Where should the line be drawn between displaying “City Centre” and the actual name of the city on bus destination screens?

[SCH117X]

In the days of roller blinds, the 28 in Leeds used to have a setting “Adel & City” to save the driver having to change it.

The week before last I was in Ripon for the day and saw a bus showing “Ripon City Service”, which is at least slightly more informative than the
“Local Service” (for local people?) I once saw Pennine Motors using in Skipton.

South Notts also had a single roller blind for each of the Clifton Estate sevices that it might work jointly with Nottingham City Transport, and orginally West Bridgford Urban District Council, (61,61A,66, 67 and 68) of 'Broad Marsh and Clifton Estate' later changed to add 'via Trent Bridge' with the ''and' deleted

The simple City Service/Local Service display was justified in the days of roller blinds and the limit on the number of destinations available but there is no excuse for it with digital displays and proper distinations / information should be shown.

 

[EdinRH]

Probably any service that originates from outside the boundaries of the city itself should display the name of the city rather than ‘City Centre’.

I’ve always found it slightly odd that the Lothian Country service 43 displays ‘Edinburgh’ despite the fact it operates entirely within the City of Edinburgh boundaries.

It used to say "St Andrew Square" when that was the terminus. The roller blinds didn't have Regent Road as a destination, but I don't see why the electronic display cannot be programmed to say "Edinburgh, Regent Road"

As Lothian also run the X99 to Hawes Pier to tie in with cruises it would also get rid of the ambiguity if the 43 going the other direction read "Queensferry, Scotstoun Estate" instead of just "Queensferry"

 

[tomuk]

And it's not uncommon to hear passengers boarding in Crewe (3) or Stafford (101) asking for "Stoke", when neither bus serves Stoke (town) but does go to Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent city centre).

I believe the Arriva 64 from Shrewsbury via Market Drayton also uses Hanley as the official destination.

Here is the X64 back in the PMT and Midland Red days.
A PMT Leyland Lynx during layover at Shrewsbury

the potteries to Shropshire

seen at rest in the layover area of Shrewsbury's bus station is PMT's SLC854 H854GRE a leyland Lynx which was in this special X64 livery, at the time of this photograph 23.4.97 PMT and Midland Red operated this as a joint service, now this today is operated by Arriva using Optare Versas and is...

flic.kr

A Midland Red Leyland National leaving Shrewsbury for 'Stoke'

Midland Red 939 Shrewsbury, 1997

Midland Red, Leyland National 939 departing Shrewsbury's then new bus station on the X64 in May 1997

flic.kr

 

[Kilopylae]

I think the B says City Centre even in Exminster?

 

[duncanp]

What, even if it's going between different bits of Birmingham?

There are several different places in Birmingham City Centre where buses terminate.

Buses going to the city centre will display Birmingham on the destination blind, whereas buses travelling outward from the city centre will display the name of the suburb or nearby town where they terminate.

When I lived in Edinburgh in the early 1980s, Eastern Scottish buses travelling to the city would display Edinburgh on the destination blind, regardless of whether they originated in towns such as Livingstone or Bathgate, or nearby suburbs such as Balerno.

Interestingly, service 61 (Currie - Heriot Watt University - Sighthill - Gorgie Road - Haymarket - St Andrew Square bus station) was jointly operated by Eastern Scottish and Lothian Region Transport, and whilst inbound Eastern Scottish buses would display Edinburgh, inbound Lothian Region Transport buses would display St Andrew Square. This practice continued when the service was extended to Balerno in 1984, and only ceased when it was withdrawn upon deregulation in 1986.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

What, even if it's going between different bits of Birmingham?

Those different bits of Birmingham have different names... so Birmingham to Hamstead, or Birmingham to Castle Vale.

 

[The exile]

Bristol is a bit unusual in actually having a street named "The Centre", which is a term in general use for that location rather than the city centre as a whole.

Strictly speaking it doesn’t - it’s “just” the local name for the area (as pointed out elsewhere- derived from Tramway Centre)

 

[ACBest]

The way I program them is to use 'Town Centre' or 'City Centre' for anything that doesn't leave the boundary, and the town or city name for anything that comes from outside the boundary.

