The Department of Transport has recently announced that it has been looking at a “strategy to improve transport integration and encourage people to make more sustainable choices”
As part of this, it has been reviewing best practice in Europe, looking particularly at Switzerland & Germany. Consequently, Norman Baker has announced a number of proposals to help boost interchange between the various UK transport modes.
One European practice that caught the Dft’s eye was the network mapping, using not just colours but also the unique numbering plans for both bus and rail. You can see the Zurich example by clicking on the image, below.
As part of this strategy, British route numbers that have been existed for generations will be swept aside to help modal integration.
To understand the DfT’s thinking, however, we need to start with the railway. The DfT plans to mandate ATOC to assign line numbers (called the National Route Number Plan (NRNP) to their services. A four digit system is proposed that would consist of an alphabetic character, followed by three digits:
High speed express services would be of the form “Hnnn” (note, not InterCity)
Suburban lines outside London would be “Snnn”
Regional expresses “Rnnn”
Stopping services “Tnnn”
London & South East lines would be “Lnnn”
“M” prefixes would be available for the DLR, Underground, trams, Newcastle metro, Manchester Metrolink, the Llandudno tram and so on. Incidentally, ferries will be in the format “Fnnn” and internal air routes “Annn”.
Under the proposals, train companies would be required to show these line numbers on the trains, publicity and station departure boards. And, in a radical departure from current practice, train timetables will have to show not only rail line numbers but also the bus route numbers that leave from each station.
Bus companies will surely welcome the additional advertising for their services. But there is a quid pro quo for the bus industry, which is in two parts:
First, the Local Transport Act 2008 and the Transport Act 2000 will be amended to make it mandatory to show in public timetables & maps not just which buses stop near a rail (train?) station but to show the rail line numbers that go from there as well. That is probably not too painful for bus operators and is conceivably useful to passengers.
Secondly, and potentially this is where the pain lies, the DfT is proposing a GB-wide mandatory bus route numbering scheme that will prevent duplication across the country. Each route will be allocated its own unique number in the NRNP.
By avoiding route number duplication across the country, it will make it easier, the theory goes, for passengers to know where to transfer from bus to train and vice versa. The most quoted example is the Cross-Country train from Penzance to Edinburgh, which currently has quite a few bus route 1s encountered along its journey. The NRNP would clear up such confusion.
In order to make this work, the DfT is proposing that bus companies must register, on a first-come-first-served basis, new NRNP numbers with VOSA, who will only be able to allocate a route number once (unless two or more bus companies operate the same route with full ticket inter-availability).
All of these National Route Numbers will be four digits on a regional numbering scheme as follows:
London routes in the “0001” to “0999” range
Western traffic area “1nnn”
West Midlands “2nnn”
South East (outside of London) “3nnn”
Eastern traffic area “4nnn”
North East “5nnn”
North West “6nnn”
Wales “7nnn”
Scotland “8nnn”
“9nnn” range will be reserved for long distance express services.
Note that despite Wales & Scotland being devolved regions for transport, they have elected to join the scheme. Northern Ireland is currently excluded but is discussing a similar integrated scheme with the Irish Republic. As Ireland is geographically separated, it is thought that this will not present too any issues with the DfT NRNP. In any event, the Irish scheme will probably use three characters only.
Note that the proposed scheme will ban the use of letter prefixes and suffixes, although the second character will be allowed to be “N” for night services—“8N26”, for example.
For older buses, displaying the four numbers on bus destination equipment may be a challenge. But manufacturers of digital destination displays have already been consulted to ensure there are no issues (or to see if software could be upgraded): this is possible for virtually all cases.
More of a challenge will be in fitting four characters into rear displays, where currently only three can be comfortably displayed. It is likely that horizontal scrolling will be allowed.
Another issue is for operators using traditional blinds. Lothian in Edinburgh, Scotland has apparently tried a blind showing route 8026 (the current 26) on one of its one-track number blinds, with some success. The trial was reviewed by local visually impairment groups and a number of suggested changes put forward. Meanwhile, in London, Leon Daniels is apparently seeking a derogation so that the existing Johnston font can be used—otherwise a “narrow” version of the font will be needed to show “0025” instead of “25” comfortably (for example).
The DfT feels that the industry can take the cost of moving to the new numbering plan, given sufficient notice. Route changes will happen anyway and vehicle replacements will take place. A green paper for ministerial consumption suggests a target implementation date of the December 2016 rail timetable change has been set for implementation of the NRNP.
What is not clear is how the travelling public will find all of this and how they will be informed. Critics in the industry have privately expressed misgivings to the DfT, pointing out that the UK is hardly comparable to a Swiss canton or region of Germany. No doubt the Daily Mail may have something to say about this comparison.
But it seems the scheme has too many backers in government and will go ahead. Whether chaos is created and benefits to modal transfer are created, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, at Trent Barton, a company that uses route names not numbers, is believed to be considering using the NRN number with a scrolling name. Said Alex Hornby, a director,
“I’m not especially enthusiastic about the DfT’s plans but at Trent Barton we’ve prided ourselves in helping passengers for 100 years. We need to be pragmatic about this change and move on. We must play our part in the developing plan that will assist passengers use public transport more. We will work with Ray Stenning to ensure we can make the best of this”
. It does, though, make rather a lot of sense generally!
