Tag: Public transport

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London Bus Pal

Superloop SL5

Today I want to try something different and tell you about my experience on my first ever journey on the Superloop (I have taken the X26 before, but it wasn’t called the Superloop then). Please note that all of the information in here refers to my journey on 3 April 2025 and some things might have changed by the time you read this, London Bus Pal should always give you the latest information.

The purpose of my journey was two-fold: I wanted to see what the Superloop was about for myself, but also test London Bus Pal as I used to before to see where the gaps are. I have come home with a ton of improvements that I want to implement that I am sure would make a huge difference!

Journey 1: Croydon to Bromley North Station

Around 12:40 today, I arrived at Croydon Library bus stop with the next SL5 service to Bromley North Station being just 2 minutes away. The bus was a single-decker ADL Enviro 200 diesel bus (ENX14) and it left central Croydon with around a quarter of the seats still available. The first stop was East Croydon station and from here all the seats were taken with a few people standing for the journey.

ENX14 at Croydon Library bus stop

After East Croydon, more people seemed to get on at Shirley Library and then we passed a really interesting looking McDonalds which is in an old pub building. It used to be called the Shirley Poppy and was one of the two most interesting things I saw on the journey. (I couldn’t take a picture of it, you’ll have to Google this one!)

After this, we continued through suburbia until we reached Bromley and then there was another really interesting building which caught my eye: St Mark’s Square. It’s a very unique and eye-catching building.

The very distinct St Mark’s Square building

At the second-to-last stop (Elmfield Road / the Mall), most people seemed to have gotten off. I understood why this was when I got off at Bromley North Station, as there wasn’t much around and I headed back to the High Street.

All in all, I found it a pleasant and quick journey. The bus wasn’t super crowded, the traffic was light and we got from central Croydon to Bromley North in about 38 minutes.

Welcome to Bromley North!

About Bromley

I haven’t ever been to Bromley, but I found it to be a very pleasant area. Now that I have tried the SL5 route, I would seriously consider going to Bromley as an alternative to heading into Central London. Just on Monday I had to go and collect something from the Apple Store in Regent Street – I noticed that I could also collect from Bromley, but didn’t think it would be so easy to get to.

I was also very surprised to see that Bromley has an Ocean Basket! Ocean Basket is actually a South African restaurant chain which was started in my hometown of Pretoria. It was one of the highlights of my recent trip to South Africa and I am very glad to know that there is one that is easily reachable for me.

The Ocean Basket in Bromley

Unlike Croydon which in my opinion has really been suffering a lot with a lot of shop closures, patchy regeneration efforts and loads of derelict buildings, Bromley seemed vibrant and busy with loads of shops for everyone. I really liked Bromley.

None of these buildings have tenants and Whitgift Centre is virtually empty
Another empty building in Croydon – Nestlé left in 2012

(After taking some photos, I realised I was slightly harsh against Croydon – it actually also has a lot going for it – take Box Park for example, but there are also areas where the buildings are just standing completely empty!)

Journey 2: Bromley South to East Croydon Station

After spending a little bit of time exploring Bromley, I looked at the quickest way back to Croydon and the only real option was to take the SL5 bus again (all the other options would take over an hour!). I walked to Bromley South Station bus stop at around 14:10. This time, the bus stop was buzzing, mostly with school children. The bus arrived 3 minutes later and it was a push to get on – the same type of single decker as before, this one was ENX13. London buses have always struck me as fairly unique as it doesn’t matter whether you arrived at the bus stop first or last, when the bus arrives, you just get on as quickly as you possibly can.

ENX13 at Bromley South station

Despite there clearly being way more passengers than seats, one kid actually tried to save both seats for himself by putting his leg on the seat next to him and when someone suggested he makes space so that someone can sit next to him, he just said “I’m not sitting next to her” and got up and decided to stand for the journey instead. I don’t understand this behaviour at all – how on earth did he think he was going to get away with having both seats when people were already shoving down the aisle.

We got on our way with nobody getting on or off at the next stop and only one person getting off at The Chinese Garage. I then noticed a sign for a school and I started dreading what was about to happen. When we pulled up to Langley Park School, the bus stop was buzzing again with lots of school children wanting to get on. Everyone still managed to get on, even though it was standing room only and I definitely noticed that these school children were much better behaved than the ones who got on in Bromley. I love just observing people and seeing their behaviour.

