How far in advance are the live timings shown for buses in London?

[infobleep]

Apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn't locate it with a brief search.

How far in advance to buses get put into the live timings system for Transport of London Bus routes? How does one know if a bus is going to run or be delayed, if they are at the second bus stop of a bus route.

For example the X26 starts in West Croydon and the next stop is East Croydon. 9 minutes before the bus was due to depart East Croydon it wasn't showing up. There is another bus to Wallington, the 407. This is more frequent but doesn't depart from a bus stop close by. Eventually 3 minutes before it was due to depart I noticed the X26 in the system. It actually departed 2 minutes late. Of course with roads being so quite it got to its next stop and had to wait.

 

[Deerfold]

Buses show up 30 minutes in advance.
But only if they're logged in by the driver and on the trip you're waiting for or the one timetabled to become it next. If a trip is the first on a duty you may get very little time before it sets off.

 

[route101]

In glasgow its usually up to 2O mins on the first app . More often 16 . Always a worry if its in black.

 

[RJ]

The bus has to be logged in and driven through a checkpoint for it to show up on Countdown.

The checkpoint can either be a bus stop it's scheduled to stop at, the stand for the route it is doing or home garage.

When the vehicle is running empty from the garage, it may or may not show up in Countdown. Even if the driver has logged in, the checkpoint at the garage might be in a random spot in the yard that the bus doesn't pass through so it won't show up in Countdown until it reaches its stand or first stop in service. I regularly drive the same route out of a garage and am sure to log the iBus in before moving the bus. Some of them check in and become live in Countdown. Others don't and only liven up on arrival at the first stop.

As buses often come from the garage at the start of service or to do night trips, the Countdown data is patchy at these times if you're within 30 minutes of the first stop on a route. However this is a complicated concept to communicate to the public and I am sure those who regularly travel early or at night have learned to disregard the inference of "missing" buses by now.

 

[Deerfold]

The bus has to be logged in and driven through a checkpoint for it to show up on Countdown.

The checkpoint can either be a bus stop it's scheduled to stop at, the stand for the route it is doing or home garage.

When the vehicle is running empty from the garage, it may or may not show up in Countdown. Even if the driver has logged in, the checkpoint at the garage might be in a random spot in the yard that the bus doesn't pass through so it won't show up in Countdown until it reaches its stand or first stop in service. I regularly drive the same route out of a garage and am sure to log the iBus in before moving the bus. Some of them check in and become live in Countdown. Others don't and only liven up on arrival at the first stop.

As buses often come from the garage at the start of service or to do night trips, the Countdown data is patchy at these times if you're within 30 minutes of the first stop on a route. However this is a complicated concept to communicate to the public and I am sure those who regularly travel early or at night have learned to disregard the inference of "missing" buses by now.

The bus will only show up from being logged in at the garage if the operator has a garage trip in the schedule they've submitted to London Buses. Some operators change things operationally without submitting a new schedule. This plays havoc with Countdown predictions.

 

[Busaholic]

An example from my limited experience of Countdown, from a southbound stop yards after Brixton bus garage i.e. at Streatham Hill, Telford Avenue, waiting for a 417 bus, having just missed one. Loads of routes pass through here, some very frequent like the 109. The first three buses showing on Countdown are all one minute away and all are 319s to Sloane Square: given this is mid evening and the 319 originates from the garage yards away, I find this extremely unlikely. I can see a 319 lurking in the garage entrance, but then I can see buses blinded for other routes there too. Anyway, suffice to say there never were three 419s, though one eventually appeared after about five minutes. The predicted arrivals of many of the other buses, mostly from Brixton Hill, was variable to say the least and number 7 on the list might turn up before number 4, even though it was supposedly five minutes behind. Driver changeovers weren't responsible for most of these, as Arriva Brixton garage only operated a minority of the routes at the time.

 

[paddington]

For example the X26 starts in West Croydon and the next stop is East Croydon. 9 minutes before the bus was due to depart East Croydon it wasn't showing up. There is another bus to Wallington, the 407. This is more frequent but doesn't depart from a bus stop close by. Eventually 3 minutes before it was due to depart I noticed the X26 in the system. It actually departed 2 minutes late. Of course with roads being so quite it got to its next stop and had to wait.

Regarding the X26, it always seems to arrive early at Wallington, then during working hours is badly delayed by the time it leaves Kingston. And using the TfL live data when waiting for this bus at Croydon or Heathrow/Hatton Cross simply isn't reliable - sometimes it is correct, sometimes the bus comes but it doesn't show up on the data feed, sometimes the system says it is coming but it doesn't. At Heathrow it may not come at the timetabled time, although if severely late it usually turns around at Hatton Cross.

 

[Deerfold]

Regarding the X26, it always seems to arrive early at Wallington, then during working hours is badly delayed by the time it leaves Kingston. And using the TfL live data when waiting for this bus at Croydon or Heathrow/Hatton Cross simply isn't reliable - sometimes it is correct, sometimes the bus comes but it doesn't show up on the data feed, sometimes the system says it is coming but it doesn't. At Heathrow it may not come at the timetabled time, although if severely late it usually turns around at Hatton Cross.

If the system says it is coming but doesn't then it has been on the route at some point. The system never displays timetabled buses unless they've been logged in. It may have been turned early, terminated early or not actually run in service but it must have been on the route.

It used to be my job to look into errors on the TfL Countdown system. However the entire department that used to run it was disbanded for cost reasons. It is now largely run by the IT department (the actual system is run under an external contract, but certain aspects are run directly, including providing route details, schedules, calculating performance and investigating problems).

