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Post by tinrocket on Jun 5, 2013 17:42:39 GMT 1
I thought this was quite interesting - the longest urban bus route in Europe has moved from being the no 11 in Birmingham to the 360 in Coventry. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-22765280Couldn't help wondering though - what defines an urban bus route? Presumably this excludes long distance stopping services such as Yorkshire Coastliner, Transpeak and Arriva's Newcastle to Berwick buses. I'd be interested to see a top 10.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Jun 5, 2013 17:59:04 GMT 1
I suppose urban would constitute as a route that ran entirely within a built up area.
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Steve Macz403
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Post by Steve Macz403 on Jun 5, 2013 22:10:38 GMT 1
In the past London bus 12 would have made that record Harlesden - South Croydon now runs Oxford circus -Dulwich. Really now what forms 266,parts of overlapping 148 and 390. From Harlesden to Oxford circus. Then 197 and 312 to the South from Dulwich to South Croydon.
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77syk7
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Post by 77syk7 on Jun 6, 2013 9:30:33 GMT 1
There is a list of longest bus routes in England on the net - with such routes as the X53 Jurassic Coastliner, X1 Lowestoft - Peterborough featuring etc
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Post by timelesstable on Jun 12, 2013 11:33:32 GMT 1
Running full-pelt for a bus in the Coventry rush hour, bouncing my camera bag on my hip, I feel like a pioneer, of sorts. I am one of the first people to ride all 31.5 miles (50km) of the new 'longest continuous urban bus route in Europe'. For two and a half hours, at a cost of £1.80, the new 360 City Circle is my window on the world and strangers, going about their business, are my companions. Not me I hasten to add, some BBC reporter www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-22842990
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Post by sconehead85 on Jun 14, 2013 0:39:02 GMT 1
Sorry Centro but this claim is spurious as stopping bus routes are limited to 50km. Furthermore the route consists of two circulars 360A and 360C which are technically equivalent to two 15.5 km single journeys.
A former Merseybus, later Glenvale service 217 ran from Halewood-Kirkby-Liverpool, an inverted V shaped route, which cant be far from the 50km length of route. It took two hours to do the complete route but it was NOT a circular so it had to return the way it came.
Routes of this length fall hostage to traffic conditions and congestion on one section of route can affect service further down the line, as was the case with the 217 and the London routes which have had to be split.
sconehead85
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Post by dwarfer1979 on Jun 14, 2013 8:33:32 GMT 1
Sorry Centro but this claim is spurious as stopping bus routes are limited to 50km. Furthermore the route consists of two circulars 360A and 360C which are technically equivalent to two 15.5 km single journeys. A former Merseybus, later Glenvale service 217 ran from Halewood-Kirkby-Liverpool, an inverted V shaped route, which cant be far from the 50km length of route. It took two hours to do the complete route but it was NOT a circular so it had to return the way it came. Routes of this length fall hostage to traffic conditions and congestion on one section of route can affect service further down the line, as was the case with the 217 and the London routes which have had to be split. sconehead85 There is no limit to the length of a stopping service, only that any service over 50km has to be operated under EU rules with tachos but just because it is operated under EU rules doesn't stop it being a bus service. There is no legal definition of a stopping service & the only legal definition of a local bus service is that bus stops may be no more than 15-miles apart (in a straight line), the TC prefer timing points no more than 15-mins apart but that is not a legal requirement and if there are no stops or suitable stops that can be waived. Essentially if a service stops at all bus stops on the route then it is a stopping service regardless of length or anything else. Also Centro are claiming that each circuit is 31.5 miles long in each direction (so both the 360A & 360C are 31.5 miles long not the two added together) and I believe the figure as it is plausible for an outer circle of a urban area like Coventry. The problem is that the 11A/C in Birmingham wasn't (and hasn't been for some time) the longest urban bus route in Europe before this since, just as an example not a claim of greatness, the 40 (Outer Circle) in Leicester is just over 30 miles (just under the 50kms) and has been running in a similar form since early July 2003, just that no one in Leicester considered that worth making a fuss over. I suspect there are a few other urban routes like this over 26 miles that could have claimed the record but no one has connected (or bothered to check) the claim from Birmingham against what they were operating, I know I didn't. I had assumed that the 11A/C was longer than 26 miles (which seems short given what it is going around) and haven't actually checked the mileage of our Leicester Outer Circle in miles before to compare it (we work in kms and the claim is generally made in miles) to work out that the Birmingham claim was not as major as claimed.
