London's obsession with the destination blind

It doesn't seem that long ago that all buses had destination blinds, some had in excess of 200 names. South Yorkshire and the West Midlands were fortunate in having an upper and lower blind to help reduce the overall number that the poor driver had to wind through but this still led to a huge amount of names on linen or Tyvek as was later the case.

Nowadays of course, most buses are fitted with dot-matrix (admittedly being phased out thanks to PRM-TSI compliance) or LED displays which provide clear information and should be, as a minimum, on the front, nearside and rear, the latter two being that of route number at the very least.

The biggest issue for me with these displays is that many (and the picture above shows this beautifully) is that the descenders (featured on g, j, p, y) are squashed up which actually is against the regulations as partially-sighted passengers will struggle to make out what the letter is. Of course this never happened with destination blinds and it is something that operators - and software manufacturers - should solve.

But what about London? Well TfL haven't embraced the LED stating that the destination blind is still the best (and of course it shows off their New Johnston typeface!) and the specifications that they set change as much as Boris changes his knickers.

New blinds now have to be white on black (as opposed to dayglo yellow) and only show the ultimate destination and route number. As most routes cover a number of areas, this was an unusual step but is still in place now, although the goalposts have recently moved again with the news that operators now can specify a more exact location in small capitals. This is noted on the 16 to Cricklewood which displays 'BUS GARAGE' underneath.

There is a reason for this change though. TfL are currently trialling Kindle displays. Yes that little notebook comes to the front of a bus and Metroline have adopted this for some buses on the 16. In daylight, this looks little different to a destination blind and provides everything that TfL wants. At night though, it has this light blue tinge which makes reading far less legible than an LED display.

Plus there's the issue now of changing bus blinds. In the old days it was quite easy but these days with the blinds being electronically wound (in days gone by it was a handle!) the unit gets in the way and what used to be a five-minute job with one person ends up being a two-man job with an hour to spare.

LED displays are improving all the time and with the likes of McKenna Brothers providing some superb products (drop me a tenner off when you get the chance, lads!) we have to wonder whether it's time for TfL to finally give up on the blind and move forward to allowing LED use, so long as they remember about those descenders!

Bus number plates - have TfL got this right?

Public transport vehicles age very differently to that of the car. It is rare to get a bog standard Renault that's received a new engine, all new components and of course a mid-life refurbishment and internal refresh. A 2001 Renault Megane convertible generally looks like it's from 2001.

Trains are blessed with the fact that apart from the enthusiast fraternity, the age of a unit or set is pretty much hidden by repainting, high quality refurbishments and can fool almost anyone into believing it is a new train. Take the Class 319s which were hard at work with Thameslink from the late '80s which have recently found work in the North West where electrification is apace.

Following refurbishment and its shoes removed (they will only require a pantograph in their new life) they appear to be a completely new train and for the people who have suffered some awful trains from Northern Rail, they are magnificent compared to the old order.

So what has this got to do with buses I hear you shout? Well most passengers thought that these were new trains. Hard to believe when you're an enthusiast admittedly but customers see things differently. A view shared by many intelligent bus managers and they don't come much more switched on than the great Phil Stockley, once of Eastleigh's Velvet which sadly disappeared last year.

Phil is now at Wellglade and he has done wonders for TM Travel who are thinking outside of the box, thanks to Phil and are upgrading their vehicles to a standard that makes their buses look like new.

Service 218 which runs from Sheffield to Bakewell has had investment in ex-Trent Barton (the really good bus company of course!) Scanias. Coming from TB the vehicles have been looked after during their lives and are now 12 years old.

But you wouldn't think it. A new livery plus a high quality refurbishment has resulted in these buses hiding their age ... apart from the number plate (FJ03 VVR in this case).

Transport for London and their Borismasters all have Northern Ireland-style private plates (LTZ 1017 featured in yesterday's blog) so you would have to do some serious digging to find its age. The average passenger wouldn't necessarily be interested but it is worth noting that a quick look at the registration will automatically make some customers view this and make assumptions before joining.

If it was me, I would replace every bus in my fleet that has been upgraded and bang on a private plate to hide this piece of information. It's actually not that relevant on a bus as it is the ongoing refurbishments and refresh programmes that can keep vehicles looking like new.

It's an easy and quick way to encourage bus travel by keeping your fleet clean, fresh and modern. The number plate detracts from that. Come on DVLA, let's have buses exempt from the usual number plate and have special ones instead.

Just out of interest, a certain bus group is now running vehicles just a few years old which look awful. Panels are marked or replaced but still in white (or worse, base aluminium) and the surprise is reversed when the plate shows '62' and it is in this state already.

Who said an old bird can't look like new?!