I'm not sure anyone at TfL still investigates problems on the Countdown system (though there are certain repeatable circumstances which always produce non-predicted buses, even though they have logged in).

If there have been major problems on a route and buses are all running late with several kept at one end of the route, they will all predict as the number of minutes they are away from that point as the system cannot know when they will actually set off. The system assumes routes will not leave their start point early until they actually do.

 

[infobleep]

If the system says it is coming but doesn't then it has been on the route at some point. The system never displays timetabled buses unless they've been logged in. It may have been turned early, terminated early or not actually run in service but it must have been on the route.

It used to be my job to look into errors on the TfL Countdown system. However the entire department that used to run it was disbanded for cost reasons. It is now largely run by the IT department (the actual system is run under an external contract, but certain aspects are run directly, including providing route details, schedules, calculating performance and investigating problems).

I'm not sure anyone at TfL still investigates problems on the Countdown system (though there are certain repeatable circumstances which always produce non-predicted buses, even though they have logged in).

If there have been major problems on a route and buses are all running late with several kept at one end of the route, they will all predict as the number of minutes they are away from that point as the system cannot know when they will actually set off. The system assumes routes will not leave their start point early until they actually do.

Thanks. That's really interesting.

So do bus live times only go live shortly before a bus leaves its starting point?

 

[RJ]

Thanks. That's really interesting.

So do bus live times only go live shortly before a bus leaves its starting point?

The bus will show up in the countdown feed after it has driven through a checkpoint. The checkpoint can either be a bus stop it's scheduled to stop at, the stand for the route it is doing or home garage.

 

[infobleep]

The bus will show up in the countdown feed after it has driven through a checkpoint. The checkpoint can either be a bus stop it's scheduled to stop at, the stand for the route it is doing or home garage.

Thanks for explaining that.

Edit: apologies I missed your previous post, which explained all of this. I jumped over some when clicking on an update link and didn't notice, I'd jumped ahead.

 

[infobleep]

If the system says it is coming but doesn't then it has been on the route at some point. The system never displays timetabled buses unless they've been logged in. It may have been turned early, terminated early or not actually run in service but it must have been on the route.

It used to be my job to look into errors on the TfL Countdown system. However the entire department that used to run it was disbanded for cost reasons. It is now largely run by the IT department (the actual system is run under an external contract, but certain aspects are run directly, including providing route details, schedules, calculating performance and investigating problems).

I'm not sure anyone at TfL still investigates problems on the Countdown system (though there are certain repeatable circumstances which always produce non-predicted buses, even though they have logged in).

If there have been major problems on a route and buses are all running late with several kept at one end of the route, they will all predict as the number of minutes they are away from that point as the system cannot know when they will actually set off. The system assumes routes will not leave their start point early until they actually do.

On a slightly related note, was it your departments joh to maintain the bus disruption info?

Currently the disruption info pages constantly say there is disruption and that there is no disruption, all on the same page. I think they are covering all bases, although they don't state the reason for the delays. There would be too many reasons to do that!

 

[Deerfold]

On a slightly related note, was it your departments joh to maintain the bus disruption info?

Currently the disruption info pages constantly say there is disruption and that there is no disruption, all on the same page. I think they are covering all bases, although they don't state the reason for the delays. There would be too many reasons to do that!

No, except for putting information onto Countdown Screens. Our department were responsible for putting diversions into the system (but a policy decision had been made that diversions that were planned to be for less than 6 weeks were not).

 

[londonbridge]

Regarding the X26, it always seems to arrive early at Wallington, then during working hours is badly delayed by the time it leaves Kingston. And using the TfL live data when waiting for this bus at Croydon or Heathrow/Hatton Cross simply isn't reliable - sometimes it is correct, sometimes the bus comes but it doesn't show up on the data feed, sometimes the system says it is coming but it doesn't. At Heathrow it may not come at the timetabled time, although if severely late it usually turns around at Hatton Cross.

According to the timetable the off-peak journey time for Carshalton High Street to Hatton Cross on a Saturday morning is 74 minutes. I sometimes get the 7.31 bus and am almost always at Hatton Cross by 8.30 to catch the 8.30 H25 (or 8.35 H26) down to Bedfont Lakes for the parkrun.

Re it not showing up at Heathrow, on one occasion I arrived at Heathrow Central at 3.00pm on a Saturday afternoon, the timetable said buses were due at 3.20 and 3.50 but the 3.20 was a no show for reasons unknown.

 

[infobleep]

I'm currently waiting at a bus stop.

It said the bus, which has an extended start due to passint a school first was due in 5 minutes.

When I got to my stop about 4 minutes later, 5he bus was due in 5 minutes.

Originally it was due to this stop at 8:40. Its now due here at 8:57. It left its initial part of the journey as that disappeared from the lube timings. So has the bus broken down or would it be some quirk of the system?

It now says the bus is due into a stop later than the one I'm at. How is that possible? The bus didn't go passed me.

I caught it at an earlier stop for a change as I had time to do so.

 

[infobleep]

The next bus did indeed show up. Its possible I just missed the earlier bus when I thought I'd hadn't. Maybe the live timings were out. There is a bus 13 minutes ahead but not sure how I'm not on it.

I did tweet TfLBusAlerts but so far no response. Perhaps they missed my tweet or are too busy to respond. I find responses can be hit and miss with them.

If only I could see historic live timings. Then I'd know if it actually passed. Alas for this perticular route Google only show scheduled timetable, which isn't the one that actually runs.