 

[RT4038]

In many cities across the UK, it is common practice for suburb-city bus routes to display “City Centre” as the destination if entirely within that city’s boundaries, as opposed to the actual name of the city for routes that stray beyond the city boundaries. Even so, I have seen a few examples of interurban routes displaying “City Centre” as the destination. While this might not be an issue if the route doesn’t go far out, it could cause confusion if it links multiple towns and/or cities as passengers may not know which “city centre” the destination screen is referring to. Some places I have visited always display the town/city name regardless of whether the bus route is local or interurban, which is good for everything except the most localised of routes, or where the city centre is so large (ie. London) that you have to distinguish between different areas of the central area to be of any use to passengers. Do you think that there should be a universal standard for displaying the city name or City Centre on destination screens, or at least some tidying up of what each route should display?

Apart from a few odd examples, what are we actually trying to solve here? If a bus is just outside the administrative boundary of a city, say in Amesbury or Saltash, is there really any confusion as to where the bus is going if it is displaying 'City Centre'? (i.e. Salisbury, or Plymouth. There is no other City for miles around). If I was outside of a city and saw a bus displaying 'City Centre' I would assume it was the closest one. If there is really any doubt [which there could be in a place like Fareham or environs - Southampton or Portsmouth]then the bus operator would be well advised to make it quite clear. But how often is this confusion really happening - not much I would guess, and talk of 'universal standards' is just taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Apart from a few odd examples, what are we actually trying to solve here? If a bus is just outside the administrative boundary of a city, say in Amesbury or Saltash, is there really any confusion as to where the bus is going if it is displaying 'City Centre'? (i.e. Salisbury, or Plymouth. There is no other City for miles around). If I was outside of a city and saw a bus displaying 'City Centre' I would assume it was the closest one. If there is really any doubt [which there could be in a place like Fareham or environs - Southampton or Portsmouth]then the bus operator would be well advised to make it quite clear. But how often is this confusion really happening - not much I would guess, and talk of 'universal standards' is just taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

Exactly my point @RT4038 when I said earlier...

I think you're overthinking it when saying there should be some sort of universal standard; just do what's appropriate for the area. In Greater Bristol (for want of a better phrase), we have buses that are headed from places like Oldland and Bitton - almost equidistant between Bath and Bristol but everyone knows that they're in the Bristol orbit so City Centre is pretty evidently referring to Bristol as you grind through much of East Bristol (even if it is in South Gloucestershire Council territory).

 

[WibbleWobble]

Crossens has to be on the display IN SOUTHPORT but when the bus is not in Southport, then Southport on the display would suffice. I am not suggesting waiting until Southport town centre to change it.

My issue is that both destinations are currently shown too small to be legible.

But Crossens is the ultimate destination, not Southport - even if former is a suburb of the latter.

If an ultimate destination is not shown then that can be seen as contravening the registration, as well as not being PSVAR compliant. The only exception is on a circular service, whereby the outer point can be shown for what would be seen as the "outward" part of the journey.

If you're wondering, I deal with destination displays in my job and I'm very cautious about making sure they are compliant!

(PSVAR - Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations)

 

[Roger1973]

Apart from a few odd examples, what are we actually trying to solve here? If a bus is just outside the administrative boundary of a city, say in Amesbury or Saltash, is there really any confusion as to where the bus is going if it is displaying 'City Centre'?

Yes, Reading (for example) would be complicated. Much of the eastern / southern / western suburbs of Reading (if you just look at the urban area on the map) are either in Wokingham or West Berkshire boroughs rather than Reading Borough. What would make sense for a bus coming in from Woodley (in Wokingham Borough) would not make sense for a bus coming all the way from Bracknell (for example.)

I have seen a few examples on real time displays where a fairly long interurban has been showing the name of the actual stop, rather than the name of the town, at the distant end of the route, which doesn't make a lot of sense, or just 'bus station' when there's more than one on line of route.

Then there's the issue of getting real time and all the other electronic bits to make sense on circular routes and routes with a loop terminus at one or both ends, but that's a can of worms maybe not for this thread.

Some operators / councils are still somewhere on the learning curve with all that thing, and some senior managers with both don't want their staff to 'waste time' on getting the detail to work.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Yes, Reading (for example) would be complicated. Much of the eastern / southern / western suburbs of Reading (if you just look at the urban area on the map) are either in Wokingham or West Berkshire boroughs rather than Reading Borough. What would make sense for a bus coming in from Woodley (in Wokingham Borough) would not make sense for a bus coming all the way from Bracknell (for example.)

