bas management
ותיקון מספר טעויות והשלמות:
1) הניסוי החל מאמצע-סוף שנות השישים ולא שנות השבעים.
2) היו אף קווים במרכז לונדון בהם הונהג מחיר אחיד של 6 פני ישן (1/40 של ליש"ט), ובהם לא היה תשלום לנהג כלל - היו שני תורים שעברו בשתי סבסבות במקביל.
3) סיבה נוספת לבעייתיות של הסבסבות היתה המבחר המבלבל של עשרות תעריפים שונים שהיו תלוים במרחק הנסיעה ותחנת העליה. זאת בניגוד לתעריף האחיד שהוזכר לעיל, שהונהג רק בקווים בודדים. הנהג היה צריך כל פעם לעדכן את מיקומו של האוטובוס בקו, והנוסע המסכן היה צריך לנסות להבין מה התשלום הדרוש לנסיעתו. כמובן שרוב הנוסעים העדיפו כבר לשלם לנהג ושהוא ישבור את הראש עם העודף.
הפעלת האוטובוסים החד-קומתיים הייתה חלק מתהליך של ארגון מחדש של הקווים בלונדון. התהליך נחל כישלון בקרב הציבור בדומה לזה שהוחל במדינה מזרח תיכונית כ-45 שנה מאוחר יותר... על תהליך זה אפשר לקרוא בויקיפדיה:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Reshaping_Plan
bas management
At the heart of the debacle of the Reshaping Plan and the 78 Bus plan lies the inescapable fact that senior management at London Transport ranged from mediocre to bad.
London Transport lead the way in innovation in the 1930s-early 50s. The legacy can be seen today- starting with bus design [the RTs and the following RMs], the tube network, the tube schematic map, the print fonts, building stations and bus garages design.
By the mid 60s ossification was the name of the game, and the people at the top lost the capability to think boldly and originally.
If you wanted to get rid of crew operation, you had to simplify the fare structure. This lesson was learnt in Europe and abroad, and was widely acknowledged to be a pre condition to a successful one person operation.
The other was the introduction of 'season tickets' on buses- i.e. a daily/weekly/monthly/annual pass- already existing on the railways for well over 50 yrs.
When you introduce a new bus type, you need to try it in service for at least a year. This gives time to drivers, and engineers and bus manufacturers to iron out defects and to get used to it.
This is particularly important for engineering purposes- and this proved a critical factor when you tell the story of the failure of the Merlins and Daimler buses in London- a total of 2546 DMS, 838 SMS and 500 MBs buses!
What about consultation? in those days, it was 'nanny knows best'. The result is that an over reliance on some 'consultants' or 'academia types' was thought to be sufficient. The result could have been predicted!
A final issue was 'industrial relations' to use the 60s and 70s term. This stands for workers/management relations.
This was a typical example of what was known as the British disease. It was workers vs management, with a wide gap and mistrust between the two parties.
The union ruled the roster, and bus operation was designed around the work roster- not around passenger needs.
So you see how bad management and the lack of vision, and the bad industrial relationship pushed for a major cock up of a reshaping plan.
The buses were ordered before the engineers and the drivers tested a batch in service for at least a year.
This applies to the long Merlins [the MB/S class], the shorter swifts [SM/S class] and the Daimler d/d buses [DMS class].
So when the buses arrived, they were not tried and tested, had some serious design faults [the MB SM s/d] or had a fairly complicated engineering [the DMS d/d class].
The engineers could not cope, and very soon, most of those new buses broke down, or could not be fixed for long periods.
The previous generation- the crew operated RT and RM d/d family and the s/d RF OPO bus- were designed with easy engineering in mind. Every 5 years, a bus was sent for a major overall, and if there was a serious mishap, much earlier.
This kept garage maintenance to the minimum.
The new buses were not designed and built to fit this system at all.
LT were too cautious and unimaginative with the fare structure and the lack of season ticket, and the automatic fare collection machines were introduced en mass without testing them extensively first.
The late 60s to 1979 are known in the history of LT as the years of decline and bad fortunes.
The nadir was reached in Sept 2012- 30 years ago, when bus services were cut to reach an all time low of under 4300.
This was one of the many good reasons why the abolition of London Transport was good. By the early 80s, it seems to all of those who cared about buses, that LT of old was heading down a depressing spiral of declining services and cuts.
The 1985 Transport Act abolished in stages the old structure, and forced management and workers/unions to face up to the reality, and attempt radical changes.
This was precisely what was done- with the help of the minibuses.
Eventually we have TfL; today they own the network and specify routes, service levels, bus types [s/d or d/d] and are responsible for the infrastructure- bus stations, some bus garages [the ownership], bus stop, information systems, and fares.
Not everything is wonderful of course, but we now have a peak operation requirement of 7600 buses; This equals the number of buses [and trolleys] in 1952- where car ownership was unheard of.
Regards
Yoram