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Post by driver6540 on Jun 14, 2013 18:26:42 GMT 1
Whatabout services operating in our area?. Which is the longest "stopping" service in these parts. Contenders could be First's 184 Huddersfield - Manchester Piccadilly, which is about 26mls. I seem to recall a Leeds - Skipton service?, (was this a "stopper"). I can remember a few years back, Arriva ran a service from Leeds - Holmfirth, which i believe was cutback to Wakefield because it breached EU rules with regards to it being operated by non-tacho fitted buses. co-incidently the same Holmfirth - Wakefield service still operates today by HBC. I should imagine that service would be approaching the 20 mile mark. First's X6 Leeds - Huddersfield will be approaching the 20 mile mark, i would have thought. Can anybody think of other stopping services round here at or beyond 20 miles?.
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Post by Arriva Wakefield on Jun 14, 2013 18:40:17 GMT 1
Whatabout services operating in our area?. Which is the longest "stopping" service in these parts. Contenders could be First's 184 Huddersfield - Manchester Piccadilly, which is about 26mls. I seem to recall a Leeds - Skipton service?, (was this a "stopper"). I can remember a few years back, Arriva ran a service from Leeds - Holmfirth, which i believe was cutback to Wakefield because it breached EU rules with regards to it being operated by non-tacho fitted buses. co-incidently the same Holmfirth - Wakefield service still operates today by HBC. I should imagine that service would be approaching the 20 mile mark. First's X6 Leeds - Huddersfield will be approaching the 20 mile mark, i would have thought. Can anybody think of other stopping services round here at or beyond 20 miles?. Arriva 173/174/174 - all these are 30+ miles route length end to end, but don't cone under tacho because of the double runs en route.
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77syk7
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Post by 77syk7 on Jun 14, 2013 20:52:42 GMT 1
Some interesting facts here - but could you just explain for the benefit of more than myself, what a 'double-run' is?
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Matty
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Post by Matty on Jun 17, 2013 22:22:31 GMT 1
Doubling back on themselves where they have just been is it?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2013 17:42:39 GMT 1
Arriva ran a service from Leeds - Holmfirth, which i believe was cutback to Wakefield because it breached EU rules with regards to it being operated by non-tacho fitted buses.. few more old contender would of been the old X32/3 Bradford/Leeds - Wakefield - Sheffield & 443-446 Leeds - Wakefield - Barnsley Services.How many miles would the old 601/602 Bradford City Circle covered - im guessing it would of been about 15 miles or so?
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Post by FIYHANunDer on Jun 18, 2013 18:01:49 GMT 1
How about Stagecoach's X62, Hull - Leeds or does it not count being as express service? Or many National Express services as I know the 060 has named stops along the route, such as George Street and a few on the Manc side of pennines.
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Post by humberside on Jun 18, 2013 18:56:09 GMT 1
The X62 is a 'normal stopping' service registered as three separate sections (Hull-Goole, Goole-Castleford, Castleford-Leeds)
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Steve Macz403
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Post by Steve Macz403 on Jun 21, 2013 6:54:57 GMT 1
How about Stagecoach's X62, Hull - Leeds or does it not count being as express service? Or many National Express services as I know the 060 has named stops along the route, such as George Street and a few on the Manc side of pennines. I would say both the x62 had to be counted as an express service. First stop from Leeds is junction 32, then Goole. Even as a bus, Now it runs into Leeds coach station. The 060, has more than 15 miles apart on m62 between leeds - Chadderton. and Salford -liverpool edge lane. despite it being a coach service. It serves outskirt areas for people needing to get off/on at Chadderton and new moston from Leeds, or to Liverpool.
