ARRIVA BIKE BUS, USED ON MERSEYRAIL TRAIN REPLACEMENT SERVICES
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Turn up the sound and enjoy.
Daytime pictures of whats believed to be the only bike bus, a converted M reg Volvo B10 with Wright bodywork, the bus runs every hour and links Birkenhead Wirral to Liverpool during the closure of the Wirral line of Merseyrail for track renewal, for 6 months, the bus carries 9 cyclists and their bikes safely, timetable here www.merseyrail.org/wirral-track-renewal/bikes.aspx
but best to get your bike on it soon as it may be finishing mid February 2017.When a partial train service will resume.
Video shows bus departing from Birkenhead near Hamilton Square station and proceeding through the Mersey tunnel and arriving in Tithebarn street, Liverpool near Moorefields station and outside the now closed Liverpool Exchange station, now converted to nice offices.
WOW!!!!!! THAT IS SO COOL!!! Why dont we have more of these.
In the USA city buses (ALL city buses) have bicycle racks on the front. So if your cycling and want to catch a bus, you can. You get charged a little more for it, but you pay for you and your bike, and the driver straps it to the racks on the front of the bus. Such a GREAT way of bus travel. I wish they'd do that in the UK.
For many UK operators the driver leaving the cab (& cash) with passengers on board & engine running is a sackable misdemeanour, and an offence IIRC per PPVA. Most US are self-load as again the driver getting out will extend the dwell time to 30+ seconds, whilst self load takes 7-8 seconds and has minimal impact on journey times. For UK bikes go in saloon or in hold - on rear has 40+ second time penalty and lack of security.
What a shame we couldn't hear the engine noise....
If we can't hear the bus working hard, what's the point of this video in all honesty? Bloody good bus too.....
It's more fun to ride through the tunnel without the bus... :)
from feb 12 only running rush hour services daily 7am till 9am. and 16.00 to 18.00.But hourly during weekends in Phase 2 of the renewals
Details here www.merseyrail.org/wirral-track-renewal/bikes.aspx
ooh bus bus friends
Interesting that this is a Wrights body on a B10m as Stagecoach bought this in huge numbers with the Alexander PS body, & I'd have thought that this would be a likely vehicle. The bike racks look like adapted versions of a Thule or similar unit, could be laid out better.
The earlier Devon bike buses used 4 Sportworks racks (8 bikes) in the rear saloon of 2-door 11.3m Nationals, with space for a tandem or 9th bike across the back. Loading and unloading was substantially faster (c.5 seconds per bike), and the experience with Thule, originally fitted to buses in Portland OR in the early 1990's, was that these were slower to use and required users to make sure the clamp was properly secured. The Thule is a 'domestic' rack, which Portland reported wear issues with, compared to the Sportworks which is a commercial unit designed to be almost idiot-proof and robust against abuse. Post 1994 Portland converted to Sportworks racks. NB front racks are illegal in UK and research & testing plus raised incidence of pedestrian-bus collisions with UK roads makes use of hard, irregular shaped bikes on front of buses highly unlikely with US design. (buses hit more pedestrians per vehicle per year than any other category of vehicle)
Seating was reduced to 20 IIRC in the front saloon, in a reverse arrangement to the Nationals that Manchester operated with a wheelchair lift in the centre door, and which were chartered at weekends for the Peak Park Bike Bus services in the 1990's - the front saloon had removable seats. Bikes went in the front saloon and passengers in the rear. The Devon service was well utilised through the day as it ran a route parallel to the Tarka Trail, as a service for bikes and other passengers. The Peak Park services were less viable as their main users travelled out from the city and it was difficult to get additional passengers using the buses through the day on a shorter shuttle service.
There were also a few SMT Alexander Y Types and T types, with a wheelchair lift and a second rear emergency door on the nearside - all seats on the left side could be quickly removed, and we managed 26 bikes & riders, to by-pass the A9 on the 1995 Inverness to Dover Sustrans ride.
Currently up to 10 bikes are going on some coaches used in the style of the semi-coach on rural/express bus routes - mainly in Scotland, although this is time consuming as bikes go in the hold, and limits the places for loading. Perth-Aberdeen X7 was carrying over 40 bikes/week with PVR=8.
One observation is that the journey could be at least 2.5 minutes faster (more when peak hour traffic seizes up the route out from the Queensway Tunnel North Portal) The bus could go right at the roundabout, and right again to use the Police/Hazardous Load lay-by, and then go back on to the tunnel approach - effectively jumping the queue for roundabout at peak times. Does it make sense to start from Hamilton Sq if cyclists are riding from Birkenhead stations?
Could this bus be refined and retained for night shuttle service when no trains/ferries? Queensway North Portal (stop/loop at bus station) feeds right into central area ideas for South Portal? Timing through tunnel allow c.6 minutes?