Is there a debate about dual door buses outside the UK?

[johncrossley]

It is normal for buses in big cities (say over 1 million population in the urban area) in developed countries around the world to have at least two doors. Is there a debate in any such city to convert to one door? Many forum members (for example @Leedsbusman) don't see the benefit of using two door buses.

 

[Snow1964]

Most cities in Europe seem to have 2 or 3 doors, sometimes with front and rear doors as single leaf.

It seems to be a crazy UK idea to fit most buses with stairs located where need to walk from bottom stair, down part of the aisle of bus to reach the door.

Two door buses only help where there is a flow along the bus, not where people are passing both ways (eg if separate flows including up and down stairs).

Dual doors are pointless on services serving one traffic objective eg a station, town centre, school or stadium etc. Because tend not to have passengers getting both on and off at intermediate stops as one end of their journey is same place as everyone else.

 

[Austriantrain]

It is normal for buses in big cities (say over 1 million population in the urban area) in developed countries around the world to have at least two doors. Is there a debate in any such city to convert to one door? Many forum members (for example @Leedsbusman) don't see the benefit of using two door buses.

In Vienna, City buses have at least two double-leafed doors, many of them three and bendy buses four. There is no passenger flow within the bus, all doors can be used to board and leave.

I shudder at the idea of having less doors; stops would take very much longer.

 

[johncrossley]

Dual doors are pointless on services serving one traffic objective eg a station, town centre, school or stadium etc. Because tend not to have passengers getting both on and off at intermediate stops as one end of their journey is same place as everyone else.

Bear in mind I'm taking about big cities. Are buses in big cities outside the UK more likely to have more than one traffic objective on the route? Bear in mind also that public transport outside the UK makes more use of connections, so there may not be *any* traffic objectives on some routes, because they only exist for connections.

 

[DanielB]

Any city bus on mainland Europe usually has more than one traffic objective on the route. In bigger cities in the Netherlands they are likely to have even three doors on a standard bus.

Actually, even the double deckers on the 346 from Haarlem to Amsterdam South had two doors (and two sets of stairs as well). And that was a real single traffic objective route bringing people living in Haarlem to the offices at the Zuidas in Amsterdam.
Single door buses do exist in the Netherlands, but are only found on smaller vehicles used on less frequented routes. Not in big cities usually.

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Apart from really small buses (the size of Mercedes Sprinter or smaller) I have never seen buses with just one door outside of the UK, and no debate whether to introduce any. I know only about debates about more doors (three instead of two on a standard bus)

 

[DanielB]

Apart from really small buses (the size of Mercedes Sprinter or smaller) I have never seen buses with just one door outside of the UK

Though they do exist. A Mercedes Sprinter sized vehicle is already hardly a bus (in the Netherlands you'd not even require a bus driving licence for them.

With the smaller vehicles on less frequented routes in my post above I meant something a bit larger however... the buses on the photo below take 20 seated and up to 14 standing passengers and thus do require a bus licence. But still have only one door...


...but as said before. These are usually not seen in big cities, though you might encounter them in smaller cities.

 

[optare]

I think the UK and Ireland seems to be unique in our love for single door buses. In every other country buses have at least two doors. Even in small minor towns and on quiet rural routes the buses have at least two doors. In fact some parts of Mainland Europe even two door buses are rare with almost all buses having three or more doors.

What has shocked me is that in some Mainland European countries even their breadvans have two doors! Mercedes Benz Sprinter breadvans are made as two door buses which is absolutely crazy! Whilst we might be obsessed with single door buses i think this is an example of the Europeans being obsessed with multiple door buses as a breadvan does not required more than one door! It takes up so much seating space on such a small vehicle!

Some examples of these here:

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/content/dam/mbo/markets/common/models/minibuses/sprinter-city/images/content/Sprinter-City-content-01-01.jpg.transform/mq1/image.jpg

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/content/dam/mbo/markets/common/brand/news/news/news-2019/images/content/news-190411-minibus-of-the-year/190411_01_minibus-of-the-year-003.jpg.transform/mq1/image.jpg

Over in Mainland Europe many rigid buses can have as many as four doors and many bendy buses can have as many as five doors!