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Steve Macz403
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Post by Steve Macz403 on Jun 21, 2013 6:56:18 GMT 1
How about Stagecoach's X62, Hull - Leeds or does it not count being as express service? Or many National Express services as I know the 060 has named stops along the route, such as George Street and a few on the Manc side of pennines. Interesting I would have thought that the x62 was an express service. First stop from Leeds is junction 32, then Goole. Even as a bus, Now it runs into Leeds coach station. The 060, has more than 15 miles apart on m62 between leeds - Chadderton. and Salford -liverpool edge lane. despite it being a coach service. It serves outskirt areas for people needing to get off/on at Chadderton and new moston from Leeds, or to Liverpool.
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Post by dwarfer1979 on Jun 21, 2013 8:20:10 GMT 1
How about Stagecoach's X62, Hull - Leeds or does it not count being as express service? Or many National Express services as I know the 060 has named stops along the route, such as George Street and a few on the Manc side of pennines. Interesting I would have thought that the x62 was an express service. First stop from Leeds is junction 32, then Goole. Even as a bus, Now it runs into Leeds coach station. The 060, has more than 15 miles apart on m62 between leeds - Chadderton. and Salford -liverpool edge lane. despite it being a coach service. It serves outskirt areas for people needing to get off/on at Chadderton and new moston from Leeds, or to Liverpool. It depends on what criteria you are using, as a passenger you are probably right on the consideration of express and stopping but there are only 2 legal definitions of types of bus services - Local Bus Service if it is registered with the TC (as the X62 is and would be regardless of whether it was split or not) and Long-Distance Express Service which isn't. Local Bus Services can be registered as limited stop but that doesn't change how the route is treated and may refer to only a limited section where not all bus stops are served (or are served as pick up or drop off only) such as in a specific urban area to reduce the amount of local traffic carried to speed up the journey. Local Bus Services can claim BSOG, Express services can't. Local Bus Services must allow passengers to board and alight within 15 miles (straight line). There is no length limit for a local bus service, just that anything over 50kms needs to be operated under EU hours rather than domestic (and it is total length the vehicle covers of the longest journey on the route that counts, so double runs, loops or anything else count as to whether a route is over 50km). Of course we have wandered away from the original claim which was for urban bus routes, none of the ones listed so far are urban, they are all interurban routes. There are still a number of long interurban bus routes that are up at the 70-80km or more in length, despite the number that have been split to get around EU rules. X1 (Lowestoft - Peterborough) is one of the longest and I have seen claims for a couple of routes in Scotland that are pretty long.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2013 21:05:31 GMT 1
(as an aside) how would Leeds' Ring Road service 8 or 9 match up, it took about 2 hours to go round.
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77syk7
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Post by 77syk7 on Jun 21, 2013 21:14:27 GMT 1
I reckon the original 8 and 9 were about 30 miles long - however, there were parts which were distinctly non-urban (Ring Road after Adel to Seacroft & down the lanes to Swillington from Colton)
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Post by westyorkshirebus on Jun 21, 2013 22:09:15 GMT 1
Arriva ran a service from Leeds - Holmfirth, which i believe was cutback to Wakefield because it breached EU rules with regards to it being operated by non-tacho fitted buses.. few more old contender would of been the old X32/3 Bradford/Leeds - Wakefield - Sheffield & 443-446 Leeds - Wakefield - Barnsley Services.How many miles would the old 601/602 Bradford City Circle covered - im guessing it would of been about 15 miles or so? The old Bradford city circle wasn't a very wide circle, you can touch it from the city centre in 5 mins in good traffic, therefore it probably isn't that good a contender.
