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Author Topic: MetroBus  (Read 236612 times)
TonyK
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« Reply #885 on: June 28, 2019, 19:54:49 »

See what you mean of the middle of those three links, without being offensive should it be labelled, 'ANNE SUMMERS ROUNDABOUT'.

When my daughter was at school (still is, but a teacher now) and had a weekend job at the then BHS, we referred to it as the Big Stone Thingy. I used to drop her at 0800 BST.
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martyjon
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« Reply #886 on: June 28, 2019, 20:55:31 »

Am I right in guessing that outbound passengers can get on an inbound bus at Temple Meads and go round the terminal loop? It would add about 20 minutes to their journey, but might be better than lugging heavy bags back to St Mary Redcliffe.

Dunno about that but with Metrobust route m2 you can cos it only operates anticlockwise around the Central Area of the City so answers this comment below.

Quote
Looking at the final layout of this scheme, you can see that the MetroBus stop will eventually be inbound by the Grosvenor Hotel - with no outbound stop. This does, on the face of it, seem eccentric.
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TonyK
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« Reply #887 on: June 28, 2019, 21:37:24 »

Looking at the final layout of this scheme, you can see that the MetroBus stop will eventually be inbound by the Grosvenor Hotel - with no outbound stop. This does, on the face of it, seem eccentric.

The very word I have been looking for!
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« Reply #888 on: June 28, 2019, 21:45:34 »

Looking at that layout PDF just reinforces what I think about transport planning in modern Britain. That we don't half make things complicated!
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johnneyw
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« Reply #889 on: June 28, 2019, 23:28:37 »

Looking at the final layout of this scheme, you can see that the MetroBus stop will eventually be inbound by the Grosvenor Hotel - with no outbound stop. This does, on the face of it, seem eccentric.

The very word I have been looking for!


The very euphemism I was looking for! 😁
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martyjon
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« Reply #890 on: July 02, 2019, 21:15:50 »

Permanent refuelling point for Bristol gas buses opened at BCT Bedminster/Parson Street depot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-48830582?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/england&link_location=live-reporting-story
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martyjon
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« Reply #891 on: August 13, 2019, 16:24:29 »

Two more howlers from the makers of MetroBus.

Howler No 1.
Willow Brook Centre stop of the m1 outbound stop is literally in the shadow of the TESCO Extra and just a few meters to the walkway to the stores customer entrance.

Willow Brook Centre stop of the m1 inbound stop opposite side of the dual carriageway still in the shadow of the store but with a metre high crash barrier garnishing the central reservation so to cross over to access the Centre involves a 200 metre trek back to a pedestrian crossing of the dual carriageway followed by a trek of a similar distance to where one wishes to be or a 100 meter trek forwards to the next pedestrian crossing and then a 100 metre retrace to where one wishes to be.

Alright for me being, touch wood, able bodied but for those less able bodied not so good. Clueless planners again, why couldn't a single pedestrian crossing be provided forward of each and in the middle of the two MetroBus stops.

Howler No 2.
When m3 started there was a time limit on parking at the Lyde Green Park and Ride. After I made critical comment at a WECA» (West of England Combined Authority - about) meeting claiming it was putting users off who were contracted to work 12 hour shifts (One being the partner of a neighbour of mines daughter). By the use of a felt tip marker on a piece of white self adhesive vinyl tape and the figure 1 and 8 altered this from a 12 hour limit to a 18 hour limit. Now new notices have replaced the original notices prohibiting overnight parking between 12 midnight and 5 am meaning now my neighbours daughters partner cannot now park up there overnight whist he does his 8 pm - 8 am night shifts but the notice states there is an exemption for car club vehicles and the use of the electric vehicle charging points WHICH THERE ARE NONE.
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TonyK
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« Reply #892 on: August 15, 2019, 12:15:54 »

Permanent refuelling point for Bristol gas buses opened at BCT Bedminster/Parson Street depot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-48830582?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/england&link_location=live-reporting-story

From that BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) report:

Quote
The £960,000 station in Bedminster will serve the city's 22 biomethane gas-powered buses, providing fuel storage and easier refilling at the pumps.

Biomethane is a natural gas produced by breaking down organic materials such as food waste and manure.

The UK (United Kingdom)'s first "Bio-Bus" powered by sewage, as well as food waste launched in Bristol in November 2014.

Nicknamed the "poo bus", it was fuelled by biomethane gas generated at sewage treatment works in Avonmouth.

As the number of bio gas-powered buses across the country grew, these newer models now rely on food waste to meet demand.

Let us strip away the hyperbole a little. The buses are fuelled with gas drawn from the naional gas grid. A very small proportion of that is generated by Wessex Water's anerobic digester facility at Avonmouth, the only one of its sewage works where this process is finacially viable. It is then mixed with a small proportion of propane to bring its calorific value up to that of natural gas, and injected into the gas network, generating a slight premium from the government in so doing. Detail can found here.

First / MetroBust / Bristol City council / WECA» (West of England Combined Authority - about) sign a contract with Wessex and declare an end to all of our pollution problems even though the actual molecules coverted into carbon dioxide and emitted by the buses may well come from below the North Sea, an American fracking site, one of the henchmen headsmen or hangmen supplying gas from overseas, or rendered down panda cubs. I am all in favour of using waste products, especially when discharging them into the atmosphere would cause problems, as methane does, but selling us this as a road to salvation based on an accountancy trick is a bit rum, IMHO (in my humble opinion). If MetroBust didn't buy a volume of gas equivalent to what it is contracted to buy from Wessex's generation offshoot, the gas would not be discharged into the air and cause more warming of the planet, merely used by someone else but without the song and dance. First are buying a brand, just as much as they would if they had a picture of Greta Thunberg on the back of every bus.

