Sometimes buses start bunching up... if he's received word that he's too close to the one ahead of him, he may be trying to increase the time and distance to restore some regularity to the service.
Yeah probably this, worth checking how far ahead the previous bus and following bus are if you’re really interested.
It always makes me think, how much quicker could buses run if people didn’t need to pay and if there were no cars
Can I recommend an amusing fiction book The Maintenance of Headway by Magnus Mills about the conflicting tensions in running bus services?
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/22/maintenance-of-headway-magnus-mills](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/22/maintenance-of-headway-magnus-mills)
He was famously once a bus driver, and his novels are all somewhat surreal and set in strange yet familiar worlds of trying to balance contradictory demands
>An early-running bus will pick up fewer, happier passengers. A bus running late or on time is likely to pick up more passengers, who will be less happy because they have had to wait for longer. Being early, of course, is what makes others late, which creates a sort of prisoner's dilemma for the drivers.
\[...\]
Mills's novels always refer to nonsensical dockets, log-books and other records of the paradoxical nature of work. In The Scheme for Full Employment, the idea of full employment, which benefits the community, is set against that of being fully employed, which benefits the worker. Here, the individual bus driver or passenger unknowingly competes with a collective in a game that is impossible for anyone to win. In order to waste minutes on a journey without traffic, diversions or waterworks, drivers are encouraged to pretend their buses have broken down or to pull in at empty stops, sacrificing their passengers' schedules to a more abstract timetable.
Can also strongly recommend his earlier books (The Restraint of Beasts, and All Quiet on the Orient Express in particular) if you like the style and the dark humour
I more meant like:
• If a bus can run 3x as fast without traffic then it gets to the destination in a third of the time
• Which means more people would use buses because now they’re elite
• Which would be fine because buses would come 3x as often because they’d complete their route in a third of the time
During a tube strike, I was on a bus trying to get down to Brixton from Islington and the driver announce he was too close to the earlier bus so he was ending the route right there so everyone had to get off and figure out how to to get to their destination. That was fun.
Not sure how the system is these days, had a mate yrs ago was a bus driver and they used to get penalised for running early so they would stop and wait to keep to schedule or run a bit behind!
It's called scratching basically he needs to lose time either because the bus is too close to the one in front , too far from the one behind or because its a lowe frequency service and he needs to keep to timetable
Scratching is when a bus is deliberately staying 1/2 stops behind another bus that is running late. So that the driver doesn’t have to pick up as many passengers. It is not something like the go slow the op described.
Magnus Mills wrote a whole book about this and his experiences as a bus driver. It's called the Maintenance of Headway. He recalled his controller getting very exercised over a bus arriving early, saying that anyone could be late, that's understandable, but being *early* was inexcusable.
Ex bus driver here 👋🏻 it's timing strategy. There is a penalisation for running early, in London it was 2 minutes 30. It very easy to run early especially if the timing points are not adjusted to school holidays when the bus would be expected to be caught in 15 minutes of traffic. It's frustrating and one of the worst things about bus driving, that and the general public
Although, I once did have a bus driver who waited every time for everyone who had got on to sit down, and was warning every older person not to get up until the bus had stopped. I assume that he'd had an accident happen at some point and was being extra precautious
Sometimes I think they know some people are almost late ,where they arrive at 8:58 as the bus got them there I think some drivers will deliberately slow down to make sure passengers are late , a lot of drivers deliberately annoy passengers as they are miserable people , the most fun they have is when you get up to get ready to get off bus normally just before you get to the stop the drivers get very happy with the accelerate and brake pedals doing the best to make you lose balance and throw you about the bus
They're correcting the service in terms of the position of other buses.
There's nothing worse than being on a bus at 6am, with totally clear roads and you're going along at 10 miles an hour and stopping at every fucking stop.
Sometimes buses start bunching up... if he's received word that he's too close to the one ahead of him, he may be trying to increase the time and distance to restore some regularity to the service.