Some examples of these here:

Four door rigid buses:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Most%2C_Rudolická%2C_městský_autobus_DPmML_-_SOR_%2802%29.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Depo_Hostivař%2C_autobus_Veolia_Transport_Praha_-_1253.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Strašnice%2C_Depo_Hostivař%2C_autobus_Arriva_Praha_1063.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/SOR_NB_12_City_Košice.jpg

Five door bendy buses:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Skalka,_SOR_NBH_18.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Sorcity_NB_18%2C_Skalka%2C_pravá_přední.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Bohdalec%2C_SOR_NB_18_na_lince_135.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/SOR_Bus_Bratislava.jpg

So even four door rigid buses and five door bendy buses are common in certain parts!

Even over in, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA, all of their buses have two doors. I can not think of anywhere in those countries that operate one door buses.

Even in Singapore and Hong Kong and Macau (which have similar buses to the UK) they use all two door buses. You will find no single door buses there.

Malta was originally all single door buses until just over ten years ago when the bus network was modernised and newer buses were bought in.

Then of course there was the crazy situation with the bendy buses in Malta where they operated as single door buses for their first couple of months. This was because the drivers had previously only driven single door buses so were refusing to operate the middle and rear doors. They were citing safety concerns over using multiple doors but some say that it was really just an opportunity to get a pay rise. Arriva tried covering up the dispute by telling passengers the middle and rear doors were locked out of use to prevent fare evasion. After a couple months the unions negotiated a pay rise and the drivers finally started operating the middle and rear doors. It was almost like a bus version of our DOO disputes. But those first couple months were a nightmare with extremely long dwell times on bendy buses (which were used on the vast majority of routes) as everyone had to board and alight through the front door only with the middle and rear doors remaining shut.

Arriva ended up loosing the contract and the bendy buses are gone. Nowadays all buses in Malta have two doors. But there have been some single door buses imported from the UK used for brief periods. But i think these are all gone now.

Cyprus has also previously used some single door buses imported from the UK for brief periods. But i think these are all gone now.

I think the only other place to use full sized proper buses that are single door is probably South Africa which still uses single door buses in most of their cities. Even in all the major cities in South Africa like Cape Town and Johannesburg and Pretoria etc they use almost all single door buses. Even the new modern low floor electric buses they have ordered are still single door. So this might be the only other place.

Also in most third world countries around Africa and Asia and Central America and South America they use some single door buses but most of these are breadvans rather than proper buses.

Russia and the ex USSR countries have their Marshrutka buses but these are the equivalent of our breadvans too rather than proper buses.

The UK and Ireland love doing things differently when it comes to buses. We are the only place that loves using single door buses. We are the only place that loves using double deckers. We are the only place that hates using bendy buses.

So i think the UK and Ireland and South Africa are the only three countries using single door full sized proper buses on city bus routes. Other than the UK and Ireland and South Africa everywhere else puts at least two doors on their buses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to breadvans having dual doors, this is a bit silly, but in Germany I have a feeling it is a legal requirement for all PCVs, I don't ever recall seeing a bus in Germany with only one door regardless of the size. This is I suspect for emergency exit reasons - the UK instead requires an offside emergency exit or break glass windows.

One thing that's more common in the UK than e.g. Germany is "suburb to bus station" routes. These don't really benefit from dual door because in one direction the bus is only loading, and in the other it is mostly tipping out. However the UK is increasingly moving away from this sort of route towards cross city operation, because it provides useful through travel options, but most significantly because city centre bus stations are valuable as development land and can be sold off. This being the case the UK perhaps didn't need dual door in the 80s but would benefit from it much more now.

 

[DanielB]

What has shocked me is that in some Mainland European countries even their breadvans have two doors! Mercedes Benz Sprinter breadvans are made as two door buses which is absolutely crazy! Whilst we might be obsessed with single door buses i think this is an example of the Europeans being obsessed with multiple door buses as a breadvan does not required more than one door! It takes up so much seating space on such a small vehicle!