The rest of the ride was hot and uncomfortable. At one point I could see the Crystal Palace Transmitting Station in the distance and we passed the interesting McDonalds again. I actually suspected that most people would get off at East Croydon station, but by the time I got off, the bus was still quite full, although there weren’t as many people left standing when it headed off to the last stop in Croydon. It was just too hot on the bus and I was glad to be off it. I thought it was just because I was over-dressed, but as soon as we got off, I overheard someone else saying “the heat on that bus was so bad” – so it wasn’t just me. The total journey time on the way back was 26 minutes (starting from Bromley South station and getting off at East Croydon station).

Welcome to East Croydon!

Conclusion

All in all, I really like the Superloop (well, at least SL5) and how it connects Bromley and Croydon. It was a pretty quick journey that would take over an hour to achieve any other way. I will be using it again, but I would definitely avoid the school rush hours – I am just too old for that.

Some facts

At peak times, there are 10 buses which run on this route and it has 11 stops in each direction. There are a total of 12 buses which are used on this route and have the Superloop 5 branding. The total distance by road is 12.5km / 7.8 miles and the stops are on average spaced 1.1km / 0.7 miles apart.

The first buses depart each end at 5am and the last bus departs at 00:30 every day and during the day, buses depart every 11-13 minutes with a reduced frequency on Sundays only. The scheduled off-peak journey time is 32 minutes towards Bromley and 30 minutes towards Croydon.

Categories
London Bus Pal

Map views are here!!

I was hoping to get this out there quicker, but rather late then never!

This week I added some map views of all the data to London Bus Pal.  There are four “distinct” views of data in the application, but only three maps are interesting (seeing a single bus stop isn’t the most interesting view!).

Multi-stop view

If you switch to the map view from a list with multiple bus stops on, you will get a view similar to this.  It shows you markers of all the stops near you with their “letter” indicators on, it there are any.  This is a really useful view to see any bus stops in the area or near somewhere else you might be going (try searching by post code).  Tapping any of the markers will give you the name of the stops and where it goes – if you tap on the information box that appears, you will then be taken to the screen to see the estimated arrival times for all buses serving that stop.

Screenshot_2013-09-21-22-20-51

Bus prediction view

The next view that is possible is one showing you a list of all stops for any specific bus over the next 30 minutes and the number on the marker indicates how many minutes the bus is expected to take to get there.

Screenshot_2013-09-21-22-22-27

Bus route view

The last view I want to show you, is the bus route view.  This is a calculated route based on all buses for that route over the next 30 minutes showing their stops.  Red markers indicate one direction and blue markers indicate another direction.  The pins are also arranged so that you can get an idea of which way the bus is going (I will add some arrows soon!)

Screenshot_2013-09-22-09-21-17

If you don’t have London Bus Pal yet, you can download it from the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mulder.buspal

 

Categories
London Bus Pal

Just how accurate is TfL’s countdown system?

Just how accurate is TfL‘s countdown system

When I started developing London Bus Pal, the one thing that was always going to be completely out of my control was going to be the actual prediction data. I did some investigation as to how it all works and it’s really interesting, but probably worth a blog post of it’s own (so watch this space)!

There are a number of bus routes which I take frequently and I have definitely noted a pattern of “lateness” compared to the estimated times for specific buses at specific times.

I decided to take a small sample of buses and compare their estimated arrival times in 30 minutes to how it changed after 15 minutes and then to when they actually arrived.  The results were interesting (but not a big enough sample to draw any conclusions):

  • 341 to Angel Road Superstores.
    • First estimate: 28 minutes
    • After 15 minutes: 28 minutes
    • Final time to destination: 30 minutes (2 minutes later than initially predicted)
  • 19 to Finsbury Park Station
    • First estimate: 27 minutes
    • After 15 minutes: 27 minutes
    • Final time to destination: 27 minutes (exactly the time it estimated 27 minutes before)
  • 152 to Pollards Hill
    • First estimate: 29 minutes
    • After 15 minutes: 32 minutes
    • Final time to destination: 37 minutes (8 minutes later than initially predicted)
  • 55 to Bakers Arms
    • First estimate: 29 minutes
    • After 15 minutes: 30 minutes
    • Final time to destination: 35 minutes (6 minutes later than initially predicted)
  • 3 to Oxford Circus
    • First estimate: 28 minutes
    • After 15 minutes: 28 minutes
    • Final time to destination: 25 minutes (actually arrived 3 minutes earlier than initially predicted)

The times measured for the 341, 19 and 55 were all on parts of their route through central London.  The 152 and 3 were both for parts outside central London.

Obviously, when measuring and estimating bus times, there are loads of variables.  My experience in general however, is that the estimation is quite accurate up to about 20 minutes.

