Our broadband went down about 1 hour ago.

[Polar Bear]

... and is not going to be back on until the early hours of the morning.

That's our Friday night ZoomPub screwed.  4g is soooooooo slow ...

[Polar Bear]

And on the subject of over-reliance on tech: we were in North Wales earlier this week.  The rural bus stop near Bodnant Gardens only has a qr code.  Unfortunately there is no 2g/3g/4g/5g signal there.

I wonder if anybody ever thinks about these things ... 🤔

[Kim]

I'm always a bit surprised when you can get a decent connection in Wales.

[Polar Bear]

All the more reasonable to question the lunacy of QR codes 8nstead of proper timetables.  Clearly it is a "cost saving" measure.

[Polar Bear]

Our home broadband returned sometime during the small hours.  Many thanks to the folks who got out there on what was quite a chilly night here to fix the local incident.

[Kim]

All the more reasonable to question the lunacy of QR codes 8nstead of proper timetables.  Clearly it is a "cost saving" measure.

The advantages of an electronic timetable are obvious: It can be updated frequently and at short notice, can be accessed from anywhere, rather than by standing at the bus stop, should be readable by people who can't read small text and it won't usually get vandalised.

But that doesn't work if you don't have a suitable device and connectivity.  Ideally you need both.  Especially at remote rural locations.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A scrolling display would be especially useful in rural locations for those reasons, but I've only seen them in towns.

[Kim]

Can't have a scrolling display without power^[1] and connectivity, though.  If there's no cellular signal, that means persuading our-favourite-telco to install a line, which may be prohibitively expensive.


_{[1] Could reasonably be solar, I suppose.}

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Solar panel on a bus shelter roof powers a display and a phone cell. Two wins instead of none.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Bus stops are inherently near houses or some other form of building. It's very rare to have one truly in the middle of nowhere. So it might be a few hundred metres of phone line rather than kilometres. That might still be too expensive, I guess, for a marginal gain, and certainly less useful than a cell.

[Polar Bear]

Nowt wrong with a good old fashioned paper timetable.  Given that a bus visits regularly it isn't exactly difficult to send somebody along to update the displayed timetables at all stops when they update timetables.

As for centralised web-based timetables:  Stagecoach appear to have the monopoly around here but their website and app often are either not up-to-date or simply don't work.  If they insist on tech then make the crock of sh!te work and be correct.  Nothing worse than wrong information in this scenario.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The problem is when a bus doesn't visit regularly or when a service is cut drastically. The other advantage of an at-stop display and sometimes of apps is that they can give you live info: "the bus is currently running 5 minutes late".

[Kim]

Nowt wrong with a good old fashioned paper timetable.

Apart from the reasons I gave above.

As for centralised web-based timetables:  Stagecoach appear to have the monopoly around here but their website and app often are either not up-to-date or simply don't work.  If they insist on tech then make the crock of sh!te work and be correct.  Nothing worse than wrong information in this scenario.

This has nothing to do with the technology, though.  It's just Stagecoach being shit.  They could be equally shit about getting new timetables printed (shocking news: printed timetables are also technology), they do seem very good at being shit at things.

[nuttycyclist]

I wasted an hour of my life waiting for a bus once.   The digital display board said it was on route, the timetable on display said there should be a bus every ten minutes.  Situation was resolved by a passer by telling me the bus route had changed and where I should go to get another one.      I was only getting the bus as my daughter wanted to ride one.

I was in central London, so well out in the sticks.

[Kim]

Yeah, the problem with digital display boards is that you assume they're linked to some sort of bus-tracking system, because that would be sensible.  However, this is BRITIAN, and they mostly just play back the bus timetable in real time.  Sure, it's a readability and vandalism win, (and means you don't need to provide your own time source) but it's a misleading way to use them.

[ian]

The ones in London were always, as far as I know, live trackers. They're still about on some stops, though I think pretty much everyone uses their phone these days. I don't know how people used buses before you could check the precise departure time. That said, we live near the start of the route, so when it says two minutes that might be a long two minutes before the bus wakes up and actually moves.