This is the same point as I made earlier. In Greater Bristol, you have lots of places that are technically outside the city boundary with much of the eastern part in South Gloucestershire. In Bitton, you have vehicles that are clearly running into the city showing City Centre.

Tim Jenning's photo here shows a First bus arriving on such a service

First Bristol citylines east 39417 YN69DWJ

Scania N280UD ADL Enviro 400 City CBG heading into Bristol City Centre on service 45 from Cherry Gardens.

www.flickr.com

However, when the former 332/37 still ran through Bitton from Bath, then it carried Bristol as per this DD2012 photo

Late flowering

An old timer and a late show of colour. The oilseed was late this year so July 2013 afforded a shot in the background of some late yellow hue as 66117 R917BOU climbed past Kelston Hall. It was one of the first Barbie vehicles delivered to Badgerline at Wells but has since been cascaded and is...

www.flickr.com

Theoretically, there could be people standing in Bitton looking east to Bath, or west to Bristol and contemplating which city the 45 is heading to. In reality, it's clear that it's very much in the Bristol orbit. As @RT4038 states, it's probably not worth worrying too much in having some sort of national mandated standard.

 

[bussnapperwm]

But Crossens is the ultimate destination, not Southport - even if former is a suburb of the latter.

If an ultimate destination is not shown then that can be seen as contravening the registration, as well as not being PSVAR compliant. The only exception is on a circular service, whereby the outer point can be shown for what would be seen as the "outward" part of the journey.

If you're wondering, I deal with destination displays in my job and I'm very cautious about making sure they are compliant!

(PSVAR - Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations)

Would something like "Southport then Crossens" be a compliant destination display?

I know National Express West Midlands used to at one stage on their roller blinds have "Bloxwich then Lower Farm" as their displays for one route, as Lower Farm was the ultimate destination, but a smaller part of Bloxwich, same with "Dudley then Wrens Nest" on another route.

 

[SCH117X]

Transdev Blazefield use "then" quite extensively albeit usually to list towns a service runs by i.e. Wetherby then Harrogate. Would be ideal if the display could update autoamtically by GPS so flipping over to simply the destination to come or with a further place introduced. At a local level the Harrogate-Knaresborough services use then to indicate the suburb of Knaresborough the service continues to i.e. Knaresborough then Carmires

 

[markymark2000]

Transdev Blazefield use "then" quite extensively albeit usually to list towns a service runs by i.e. Wetherby then Harrogate. Would be ideal if the display could update autoamtically by GPS so flipping over to simply the destination to come or with a further place introduced. At a local level the Harrogate-Knaresborough services use then to indicate the suburb of Knaresborough the service continues to i.e. Knaresborough then Carmires

Transdev blinds do update by using GPS don't they? I thought the destinations were automatically done by the Ticketer machine which then also provides the GPS so that the blind updates the destination to remove via points as they are passed.

 

[D6130]

When I first visited Dublin in the late 1970s, the city buses had roller blinds which showed 'AN LAR' - 'The Centre' in Irish - on both the destination and routing displays. The idea was to show either (e.g.) DUNDRUM via AN LAR for a cross-city service from one suburb to another....or (e.g.) AN LAR via RATHMINES for a service terminating in the city centre. However, in practice, it was not unusual to see buses carrying the destination AN LAR via AN LAR....CITY CENTRE via CITY CENTRE!

 

[SCH117X]

Transdev blinds do update by using GPS don't they? I thought the destinations were automatically done by the Ticketer machine which then also provides the GPS so that the blind updates the destination to remove via points as they are passed.

That might to the case but its not foolproof judging by the amount of 7s running into Harrogate still "Wetherby then", 36s heading south with Ripon still on the destination and Harrogate locals inbound to the town still showing the suburb name

 

[WM Bus]

Would something like "Southport then Crossens" be a compliant destination display?

I know National Express West Midlands used to at one stage on their roller blinds have "Bloxwich then Lower Farm" as their displays for one route, as Lower Farm was the ultimate destination, but a smaller part of Bloxwich, same with "Dudley then Wrens Nest" on another route.

The X2 has that "Solihull then St Peters". On the 7.39 term time journey. Currently the only National Express West Midlands journey to I think.

For a few year 2017 - 2020 the X12 also used to display "Airport then City via Chelmsley Wood" and "Chelmsley Wood then Airprot and Solihull".