Some examples of these here:

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/content/dam/mbo/markets/common/models/minibuses/sprinter-city/images/content/Sprinter-City-content-01-01.jpg.transform/mq1/image.jpg

On that photo is a SprinterCity 75 which is actually an 8,5 meter long bus with a capacity has a capacity of 38 people. so a bit larger than a typical Mercedes Sprinter which has only 8 seats.

 

[johncrossley]

In the mid 90s, Thames Transit in Oxford and Devon General in Exeter (both companies owned by Harry Blundred's Transit Holdings) used to have two door Iveco Daily minibuses. Thames Transit also had two door Dennis Darts (a short single deck bus). Exeter and Oxford are only small cities by UK standards with about 100,000 population in the urban area back then. So much smaller than the major cities I'm really talking about in this thread, but Blundred obviously thought that two doors would be worthwhile to speed up operations even in such modest sized places.

The two biggest cities by urban area in the UK (and probably therefore the developed world) that have single door buses are (Greater) Manchester and Birmingham/West Midlands, both with over 2 million people in those urban areas. The major bus routes in these areas typically cover several local centres. For example, the well known Manchester 192 bus passes through Longsight, Levenshulme and Stockport on its way from the city centre to Hazel Grove and many passengers use this route to travel to any of those centres. So boarding and alighting at the same stops surely happens quite a lot on this route. Similarly, there are many buses from Birmingham city centre to neighbouring areas which consider themselves as major towns in their own right, for example Solihull, Walsall and West Bromwich, and some or all of these pass through other suburban centres along the way. Does it make sense for the major bus routes in the Manchester and Birmingham areas to have one door buses when comparable routes in other countries would have three or more doors?

 

[jamesontheroad]

It is normal for buses in big cities (say over 1 million population in the urban area) in developed countries around the world to have at least two doors. Is there a debate in any such city to convert to one door? Many forum members (for example @Leedsbusman) don't see the benefit of using two door buses.

No. In fact, during and after the pandemic, unionised bus drivers working for Transdev here in Umeå, Sweden, protested about plans to restore boarding through the front door. They argued they had a safer and more efficient working environment if passengers only boarded at the middle and back doors.

Note that even unarticulated buses, like this VDL example, have three doors.

 

[Leedsbusman]

It is normal for buses in big cities (say over 1 million population in the urban area) in developed countries around the world to have at least two doors. Is there a debate in any such city to convert to one door? Many forum members (for example @Leedsbusman) don't see the benefit of using two door buses.

Where did I say I didn’t see the benefit? I challenged your contention that single door buses were slower considering that the two British cities to most recently changed have not increased journey times as a result.

Furthermore I don’t believe it is normal in the UK for dual door buses in big cities. Nor is it normal for standee buses to be used in the UK as cities elsewhere may adopt.

It is perfectly feasible for different cities in different countries to take a different approach to bus design and operation.

London is most unusual as it is not typical of other UK cities or its other European equivalents by using dual door double deckers as a majority.

 

[johncrossley]

Where did I say I didn’t see the benefit?

So do you see the benefit?

I challenged your contention that single door buses were slower considering that the two British cities to most recently changed have not increased journey times as a result.

Have the boarding times been timed before and after? I doubt it. So you can only use common sense. Passengers can't board while passengers are alighting.

It is perfectly feasible for different cities in different countries to take a different approach to bus design and operation.

But does having more than one door speed up boarding? If one place is completely out of step, you have to ask yourself if it is for a good enough reason. It isn't even the whole of the UK. About half of passengers in England use buses with two doors.

London is most unusual as it is not typical of other UK cities or its other European equivalents by using dual door double deckers as a majority.

Berlin uses a lot of double deckers. Not sure if they outnumber other types of buses but there are quite a lot of them.

 

[Leedsbusman]

So do you see the benefit?



Have the boarding times been timed before and after? I doubt it. So you can only use common sense. Passengers can't board while passengers are alighting.



But does having more than one door speed up boarding? If one place is completely out of step, you have to ask yourself if it is for a good enough reason. It isn't even the whole of the UK. About half of passengers in England use buses with two doors.



Berlin uses a lot of double deckers. Not sure if they outnumber other types of buses but there are quite a lot of them.

Yes I see the benefits - at stops where large numbers get on and off it is faster boarding. But there are relatively few of those.

