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I understand some routes should change as you zoom, but this seems much more random For example; I might see 5 routes zoomed in, but I zoom out one level and they all disappear completely?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly what I thought. Its also a long way short of what you need to plan a journey that involves changing buses. Where I live it looks like I could do a lot by bus looking at just the routes, but they are infrequent and unreliable so I usually have to drive everywhere.
Unreliable? Seriously? (I’m not from the UK, it sounds surprising.)
Even if the routes are there, it's not uncommon for the actual busses to bare little resemblance to the published timetable.
In some places you'll get fancy live information screens which happily announce the arrival of a bus that doesn't exist, or more frequently, to simply state that the information isn't available, please check the paper boards.
Bus routes tend to be especially bad in rural towns and villages, but even in my fairly reasonably large town, it's quicker and more convenient for me to walk the 1.3 miles to the train station than try to get a bus.
If I plug in "bus" on google maps planner, it has me walk 20 minutes to a bus stop to sit on a bus for 7 minutes, versus a ~25 minute walk.
Alternatively, I could walk 5 minutes to a nearer stop, wait 30 minutes for the next bus, which itself then takes 26 minutes to get to the bus station, which is itself a 3-4 minute walk from the bus station to the train station itself.
And that's assuming the bus is on time running to schedule, and doesn't then hit traffic.
I'd also be paying £3 one-way for this privilege.
Once you're inside the TFL zone everything changes and busses are frequent, generally reliable, and cheaper.
Getting strange issues whereby routes appear and disappear as I zoom out? I understand some routes should change as you zoom, but this seems much more random For example; I might see 5 routes zoomed in, but I zoom out one level and they all disappear completely?
Some of things it shows for Manchester are not buses (i.e. metrolink). Where does the data come from? Edit: also Flixbus or National Express are arguably not a bus services either
I think a good improvement to this tool would be an optional “number of connections” plus desired maximum walking distance. That’d be really useful for your average OAP trying to find a rough plan for a long distance journey by bus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unreliable? Seriously? (I’m not from the UK, it sounds surprising.)
Outside of London, Manchester, Nottingham and a few selected other places, busses in England tend to be fairly dire, especially as you get out to smaller towns and villages. Even if the routes are there, it's not uncommon for the actual busses to bare little resemblance to the published timetable. In some places you'll get fancy live information screens which happily announce the arrival of a bus that doesn't exist,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unreliable? Seriously? (I’m not from the UK, it sounds surprising.)
Outside of London, Manchester, Nottingham and a few selected other places, busses in England tend to be fairly dire, especially as you get out to smaller towns and villages. Even if the routes are there, it's not uncommon for the actual busses to bare little resemblance to the published timetable. In some places you'll get fancy live information screens which happily announce the arrival of a bus that doesn't exist,…
I've been to the Balkans, Central Asia, and rural Mexico for extended periods and they're all better than that (even if they might lack fancy digital screens, which is rapidly changing also).
Wtf, UK?