London Bus Stop Distance Analysis(michalpaszkiewicz.co.uk) |
London Bus Stop Distance Analysis(michalpaszkiewicz.co.uk) |
The distances I'm getting from the downloaded "bus-sequences.csv" (from TfL's API site) differ substantially; e.g my 53 has averages of 317m and 357m vs his 201m and 219m.
Additionally, my numbers match up with those of 'superqwert from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029476 for the 389 and 631 routes.
(I measured a bunch of stops of the 78 route with GPS earlier this week. My calculations correlated closely with the real* distances when the looseness of GPS from downstairs on a bus is taken into account.)
min: 11.176937891670061
lq: 69.77607205565486
med: 147.79705350080133
avg: 219.3995096050874
uq: 291.84606245281907
max: 1121.239174918762
I wonder where you got your csv data from exactly? I found a csv (https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/stop-sequences-e...) that is labelled "The example feeds below are not updated and for demonstration purposes only".
For my query I called the route sequence API directly:
I get the same sequence of stops from that API link that the CSV has for route 53, run 2, albeit with northing/easting location instead of lat/long.
(I'm extremely sceptical about the 11m minimum distance too - having done the entire 53 route a few times, I can't remember any stops that are basically on top of each other.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Transport_Accessibility...
On a map - https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/urban-planning-and-construction/...
It takes forever to get anywhere on a bus because it stops so frequently. I'd be really keen to get buses that dont stop until they get to major places.
E.g. you could have bus routes that only go between stations on different routes. Take Camden Town to Finsbury Park as an example - no direct rail route between them, about 2.5 miles apart by road. The 253 stops sixteen times (according to Google Maps) when going between those stations.
It amazed me how it makes one stop almost on every block (statistics seem to agree on that). Yes it becomes annoying if your route is 5k-10k (or start-to-end), but I was thinking of all the people that need to use the bus, in the middle of the night, on areas that may not be very well lit, it is MUCH safer if they have to 50m-100m than 1km.
It is just a trade-off between speed vs safety/comfort/convenience.
I am also thinking that during the day this makes the life of older people, people with mobility challenges, parents with prams, shoppers, school children so much more comfortable.
This all works extremely well in theory but is incredibly resource intensive. There've been plenty of discussions on how to speed up service by eliminating some stops — but this is complicated by Muni being a system with a dependency on transfers and by people having their own favorite pet stop. So what happens? Muni goes after lightly used lines — like the line that served Treasure Island. Of course the geniuses at Muni didn't seem to care that you can't walk/bike to Treasure Island. It's personal or public motorized transit only (or it was when they first tried to gut the 108).
The night buses in San Francisco are a godsend, and quite unique in the Bay Area, but not particularly well utilized — partly a visibility issue I'm sure. The stops are generally about as frequent but the service itself is much less frequent (once or twice an hour typically — or roughly 1/2 to 1/4 the daytime service) and there are fewer routes (a few routes run 24x7, there are bus lines that replace the rail lines stop for stop, and two or three dedicated "Owl" lines). Aside from the really infrequent schedules, the biggest challenge is that runs go missing all the fucking time because absolutely none of the street supervisors even notice when the first run or two doesn't go out. Of course once you get on a bus, if you're on an owl route… good luck figuring out where the driver is going to stop.
Meanwhile in London I remember taking the bus from Liverpool St station around 1am ages ago (the 23?). The service seemed reasonably frequent and there were plenty of stops (same as the daytime as far as I could figure). The big challenge I had was understanding the driver — I couldn't see very well out the window. I remember the bus itself seemed fairly crowded — compared to SF where the night buses really empty out as you get away from downtown / market st.
The one thing I've seen that I think would benefit SF (and to a lesser extent London or any area looking to beef up their late night service) was in New York. If you're on a bus at night the drivers are allowed to let you off anywhere along the route as long as it appears safe to do so.
To be fair, in most of central(ish) London, the bus is going to be stopping frequently anyway because of the congestion - you might as well let people get on or off.
[-0.126102, 51.502769] to [-0.126018, 51.502714]
What is happening is that the TfL sequence API is starting the bus route sequence on one side of the road of Parliament Street, before turning it around at the corner with Whitehall Place. The bus stops on either side of the road are very close together. Other maps/sequences elsewhere start the sequence at the end of Parliament Street, meaning the short distance is avoided.
[1] `.stopPointSequences | .[0] | .stopPoint | .[] | [.name, .id, (.lat|tostring), (.lon|tostring)]` in jq parlance
I guess the 389/631 routes are reasonably simple and don't need more "drawing points" than you'd get from the bus stops anyway?
[edit: added the 389 bus stops and line points to the imgur gallery]