I also see the downsides, reduced seating, poorer visibility of the saloon for the driver, structural weaknesses, incident risks due to unsupervised weaknesses, need for modifications to infrastructure etc.

Almost all bus operators under public or private ownership in the UK outside London have concluded that the downsides outweigh the benefits. London hasn’t - though it has concluded that the benefits of multi door articulated single deckers were outweighed by their downsides and did similarly with triple door double deckers. Both of these concepts work well in other cities but have ceased in London.

 

[dutchflyer]

Size of buses does not correspond with size of city they run in-in fact multi-million cities may also have the odd route via narrow streets where only ´breadvan type´ minibuses can go. The normal 12 mtr buses here ´on the continent ´ all have at least2, most often even 3 doors curbside and many even allow (oh horror for Brits!) free alight/board via all. Pax are assumed to have valid tickets/seasons and only occasional checks by inspectors are done-drivers do not check that nor will sell tix-you do that via a machine or shops before. But on busy lines most often artics are used or even here and there double artics.
I myself consider to be a dedicated mostly bus (and tram) enthusiast and IMHO GB/UK has always been the odd men out in these matters-double deck, stringent checking/selling, a very long time still having conductors, odd non-flat fares, etc. And also even this discussion item-unthinkable here.
I am also since some 30 yrs a enthusiastic Thailand goer and have mapped out and done about the whole of Bangkok, a city comparable in size to LONdon but till some 15 yrs ago without even an urban railline. Its large batch of non-AC buses, by now nearly 30 yrs old, run by state owned (not city!) BMTA have 2 doors-but oddly in the middle of the bus side by side. Hence they must have conductresses-roving. There are some 200+ real buslines, but also some 200+ smaller, local lines done by ´songhthaew´= 2 bench, a pick up truck with open air, 2 benches at the back, all open, you pay the few Baht it cost to ride after alighting by going forward to driver. These things are pretty common anywhere in Thailand and to a similar design in all of ASEAN= South East Asia. Dr. google will quickly show some pictures of these things.

 

[notverydeep]

I did a ‘find in page’ for this thread and found no mention of why buses would have more than a single door, which would be to minimise dwell time at stops. There are two models for boarding passengers, depending on whether the driver plays a part in checking ticket validity. If not (whether or not there is a second crew member) boarding or alighting can normally take place at any door and will yield the shortest dwell times and fastest journeys. Where the driver does checks or issues tickets, a second allows boarding to take place in parallel to alighting without partially blocking the exit. There are of course trade offs. More doors equals fewer seats and these are more important on longer journeys, so a single door is probably optimal for long routes either (for example coach routes with no or few intermediate stops) or rural routes with only lightly used stops. Internal layout may reduce the effectiveness of multiple doors if the alighting passengers tend to obstruct boarders.

Apologies - I have reread and another post does mention stop times, without using the word dwell. At least in my corner of the passenger transport industry, dwell time is the normal term for the stop time for both buses and trains. The logic is the same for trains in that more and / or wider doors yield lower dwell times. It is frustrating that National Rail services in London are limited to two doors per car!

 

[railfan99]

There are two models for boarding passengers, depending on whether the driver plays a part in checking ticket validity. If not (whether or not there is a second crew member) boarding or alighting can normally take place at any door and will yield the shortest dwell times and fastest journeys.

In Melbourne, Australia we used to stipulate that the back door of a non-articulated route bus would only open at the back door of the limited number of (typically off-street) interchanges.

However nowadays, all doors are opened at every stop if passengers are using them. (In other words, if I want to alight from a bus by the front door, and no one else appears to be alighting or boarding, then the driver will only open the front door).

All-door boarding (and alighting) has sped up dwell times at major bus tops, though with many of the 300 plus bus routes, patronage (unless they go to/from the CBD or a major shopping centre) is far lower than on our largest-in-the-world tram network (where all doors typically open at every definite, or when used, request, stop).

Bus and tram drivers do not play any part in fare collection. Until COVID, bus drivers could top up myki smartcards on board to a maximum of A$20 and carried a cash float for change, but that's ceased.

