How long should you wait for a No.73?

To the Evening Standard

Sir:

Since I walk, mostly, I'm not an avid reader of your CommuterWatch column, but yesterday my eye lit on a paragraph about the punctuality of the No.73.

If it is true that LT estimates one should expect to wait two-and-a-half minutes for a bus scheduled to run at five minute intervals, then LT has no idea of the fundamentals of its job. I hope this is a journalistic misinterpretation. Having once temped on the seemingly pointless management reports required by LT of a bus company, I greatly fear it is not.

Because they are subject to unpredictable changes in traffic flow and passengers wishing to get on or off arbitrarily, the progress of buses along their routes is impossible to keep to timetable beyond a couple of stops. The only thing that is fixed is the time they leave the depot. So when one stands at a bus stop at random, one certainly cannot expect the bus to turn up in half the timetabled interval. Mathematically it can be shown that an average wait will be the full five minutes if services run five
minutes apart.

With the benefit of this elementary fact, one can see a four-and-a-half minute wait for the 73 isn't bad at all if, as you report, the service is supposed to be every 3-5 minutes at peak and every 5 minutes off-peak. [Actually, all it shows is that buses do leave the depots at the right intervals. Bravo!]

Trying to get city buses to run to timetable is not only futile. It is stupid. A better measure of good service is how long your journey takes--including waiting time.

What are needed are simple measures to improve the average speed of each bus over its whole route. The simplification of bus fares is good, but could be taken further with a universal, single-coin, £1 fare. Reducing the number of bus-stops (only 100 yards apart in many places) would also reduce stopping-starting. That would not just make bus travel quicker, but would reduce wear and tear on buses and drivers, cut pollution, and reduce the
delays to the rest of London's traffic.

Yours faithfully

Guy E S Herbert