ones in almost every case.
 

Busaholic

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Roger French has fulminated against the TfL decision in his column in November's 'Buses' magazine. He describes it as 'sheer lunacy' and 'an absolute disgrace'. His intervention should give TfL pause for thought, given how influential for the good he has been in the bus world: sadly, it will probably fall on deaf ears. We shall see.
 

higthomas

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Given the speed at which they're cutting frequencies I'm sadly not very optimistic.
 

higthomas

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Changing frequencies shouldn't affect the maps.
No, but it is indicative of how TFL are cutting their bus budget at an alarming rate ( also decreasing traffic speeds are making buses more expensive to run and putting off passengers)
 
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I noticed the London ones hadn't been updated for a while and then they disappeared from the site. Fortunately, I'd downloaded the latest versions.
Thank you very much indeed - time really does fly - I had imagined these were still produced - I suspect I still have some of the old paper ones somewhere or other - if I ever come across them again - I am not a neat filer - I shall chersih them.

Meanwhile - I see I have an online version of a central London one that seems to predate the one in the post to which I am replying.

In the bottom right corner is mentioned 2015 whereas in the same corner on the one already here mentions 2018 - possibly that is later than 2012

I shall attempt to upload my central London map as mentioned

that seems to have done it - I hope it is of use to someone.
 

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AlbertBeale

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I'm connected with organisations which sometimes have meetings involving people from out of London - including from abroad. I always used to keep a few of the London bus maps - especially the central ones - for anyone with time to spare in London who wanted to get around other than by tube. But there have been so many changes - ie cuts - in routes lately that my existing maps are really too out of date to let a non-Londoner loose with. Result - some people are deterred from having an outing while they're here because they simply can't plan anything easily without a bus map in front of them. [I know what it's like, having not long ago been in a major foreign city which had no bus maps; so I spent less time doing things there (in fact less time there), and no doubt local businesses lost tourist custom they'd otherwise have had.] Mike Harris's ones are great as a reference - he's an absolute hero for producing them - but they're rather too small/cramped to use easily whilst out and about. And of course most visitors would never come across them anyway.

It does seem that TfL are running down the bus service almost deliberately; all the regular bus journeys I make around the centre are now much slower than they used to be.

Another map-related problem is that the big spider maps at bus stops no longer have a table in the corner listing all the routes with their destinations and the stops they serve. Crazy!

There are some TfL tourist publications which include a "tourist bus map" which is just a tube-diagram-style "map" of the central area, but showing only about 15 or so of the 150 bus routes that tun in the centre. It might be useful if you want to know which route will take you past the Tower of London, or whatever, but - as someone living near a major central London tourist destination - I've lost count of the times I've seen tourists at a bus stop trying and failing to marry up what's on their "bus map" with the route(s) at the stop they're at. (In a period I was on foot around the centre most days rather than mostly on a bike, I'd encounter this situation several times a week.)

Visitors think that little diagram is the central London bus map; but the use of it is more than just not helpful - if they try to use it to move efficiently around London, as opposed to wanting to see a couple of sights, then it actively misleads them. There was a time when, if I saw this situation and I had a common language with the tourist, I'd try to explain that what they had wasn't really a bus map, and dig a proper one out of my bag and give it to them. I had many instances of bewildered tourists who were extremely grateful. But of course, with no proper maps existing now, I can't do that. But I still frequently see tourists in that situation.
 

AlbertBeale

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OK - a bit off-topic, but also symptomatic of TfL being organised by people who don't actually look at their information supply from the point of view of their users.

In the lobby of underground stations, there's traditionally been a big board with a poster showing the expected engineering work for the coming weekend, so you know which bits of line to avoid. This always used to be in the form of a map with the outline of the whole underground system and the sections which would be out of action for some or all of the weekend coloured in. One quick glance and you could see how to route yourself round the blockage (which, in the inner area, you usually could). But now, the poster is just a written list of closures - "Line X from station A to station B", "Line Y from station C to station D" etc; sometimes including overlapping sections of lines which share tracks. Even for a Londoner with a tube map "in their head", and knowing where in the system most of the stations they mention are, I find this almost impossible to understand quickly without stopping to think it through for ages. Whilst the map they use to stick up could be understood at a glance. The new way of doing it must be almost useless for visitors.
 

158756

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While the topic of TfL bus maps is being discussed, I found a weird thing while planning a trip to London - a spider map, which apparently isn't particularly unusual from looking at a few more, which didn't attempt to represent the destinations of the buses in their actual geographic locations.

As an example the map for Romford station https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/bus-route-maps/romford-station-a4-300917.pdf depicts Stratford in the top left, Canning Town at the bottom, and Ilford and Rainham in any direction, with nothing to indicate there are in fact multiple routes without looking round the whole map. I know the Tube map isn't geographically accurate but it's nothing like that. As someone unfamiliar with the area I would look 'South East' and just find the one route to Rainham - which as it turns out is neither the fastest nor the most frequent.
 

Andyh82

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Due to the lack of a TfL Bus Map, I’ve looked for alternatives and I really rate the Bus Map that Quickmaps do.