 

[johncrossley]

I also see the downsides, reduced seating, poorer visibility of the saloon for the driver, structural weaknesses, incident risks due to unsupervised weaknesses, need for modifications to infrastructure etc.

Has anyone reading this outside the UK ever considered these issues as "downsides"? The issue of reduced seating is particularly odd because of the British use of double deckers, meaning there are lots of seats upstairs. Dublin was also a single door city, in large part due to union pressure, but now seems to be buying lots of two door double deckers. Brighton have also started to use two door double deckers even though it isn't a huge city.

London hasn’t - though it has concluded that the benefits of multi door articulated single deckers were outweighed by their downsides and did similarly with triple door double deckers.

Actually TfL was very happy with articulated buses but a certain Mayoral candidate made it his mission to ruin their reputation in order to gain the motorist vote.

 

[L401CJF]

The various MAN double deckers used in Berlin over the past few decades have dual door and dual stair cases - the ND202 and the newer A39 have 3 doors. The rear staircase aligns with the rear exit doors.

I found passenger flows very efficient on these. It seems common practice (whether allowed or not!) for passengers to board at all 3 doors too.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

I always assumed the single doors buses were to do with the strong, indeed possibly unique UK focus on running public transport as a profitable business, or at least a business with mininmal losses. Even pre-privatization BR was encouraged to focus on profitability, and though private operators are widely involved in public transport on a management contract basis in other countries, I don't think any other country apart from the UK has embraced private operators running services at their own revenue risk as the UK has.

Therefore the UK oddities of single door buses, inter unit corridor connections and ticket barriers, which only exist to a limited extent in other European countries. Anything that might threaten revenue collection, so boarding without showing the driver a ticket, riding in separate unit from the ticket inspector, and boarding a train without a ticket, must be prevented at all costs. Any considerations of passenger flow, dwell time etc. are secondary.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The various MAN double deckers used in Berlin over the past few decades have dual door and dual stair cases - the ND202 and the newer A39 have 3 doors. The rear staircase aligns with the rear exit doors.

This extremely worthwhile design feature (possibly one of the few things truly good about them, and obviously intended for open platform use but still useful without) is present on the "Borismaster", of course. Last time we saw it in the UK before that was the Runcorn Busway's original vehicles, I believe.

If you have a door at the front and one all the way to the rear, people naturally move down the bus and don't congregate at the front, improving capacity. And it's so much less stressful to use when crowded.

I always assumed the single doors buses were to do with the strong, indeed possibly unique UK focus on running public transport as a profitable business, or at least a business with mininmal losses. Even pre-privatization BR was encouraged to focus on profitability, and though private operators are widely involved in public transport on a management contract basis in other countries, I don't think any other country apart from the UK has embraced private operators running services at their own revenue risk as the UK has.

Therefore the UK oddities of single door buses, inter unit corridor connections and ticket barriers, which only exist to a limited extent in other European countries. Anything that might threaten revenue collection, so boarding without showing the driver a ticket, riding in separate unit from the ticket inspector, and boarding a train without a ticket, must be prevented at all costs.

I think this is quite possibly true, but also because the UK has tended to do long routes (meaning more seats needed) from suburbs to city centre bus stations with people mostly only boarding on the way in and alighting on the way out. But as I note above, a lot of urban bus stations have been closed or sold off (the Northern urban areas and London being the exceptions, where they are often seen as a form of civic vanity project) and so cross-city operation has become the norm, with boarding and alighting at multiple stops, so I do see a need for a rethink in some places. For Greater Manchester (about which this debate came up) there are routes where it would make sense (e.g. Oxford Road, where double-artics with multiple doors run in the manner of a tram would be best, just like Hamburg's near-identical Metrobus route from the city past the uni to the main student residences) and routes where it wouldn't (e.g. some of the quieter "suburb to bus station" type routes in the outlying towns like Bolton and Wigan).

 

[johncrossley]

The single door one person operated bus became established in Manchester, Birmingham and other big cities in the 1970s. At that time, urban public transport was still publicly owned and ran. So the "fault", in this case, cannot be attributed to "bus barons". Subsidy in these places was still very high and in Birmingham (for example) fares were low, but they still felt the need to cut the cost of vehicles by using single door buses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The single door one person operated bus became established in Manchester, Birmingham and other big cities in the 1970s. At that time, urban public transport was still publicly owned and ran. So the "fault", in this case, cannot be attributed to "bus barons". Subsidy in these places was still very high and in Birmingham (for example) fares were low, but they still felt the need to cut the cost of vehicles by using single door buses.

