New observations were made of the times buses spend at stops, in order to update previous TRRL studies in the early 1970's. The observations were made mainly in London, where most types of bus commonly found in Great Britain are operated; however since no small minibuses are currently in use on London bus services, observations were also made on minibuses in Exeter. As before, it was found that stop times could be expressed as linear functions of numbers of passengers boarding and alighting, with coefficients varying between different bus types, and fare collection systems. These results allow comparison of the performances of different types of buses on particular routes. Stop times in London would be significantly London would be significantly greater if the majority of passengers, who now use various forms of concessionary or pre-payment passes, had to pay cash fares. (A)
Abstract