 

[WibbleWobble]

Would something like "Southport then Crossens" be a compliant destination display?

Yes - as long as Crossens is either the same size or larger than "Southport then". A via point should not be more prominent than the destination.

If it was a split registration, with the split at Southport, then Southport would have to be more prominent than "then Crossens", with a separate display for the second section.

 

[Redmike]

Translink Foyle Metro service 1A shows City Centre on inbound journeys and that technically crosses an international border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

 

[Andy Pacer]

What it comes down to is what the destination is set as, by whoever has created the source data. As Real Time information is produced from a TransXchange file, there destination shown is whatever is set in the "Destination" field. However, it is possible to over-ride using something called a "Dynamic Destination".

In theory, this will allow a service to show one thing for one set of stops (say the destination name), then as it gets closer to the terminus, then show something else (say "City Centre" or "Bus Station"). You could even use it to indicate a via point (such as "City Centre") on buses prior to the centre of town, then have that via drop out later in the route - should the number of letters allow.

The TXC dynamic destination of course drives the roadside displays at bus stops rather than the destination display on the front of the bus, although it could be argued that them being aligned would help consistency.

 

[Deerfold]

I was unimpressed in the mid nineties when I caught a Barton bus to "City Centre" when it was traveling from Derby to Nottingham.

But even more confusing for those in Chester, when they briefly had the Sunday C84 contract, parked at Chester there it was - Hanley via Crewe (48 miles).

In the 80s the main route from Leeds to Halifax continued to the village of Rishworth, then half on to the hamlet of Commons where the bus had to do a three point turn.
There was occasional confusion at stops in Leeds where people had no good reason to have ever heard of Commons.

 

[WibbleWobble]

The TXC dynamic destination of course drives the roadside displays at bus stops rather than the destination display on the front of the bus, although it could be argued that them being aligned would help consistency.

Problem with a lot of roadside displays is the character limit. I know of some that have as few as 11!

 

[Edsmith]

Does Nottingham still use "City Loop" as a destination?

Yes and some just display the word 'City', probably ok for the local Go2 routes.

 

[MCR247]

Yes and some just display the word 'City', probably ok for the local Go2 routes.

And any that cross a city boundary display ‘Nottingham’

 

[43055]

Could say at least Derby is consistent with both Arriva and trentbarton showing 'Derby' on buses going into the city. Arriva and longer trent routes show the via points whereas the local trent routes have Derby with city centre in smaller letters to the right in place of the via points.

 

[Typhoon]

They do now but in the past, CITY or CITY CENTRE or Birmingham City Centre were all variations when the Metrobuses were about

For buses based in Birmingham garages, CITY was perfectly fine. Birmingham City Centre was only needed for those buses that crossed the city boundary..

In the previous era, One Person Operated double deckers (fleet numbers in the 3000s roughly) at one time only showed the outer terminus, there was a secondary, smaller destination display below which had three settings 'To City', 'From City' and a blank. On reaching the outer terminus, the driver would just pull a lever across to change from 'From City' to 'To City'. This was in the days when they were hand wound. The blank was for routes like the Inner and Outer Circles. Worked perfectly well.

I suppose the need to be more definite about a terminus came in when people travelled by bus less often so would not know where a bus went.

 

[thaitransit]

I think it depends on how far out of the city you're in. If you're 50 km out from the centre its mostly going to say something like Brisbane (Roma Street) but if you're only 10km out it will more likely show something like City (Queen Street) or City (Cultural Centre)

A similar thing occurs with road signs in the inner and middle suburbs; it will say City but outer suburbs it will say Brisbane.

 

[Ken H]

What about buses that don't terminate in the city?
Sit on Seacroft Bus Station outside Leeds and there are:
4, 4F destination Pudsey
16, 16A Pudsey Different route
40. Goes to city centre but via Stanks so a long way round journey
49. Bramley. Another route both sides of the city.
50, 50A Horsforth.

All go to/via different bits of the city. None go to the Bus Station - you want the hourly Transdev 7 for that, or a Coastliner from Scarborough or Whitby and that doesn't use the bus station - its a 5 minute walk to Seacroft Green.

So you want a bus to John Lewis on Eastgate? Which one to get?
Harehills? St James' Hospital? Leeds Infirmary? Railway Station.

Oh well, there is a cab rank outside Tesco.