When I put together the above list, several things sprung to mind as to why some buses are seemingly more accurate than others.  Traffic, bus spacing (time between two buses on the same route) and route controllers are in my top list of what could affect it.  For instance, the 152 might have been made deliberately late because of another bus running late to maintain an even spacing (or it could just have been stuck in traffic).  I have a theory that it’s probably easier to predict bus times for high frequency routes compared to lower frequency routes, but I will probably have to prove that later!

I used London Bus Pal to compile the above data.  It’s an Android application  and has access to all the bus time prediction information for all London buses.  You can download it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mulder.buspal

Categories
London Bus Pal

London Bus Pal launched – the ideas

Image

My first Android application was launched on 6 September 2013.  It’s called London Bus Pal.

I’ve had the idea for quite some time, but just never got around to doing it.  Finally, over the summer, I sat down and gave it a go.

The idea was for a bus time predication application which you could just open and it would know what you were looking for without complicated set ups.  It should just load it up and it show you what’s nearby.

I went off and built much of the application which can be seen today.  You could see all stops near you and then drill through items to see specific buses, stops and even routes (the route functionality only came later).

One issue I had, which took a while to sort out, was that the way in which I calculated distance, did not take into account roads, so in my case at home, my nearest bus stop, wasn’t the quickest one to walk to.  So I decided to calculate the walking route for each stop near me and then show the closest ones to me in that way.  Unfortunately, this ended up being a really slow process and I actually had to remove this feature.  It was definitely going to add to the cool factor for this application, but sometimes you just have to make a call and say, it’s not worth it!

So what did we end up with:

  • Stops near me – when you open the application or tap on the home button, the application tries to find your location and shows you all the bus stops in the area with all of their arrival times in the next 30 minutes.  (This does not work if your location could not be determined – there are many reasons for this).  You can expand and collapse all the stops and if you tap on a bus, you get taken to the bus view (see below).
  • Specific bus view – when you tap on a bus in the stops near me or bus stop view, you get taken to the specific bus view which will show you the route details and bus registration number at the top.  You then get a view of the expected time of arrival at all the stops for the next 30 minutes.  This is a useful view for me to keep open and refresh from time to time once I am on the bus, just to check progress.  (A slightly hidden feature is when you see a bit of a thicker line between two stops – this means that the bus changed direction between these stops and it will be heading back to where it came from).
  • Bus stop view – this is similar to the stops near me view, except you only see a single bus stop.  It simply shows you the next buses for any stops for the next 30 minutes.
  • Bus route view – this is a fairly unique view which I haven’t seen available on many other applications.  First, to access it, tap on the bus route details on the top of the specific bus view or enter a route number in search.  This gives you an overview of all the stops on the route, in route order and it shows you when the next bus is due at each of the stops.  It’s quick to see if there is a gap in the service anywhere between stops using this view!
  • Search functionality – this acts as a “short-cut” to many of the views mentioned above.  By entering a post code, or GPS co-ordinates, you will get the stops near me view (but for the entered location), enter a bus stop number (which you can see on the side of the bus stop) for the bus stop view of that bus, enter a bus route number for the bus route view and enter the bus registration number to find a specific bus (I have to point out that this does not work on customised number plates and I believe that some of the New Buses for London have custom number plates).

I decided to stick with this core feature set for now and get the application out there.  There are still many features which I think would make the application truly great, but these will have to wait a while as I only have ten fingers to type with!  As it stands, the feature set is very usable and I use this application constantly and very seldom use any of my competitor applications.

Some of the features I will be working on in the coming weeks and months include (if you are reading this in the future, be sure to check out the latest feature set of the application as this would hopefully not always be work in progress):

  • Bus stop notifications – sometimes TfL puts out alerts or notifications for specific bus stops or routes.  London Bus Pal doesn’t currently display these, so it’s difficult to know if there are any issues affecting your local stop.
  • Map view – being able to see bus stops on a map, especially for the stops near me feature would really add great value to the application.  Sometimes I am also on a bus and I wonder if I could get off early or I am just on a strange route and I want to see which stop I should use.  Being able to see that on a map would be a lifesaver!
  • Strip-maps (maybe) – this would just be a cool feature to have – to see buses on a strip map.  I’ve got some really cool ideas for this.
  • Bookmarks or favourites – most applications have this and they tend to be useful.  We all have our favourite stops and it’s always great to have these ready.  Hopefully the “stops near me” facility partly fulfils the requirement for this feature until it is actually implemented.

If you came across this blog and don’t know what I am talking about, you live in London (or sometimes travel to London) and you have an Android phone, then why not download London Bus Pal: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mulder.buspal.

Looking forward to loads of downloads 🙂