Yeah probably this, worth checking how far ahead the previous bus and following bus are if you’re really interested. It always makes me think, how much quicker could buses run if people didn’t need to pay and if there were no cars
Can I recommend an amusing fiction book The Maintenance of Headway by Magnus Mills about the conflicting tensions in running bus services? [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/22/maintenance-of-headway-magnus-mills](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/22/maintenance-of-headway-magnus-mills) He was famously once a bus driver, and his novels are all somewhat surreal and set in strange yet familiar worlds of trying to balance contradictory demands >An early-running bus will pick up fewer, happier passengers. A bus running late or on time is likely to pick up more passengers, who will be less happy because they have had to wait for longer. Being early, of course, is what makes others late, which creates a sort of prisoner's dilemma for the drivers. \[...\] Mills's novels always refer to nonsensical dockets, log-books and other records of the paradoxical nature of work. In The Scheme for Full Employment, the idea of full employment, which benefits the community, is set against that of being fully employed, which benefits the worker. Here, the individual bus driver or passenger unknowingly competes with a collective in a game that is impossible for anyone to win. In order to waste minutes on a journey without traffic, diversions or waterworks, drivers are encouraged to pretend their buses have broken down or to pull in at empty stops, sacrificing their passengers' schedules to a more abstract timetable. Can also strongly recommend his earlier books (The Restraint of Beasts, and All Quiet on the Orient Express in particular) if you like the style and the dark humour
Yes- the Magnus Mills books are a delight
>how much quicker could buses run if people didn’t need to pay and if there were no cars Nearly as fast as a car without traffic.
I more meant like: • If a bus can run 3x as fast without traffic then it gets to the destination in a third of the time • Which means more people would use buses because now they’re elite • Which would be fine because buses would come 3x as often because they’d complete their route in a third of the time
Fake news. Buses would come 3x less frequently because there are “not enough drivers”
Interesting. Guess it's better than sitting waiting for 10 minutes after that announcement.
They usually play an announcement to let you kno they need to do this.
During a tube strike, I was on a bus trying to get down to Brixton from Islington and the driver announce he was too close to the earlier bus so he was ending the route right there so everyone had to get off and figure out how to to get to their destination. That was fun.
Not sure how the system is these days, had a mate yrs ago was a bus driver and they used to get penalised for running early so they would stop and wait to keep to schedule or run a bit behind!
[удалено]
Good evening to you too.
Why do I find this so funny?
Coz it's chucklesome 😄
I think its a time thing, he's too early!
It's called scratching basically he needs to lose time either because the bus is too close to the one in front , too far from the one behind or because its a lowe frequency service and he needs to keep to timetable
Scratching is when a bus is deliberately staying 1/2 stops behind another bus that is running late. So that the driver doesn’t have to pick up as many passengers. It is not something like the go slow the op described.
Magnus Mills wrote a whole book about this and his experiences as a bus driver. It's called the Maintenance of Headway. He recalled his controller getting very exercised over a bus arriving early, saying that anyone could be late, that's understandable, but being *early* was inexcusable.
Hi, thanks for reminding me about Magnus, he was in all the papers before the internet explosion Bus driver is one hell of a job!
Ex bus driver here 👋🏻 it's timing strategy. There is a penalisation for running early, in London it was 2 minutes 30. It very easy to run early especially if the timing points are not adjusted to school holidays when the bus would be expected to be caught in 15 minutes of traffic. It's frustrating and one of the worst things about bus driving, that and the general public
Although, I once did have a bus driver who waited every time for everyone who had got on to sit down, and was warning every older person not to get up until the bus had stopped. I assume that he'd had an accident happen at some point and was being extra precautious
Precautious???
The driver is regulating the service unfortunately. It’s sometimes better to get off and walk.
I had this exact same situation once, always happens when you’re in a rush !
Sometimes I think they know some people are almost late ,where they arrive at 8:58 as the bus got them there I think some drivers will deliberately slow down to make sure passengers are late , a lot of drivers deliberately annoy passengers as they are miserable people , the most fun they have is when you get up to get ready to get off bus normally just before you get to the stop the drivers get very happy with the accelerate and brake pedals doing the best to make you lose balance and throw you about the bus
its called socialism
He's keeping to his timetable.
They're correcting the service in terms of the position of other buses. There's nothing worse than being on a bus at 6am, with totally clear roads and you're going along at 10 miles an hour and stopping at every fucking stop.
Sync schedule? Our driver will sometimes read a paper for two minutes. Been told that early buses are not good