[quixoticgeek]

The ones that annoy me are where rather than giving a time when it will arrive, it just says 3min. Except it's been saying 3min for the last 15 mins. Does this mean the bus/tram is stuck 3mins away, or is the sign broken and nothing's coming? I do wonder if the people who design bus stops have ever actually used a bus.

J

[Mr Larrington]

In this part of London Town Devine our bus methodology is:

• Go to the bus stop
• Wait
• Get all excited when you spot something red in the distance
• Experience crushing disappointment when you realise it’s not moving, because it’s a post box
• Wonder what’s happened to the four buses that have gone the other way while you've been waiting given that the route terminates at the top of Larrington Towers Road.  Is there a wormhole in space-time that transports them back to Hackney Town Hall?
• Rinse
• Repeat

No new-fangled displays, QR codes or [“SCIENCE'S Telegraphic Marvel” – Ed.] here.

[PaulF]

The stagecoach signs are fairly accurate here except at the start of the route where they appear to show the timetabled arrival time rather than the expected. Likewise their app seems fairly reliable.

[Polar Bear]

Nowt wrong with a good old fashioned paper timetable.

Apart from the reasons I gave above.

As for centralised web-based timetables:  Stagecoach appear to have the monopoly around here but their website and app often are either not up-to-date or simply don't work.  If they insist on tech then make the crock of sh!te work and be correct.  Nothing worse than wrong information in this scenario.

This has nothing to do with the technology, though.  It's just Stagecoach being shit.  They could be equally shit about getting new timetables printed (shocking news: printed timetables are also technology), they do seem very good at being shit at things.

I don't disagree Kim.  Any solution is only as good as it's implementation and accessibility.

If you can't actually access it or if you do it doesn't relfect reality then it isn't a viable solution whether it's a QR code or timetable printed on paper, a website in which the information provided is simply wrong, or anything in between.

I have stood at a rural bus stop many a time and the expected bus has not shown in spite of the timetable.  Problem is, there is no reliable way of knowing if the bus would ever arrive.

[ian]

In this part of London Town Devine our bus methodology is:

• Go to the bus stop
• Wait
• Get all excited when you spot something red in the distance
• Experience crushing disappointment when you realise it’s not moving, because it’s a post box
• Wonder what’s happened to the four buses that have gone the other way while you've been waiting given that the route terminates at the top of Larrington Towers Road.  Is there a wormhole in space-time that transports them back to Hackney Town Hall?
• Rinse
• Repeat

No new-fangled displays, QR codes or [“SCIENCE'S Telegraphic Marvel” – Ed.] here.

Just get an app or use the TfL countdown web site. Mine pings me 1 min before the bus arrives at the bus stop conveniently outside the pub.

[Afasoas]

Local authorities etc.. seemed to have developed a recent obsession with QR codes.

QR codes are fine for their original intended purpose, but encouraging members of the public to use them as a means of opening website links is an inherently bad idea. It is trivial to produce official looking stickers/signs/leaflets with dodgy QR codes on them. Ideal for phishing etc..

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've certainly seen the displays update in a way that suggests it must be live tracking, with the expected arrival time changing much in the way of Microsoft seconds when you're downloading something.

But any timetable is moot when it's rural Britain and the next bus to Bigtown is Tuesday morning, with the return on Thursday.

[Kim]

But any timetable is moot when it's rural Britain and the next bus to Bigtown is Tuesday morning, with the return on Thursday.

This.

[grams]

London buses all have real time tracking. Unfortunately my local stop is just after the point where they often hang around to change drivers, so being stuck in “2 minutes away” purgatory is the norm.

London bus stops did have departure boards years before proper live tracking. These were utter shite.

Re: rural stops. Is it just your network or have you checked there’s no signal on any network? What’s the threshold for providing a paper timetable?