In more recent years, it's become common for small operators to purchase second hand, usually single deck vehicles from London to use provincially. Typically they convert these by removing the rear door and plating it over, replacing it with a window (this is usually obvious as it results in an odd sized window if done cheaply). This means a single door vehicle costs more...

I think there's a fair bit of "not invented here syndrome" involved to be honest. And that goes both ways - the German practice of having two doors even on a 17 seat minibus is just a bit silly and wasteful of space, but the UK practice of having massive double deckers with no second set of doors is really similar in its "we do it this way because we always have" lack of sense.

I recall reading an article a while back about the massive tri axle Dennis Dragons brought into Manchester for Magic Bus operations in the 90s. The article proudly proclaimed that it took 15 minutes to fully load one through the single narrow door*, as they carried so many people. Talk about missing the point...the aim should be that boarding, alighting and fare collection takes a minute or two at most even for a full load, just as you'll see across the way from Piccadilly Gardens on the Metrolink, or you'd see on the big artics on Hamburg's almost-directly-comparable student route**. (And I'm not hearing people wishing for a single door decker on that! I have actually spoken to students from Hamburg on opinions on the Oxford Road operation vs their own, as I've studied in both places, and "interesting and quirky" was the best sort of answer I got out of them - there was no suggestion it was actually better!)

* Accessibility aside things were a bit better in high floor days - you'd have a central pole in the door, and that would mean people would be boarding and paying on one side of the pole while people alighted on the other, at least in terms of the first 2 or 3 fares before a bottleneck developed by the stairs. The removal of that pole for low-floor buses has rather discouraged this. So maybe the coming of low-floor was the right time to switch to dual door?

** In the late 90s/early 2000s at least, the two routes, the (1)4x on Oxford Road and Hamburg's 102, now Metrobus 4 and 5, both had the accolade for "busiest route in Europe" - if I recall the (1)4x was the busiest corridor, whereas the 102 was the busiest single-numbered route, though it does seem there are now two routes on the corridor which branch off, rather reminiscent of the 42/43 split in Manchester.

 

[RT4038]

In more recent years, it's become common for small operators to purchase second hand, usually single deck vehicles from London to use provincially. Typically they convert these by removing the rear door and plating it over, replacing it with a window (this is usually obvious as it results in an odd sized window if done cheaply). This means a single door vehicle costs more...

Small operators are probably not operating these buses on commercial bus routes, and the tender for subsidised services probably specifies a higher seating capacity than a dual door single decker would have. The higher seating capacity will be specified for school times ( the only time that the buses will have anything like a seated load) and this will be because parents frequently complain if their child has to stand up ('unsafe'). So single dooring is probably not more expensive than providing a double decker to comply with the seating requirement (and the low trees/bridges, operator premises etc issues and expense that DD's might encounter).
Outside of the places that already have dual door buses, bus stops will not be set up for safe exit through centre doors, and infrastructure work would have to be funded - some stops this may be quite inexpensive, and others more problematic - which is pretty unlikely at any speed to allow introduction in our lifetimes.
In much of the country, I doubt that this 'debate' makes much difference anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The vast majority of bus stops in the UK are just a pole by the side of the road, perhaps but not always with a short section of raised kerb. Those requiring the latter can continue to use the front door. Otherwise, very few stops would require modification. Bus stations would be an issue, but as buses tend to wait in these for extended periods and they tend to be at the end of routes, using the front door only isn't an issue.

In places where dual door is the norm bus stations tend to be "side on" rather than "end on", of course, but this isn't a killer.

 

[johncrossley]

Various operators have dabbled with two door bendy buses over the years so there is a precedent for changing from a one door to two door situation and I don't remember any fuss about bus stop modifications. Brighton in particular has been a keen user of ex-London bendies and has recently introduced two door double deckers, so presumably they have overcome any bus stop issues. Also, some BRT schemes use two door buses, for example Crawley Fastway and Bristol Metrobus.