Natural gas is certainly cleaner than diesel, although it doesn't have the same energy density. I noticed the difference during a recent MetroBust ride - the acceleration is much slower than a diesl bus and it struggled to make 50 mph on the motorway stretch. This is the trade-off for assumed cleanliness. There is a proper independent scientific study done in real conditions with real buses in Poland. The bus run on compressed natural gas emitted much lower amounts of oxides of nitrogen than did the diesel equivalent, but a lot more carbon dioxide and unburnt hydrocarbons. CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses seemingly require a lot more maintenance than diesel, don't last as long, and need heavy duty tanks, usually on the roof for safety, capable of withstanding high pressure - the fuel pump in the BBC picture shows 250 bar. It will be interesting to see what happens when one is driven under a low bridge!

So sorry, but nice idea that it is, these buses aren't so green as they're cabbage looking. Electric would be much better, preferably with steel wheels on steel rails.
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martyjon
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« Reply #893 on: August 15, 2019, 19:58:42 »

Todays Howler.

The m3 route through Lyde Green was closed earlier this week and will be so for up to 2 weeks. Today contractors moved onto the diversionary route to carry out repairs to 2 temporary speed humps and to plane and resurface 'rough' sections of the diversionary route which meant the service I was on couldn't traverse the diversionary route and had to back into a side road, return to the ring road and travel to the next entry road into this 'new town' to serve the park and ride and then do a U-turn (yes the road is wide enough to allow a double decker bus to perform such a manouver) before ending  the journey at Emersons Green.   
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #894 on: October 04, 2019, 20:06:12 »

Quote
Bus passenger journeys have dropped despite claims Bristol is 'bucking the trend'

Bristol City Council has repeatedly claimed bus passenger numbers are growing

Repeated claims by Bristol City Council that bus passenger numbers are growing have been undermined by a recent drop in public transport journeys in the city.

Local authorities around the country are attempting to encourage more people to catch buses to tackle pollution and traffic congestion , but most are seeing numbers fall.

Bristol cabinet member for transport, Kye Dudd, said as recently as Tuesday (October 1) that Bristol was “bucking the trend” with its bus passenger numbers.

But half a million fewer bus journeys were made in the city in the three months to the end of June, compared with the same period the year before, according to the latest figures.

Councillors charged with scrutinising the council’s performance expressed concern at the downturn revealed in a quarterly progress report last week.

[...]

Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Wright repeated a request to see separate figures for metrobus, but was told it would be “problematic” because some of the data was “commercial”.

In reply, Cllr Wright said: “Bearing in mind that taxpayers spent £200million on this, I don’t think it’s even plausibly okay that the bus operators can then say ‘oh we’re not going to tell you how many people are on it’.

“We have got to know whether that £200million was well spent or not.
 
“It seems implausible to me that they’re not simply mandated as part of the fact that they’re using our roads to run on and our bus-guided sections to go through that they can’t just cough up the figures.”



Source: Bristol Post
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johnneyw
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« Reply #895 on: October 04, 2019, 23:06:54 »

Yet strangely enough, these figures seemed to be easily produced when the Metrobust people wanted to claim early success.  Huh
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TonyK
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« Reply #896 on: October 04, 2019, 23:07:27 »

So it's come to this. I might remind Cllr Wright that the admitted figure is £230 million, although chucking in the other things done at the same time to facilitate MetroBust probably make it up to the quarter-billion pound mark. This was, remember, the great turning point, the giant leap forward in public transport, far better than any light rail system, with its fixed routes...

There is some spin doctoring straight from the Comical Ali class in the rest of that report. "But a council officer said "the overall trend has been very positive”." "Strategic intelligence and performance advisor, Kate Cole, replied: “I think this early in the year, perhaps you’re worrying too much."" And "A document describing the council’s so-called “bus deal”, which was approved by cabinet on Tuesday (October 1), says “metrobus, which has carried more than three million passengers since launch” is among the interventions that is “increasing bus use in Bristol”."

Of course, the M3 only started in May 2018, and the other two services months later, but all three were up and running properly by the time these figures were measured, and that measure was against what will soon be known as "heritage" services. So if MetroBust carries 3 million passengers annually - unverifiable because the council wants to keep the figures secret - does that mean that the other services are losing 5 million pax yearly?

The park and ride routes have not prospered. The M2 from Long Ashton has lost custom since first opening. Whether that is a reaction to the one-way route taking so long compared to the previous service, or the shifting of the bus top even further from Temple Meads, or that three supposedly complementary services doesn't fit what is needed, I don't know, but it's a far cry from the 20,000 extra passengers per day forecast in the days before the Planning Inquiry.
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martyjon
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« Reply #897 on: November 04, 2019, 20:31:08 »

For forum members interested in first glimpses of the first new CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) gas powered bus, complete with trade plates, for the Bristol Metrobus m3 route see the links below ;-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/122507681@N02/48997303843/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/122507681@N02/48997857846/
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« Reply #898 on: November 05, 2019, 07:36:50 »

That nearside mirror isn't going to last very long, despite having two supports..........  Huh
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #899 on: November 05, 2019, 09:27:21 »

That nearside mirror isn't going to last very long, despite having two supports..........  Huh

Last time I got off a bus I brained myself on a mirror like that. As I staggered away holding my poor beleaguered bonce, the driver stormed out of his cab swearing at me furiously for  knocking it out of adjustment...
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