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Post by FIYHANunDer on Jun 21, 2013 22:24:19 GMT 1
How about Stagecoach's X62, Hull - Leeds or does it not count being as express service? Or many National Express services as I know the 060 has named stops along the route, such as George Street and a few on the Manc side of pennines. Interesting I would have thought that the x62 was an express service. First stop from Leeds is junction 32, then Goole. Even as a bus, Now it runs into Leeds coach station. The 060, has more than 15 miles apart on m62 between leeds - Chadderton. and Salford -liverpool edge lane. despite it being a coach service. It serves outskirt areas for people needing to get off/on at Chadderton and new moston from Leeds, or to Liverpool. So how about the National Express 381 which has named stops at Leeds, Bradford, Oldham and Manchester, onwards to Chester..
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Post by FIYHANunDer on Jun 21, 2013 22:25:38 GMT 1
Interesting I would have thought that the x62 was an express service. First stop from Leeds is junction 32, then Goole. Even as a bus, Now it runs into Leeds coach station. The 060, has more than 15 miles apart on m62 between leeds - Chadderton. and Salford -liverpool edge lane. despite it being a coach service. It serves outskirt areas for people needing to get off/on at Chadderton and new moston from Leeds, or to Liverpool. It depends on what criteria you are using, as a passenger you are probably right on the consideration of express and stopping but there are only 2 legal definitions of types of bus services - Local Bus Service if it is registered with the TC (as the X62 is and would be regardless of whether it was split or not) and Long-Distance Express Service which isn't. Local Bus Services can be registered as limited stop but that doesn't change how the route is treated and may refer to only a limited section where not all bus stops are served (or are served as pick up or drop off only) such as in a specific urban area to reduce the amount of local traffic carried to speed up the journey. Local Bus Services can claim BSOG, Express services can't. Local Bus Services must allow passengers to board and alight within 15 miles (straight line). There is no length limit for a local bus service, just that anything over 50kms needs to be operated under EU hours rather than domestic (and it is total length the vehicle covers of the longest journey on the route that counts, so double runs, loops or anything else count as to whether a route is over 50km). Of course we have wandered away from the original claim which was for urban bus routes, none of the ones listed so far are urban, they are all interurban routes. There are still a number of long interurban bus routes that are up at the 70-80km or more in length, despite the number that have been split to get around EU rules. X1 (Lowestoft - Peterborough) is one of the longest and I have seen claims for a couple of routes in Scotland that are pretty long. You obviously work in some capacity for Centrebus, how do the TransPeak services rate in this?
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Jun 22, 2013 5:06:51 GMT 1
Sorry Centro but this claim is spurious as stopping bus routes are limited to 50km. Furthermore the route consists of two circulars 360A and 360C which are technically equivalent to two 15.5 km single journeys. A former Merseybus, later Glenvale service 217 ran from Halewood-Kirkby-Liverpool, an inverted V shaped route, which cant be far from the 50km length of route. It took two hours to do the complete route but it was NOT a circular so it had to return the way it came. Routes of this length fall hostage to traffic conditions and congestion on one section of route can affect service further down the line, as was the case with the 217 and the London routes which have had to be split.
sconehead85 The longest London bus route I remember was the Sunday-only route 59, from West Hampstead to Old Coulsdon, withdrawn in 1978.
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Post by Craig on Jun 22, 2013 17:11:11 GMT 1
Don't think anyone's mentioned the X84 (Leeds-Skipton) which must be pretty close to 30 miles.
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Post by dwarfer1979 on Jun 24, 2013 8:11:13 GMT 1
You obviously work in some capacity for Centrebus, how do the TransPeak services rate in this? Yes, I am the scheduler for Centrebus. Transpeak is 63.5 miles long but split into 3 sections each under 30 miles so is certainly no longer in the running for longest route, the section to Nottingham added about 19 miles before it was withdrawn.
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