Normally a non-Bus tourist publication would be quite poor, inaccurate and way out of date, but these ones are accurate and are fully up to date (a new one has just come out reflecting the June central London changes)

They go out relatively far, stretching from Hammersmith to Stratford and Greenwich so not just central London.
 

Andyh82

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Well said

I wonder if something might be done especially as Labour have a free bus travel policy for all under twenty-five year olds
Unlikely, it could be said hidden cuts that few notice like this are caused by the mayor’s fares freeze.
 

higthomas

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While the topic of TfL bus maps is being discussed, I found a weird thing while planning a trip to London - a spider map, which apparently isn't particularly unusual from looking at a few more, which didn't attempt to represent the destinations of the buses in their actual geographic locations.

As an example the map for Romford station https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/bus-route-maps/romford-station-a4-300917.pdf depicts Stratford in the top left, Canning Town at the bottom, and Ilford and Rainham in any direction, with nothing to indicate there are in fact multiple routes without looking round the whole map. I know the Tube map isn't geographically accurate but it's nothing like that. As someone unfamiliar with the area I would look 'South East' and just find the one route to Rainham - which as it turns out is neither the fastest nor the most frequent.

Oh my gosh, that's awful.

On another note I saw piles of about 30 of each TFL quadrant bus map behind the window at Enfield Town station yesterday. Wondered what they were doing there, but didn't ask.
 
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While the topic of TfL bus maps is being discussed, I found a weird thing while planning a trip to London - a spider map, which apparently isn't particularly unusual from looking at a few more, which didn't attempt to represent the destinations of the buses in their actual geographic locations.

As an example the map for Romford station https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/bus-route-maps/romford-station-a4-300917.pdf depicts Stratford in the top left, Canning Town at the bottom, and Ilford and Rainham in any direction, with nothing to indicate there are in fact multiple routes without looking round the whole map. I know the Tube map isn't geographically accurate but it's nothing like that. As someone unfamiliar with the area I would look 'South East' and just find the one route to Rainham - which as it turns out is neither the fastest nor the most frequent.

Those maps at bus stops have been used in that style for many years - I got used to them.

What confused me about Romford railway Station bus stops - spread in at least three seperate places - in the -"bus station" right outside the railway station - along the street opposite and around the corner adjacent to the bus station and under the railway bridge and around the corner - is that - some of the bus stops which serve the same places (I know about Upminster - opposite St Laurence's Church) do not even stop within sight of each other let alone at the same stop - so one needs to take a chance as to which stop will be visited first by an Upminster bound bus.

However - this is vastly better than what Essex County Council provide - in some places you are lucky to even find a marked bus stop sign - for the stops - which although the stopping places have been used for many decades - are also wrongly located on the Traveline generated map and also wrongly identified.

(I had written a comment about what was a former bus stop - wrongly named near my home - I cannot post a link as it has been removed from the Traveline bus map - so my report (maybe) was eventually acted upon - hooray.

I have still found an internet reference to it though!

Incidentally what is a BCT bus stop & where can one see a list of all the bus stop reference numbers such as (1500IM1465AA)? - Meanwhile "Maynes Garage" was NEVER at the site that it is shown at on this link - but rather at the junction of Factory Hill, D'Arcy Road and Brook Road. (A further complication being that back in the mists of time - before the Wilkin's jam Factory was built - that section of road was called Brook Road - I might write about Layer Brook, that gives that name another time in another more apposite thread/forum!

https://findthestop.co.uk/stops/view/85503
 

PeterC

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Having lived in Romford many years ago I was horrified by the new style spider map. The separation of routes than use the same road and sometimes even using different stop names makes it difficult to follow. Worse still the Destination Finder misses routes out. For example the 499 actually runs through the Chase Cross cross roads but, presumably because it uses stops in Havering Road rather than Chase Cross Road it isn't shown as serving Chase Cross.
 
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Although not a paper map of routes, which is what this thread is about, for a really useful online check of a particular route I've found this site helpful ... so as to judge when to leave my computer to rush out into the rain to the bus stop...
https://traintimes.org.uk/map/london-buses/#73
That is terrific - it also shows the location of the buses - presuming it is accurate
 
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I use it when waiting for buses sometimes and have generally found it pretty accurate.
Thank you - I have seen similar sorts of information but it is just very clever to see a whole route like that rather than just the next bus - I had never thought about it before - but as the information is available - such as on some display boards at bus stops - it is after all it is also available elsewhere - whoever worked out how to display it in that fashion is very much cleverer than I am with IT
 

Man of Kent

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Incidentally what is a BCT bus stop & where can one see a list of all the bus stop reference numbers such as (1500IM1465AA)? - Meanwhile "Maynes Garage" was NEVER at the site that it is shown at on this link - but rather at the junction of Factory Hill, D'Arcy Road and Brook Road. (A further complication being that back in the mists of time - before the Wilkin's jam Factory was built - that section of road was called Brook Road - I might write about Layer Brook, that gives that name another time in another more apposite thread/forum!

https://findthestop.co.uk/stops/view/85503
That stop reference is from the NaPTAN database.
More information here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-public-transport-access-node-schema
 
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