 

[RT4038]

The vast majority of bus stops in the UK are just a pole by the side of the road, perhaps but not always with a short section of raised kerb. Those requiring the latter can continue to use the front door. Otherwise, very few stops would require modification. Bus stations would be an issue, but as buses tend to wait in these for extended periods and they tend to be at the end of routes, using the front door only isn't an issue.

In places where dual door is the norm bus stations tend to be "side on" rather than "end on", of course, but this isn't a killer.

I think there is a danger of over simplification here. In suburban and rural areas there are a lot of stops with small patches of paving or tarmac to the front doors, with otherwise grass verges which would be dangerous for alighting passengers through the centre doors.. Bus shelters, esp in laybys - many examples of being located where the centre doors would disgorge passengers onto, and build outs of kerbs for front door operation only. If some stops are front door only and others centre door, drivers and passengers will soon be in the habit (as they are now) of only using the front door, and the centre doors unused, with the downside of a loss of seating capacity. (which is what happened in the 60s & 70s when dual door buses were foisted on the country section of London Transport). When dual door buses were introduced in London, a lot of infrastructure work was done to ensure alighting passengers' safety. I think it unlikely that this work would be done in the provinces, either then or today.

Various operators have dabbled with two door bendy buses over the years so there is a precedent for changing from a one door to two door situation and I don't remember any fuss about bus stop modifications. Brighton in particular has been a keen user of ex-London bendies and has recently introduced two door double deckers, so presumably they have overcome any bus stop issues. Also, some BRT schemes use two door buses, for example Crawley Fastway and Bristol Metrobus.

Dabbled being the operative word ! Quite possibly these have only been used on routes where the infrastructure was already suitable, or the bus company managed to get the necessary changes. Brighton is of course well known for its collaborative relationship between bus company and Local Transport Authority (and is very urban) and Bristol Metrobus had plenty spent on infrastructure works on the routes. There aren't many examples of widespread dual door operation in the UK. It has either got to be done properly or not at all. It is all very well pointing to continental Europe operations, but they have been operating such buses for years and the infrastructure has been built up to suit.

 

[DanielB]

I think there is a danger of over simplification here. In suburban and rural areas there are a lot of stops with small patches of paving or tarmac to the front doors, with otherwise grass verges which would be dangerous for alighting passengers through the centre doors.. Bus shelters, esp in laybys - many examples of being located where the centre doors would disgorge passengers onto, and build outs of kerbs for front door operation only.

What's unsafe about that... In the rural areas there are plenty of stops laid out exactly as you describe in the Netherlands. Actually there even are quite a few in towns as well where you'd alight into the shelter.
Only recently the small patches near the front doors are being lenghtened to bus lenght, usually when raised kerbs are installed for accessibility. But the rural stops are not often converted, sometimes you'd even alight in the grass as there's nothing more than a pole indicating the stop.

 

[RT4038]

What's unsafe about that... In the rural areas there are plenty of stops laid out exactly as you describe in the Netherlands.

Come back and tell me that when, after winter rainfall, you (or an elderly relative) have alighted into a quagmire of mud and slipped over, breaking your ankle! In some places this would not be a quagmire, but a ditch. There are lots of stops like this, lots where you would be alighting against the blank side of a bus shelter (or even railings) and lots where you would be alighting into the road because it is difficult/impossible for the driver to stop with the entire bus flush to the kerb (either due to parked vehicles or physical limitations).

Just because there are bus stops like this in the Netherlands doesn't automatically make it safe here (or there. People ride hanging on the outside of tramcars in San Francisco, but that doesn't make it safe) - the Netherlands have probably always had dual door buses and the thought of debate as to whether they should be converting to single door just doesn't arise.

Remember that any debate here is on the basis of changing long established majority practice of single door buses and therefore the safety/desirability case has to be proven here - pointing out continental European practice will not wash (and do we know what the issues / accident rates are there, and actually how much the infrastructure is designed to accommodate dual doors [it must be, over the years] ?)

I accept that dual door buses have their place, as single door vehicles do, but dual doors need the accompanying infrastructure work to be accepted and become successful.