Bus Stop M has been missing most of its timetables since May. It should have seven, but it only has three. The timetables for routes 25, 276, 425 and 488 are missing.
But it's not alone. I noticed that several other bus stops in my local area have timetables missing.
So I went out and checked all the bus stops on route 25 between Mile End and Stratford, all 17 of them.
Here's a summary to show which bus stops are missing which timetables.
eastbound
westbound
bus stop
missing
present
missing
present
Mile End Station
-
4/4
25 N205
2/4
Coborn Road
-
4/4
25 425
2/4
Bow Road Station
-
4/4
25 N205
2/4
Bow Church Station
25 205 425
2/5
-
5/5
Bow Church
25 276 425 488
3/7
-
9/9
Bow Flyover
25
6/7
Marshgate Lane
-
7/7
Abbey Lane
25 108 276 425 D8 N205
1/7
Warton Road
25 108 276 N205
3/7
-
6/6
Stratford High St Stn
25 276 425 D8
1/5
25 276 425 D8 N8
0/5
10 of these 17 bus stops have timetables missing. That's a bit rubbish.
Across these 17 bus stops, 31 timetables are missing. That's about one-third of the total that should be on view.
The problem isn't that entire panels have been vandalised, just that some of the timetables which used to be inside the panels have disappeared. That's odd.
It's very hit and miss. There seems to be no obvious pattern to it.
The bus route with the biggest problem appears to be route 25. The timetable for route 25 is missing at 10 of these 17 bus stops.
I wondered what was up with the timetables on route 25. So I checked all the eastbound bus stops on route 25 between Oxford Circus and Mile End. There are 29 of them.
Nine of these 29 bus stops have some timetables missing. The timetable for route 25 is missing at six of them.
Specifically the timetable for route 25 is missing at these stops: Tottenham Court Road Station, Procter Street, King Edward Street, Bank Station/Cornhill, Bishopsgate, Aldgate East Station
Here's a lady at King Edward Street wondering where the timetables are.
Here are some possible reasons why so many route 25 timetables might be missing.
» The timetable for route 25 has changed (except, no, it hasn't)
» The timetable for route 25 is about to change so it's not efficient to print old versions
» The timetables fell out and nobody can be bothered to replace them
» The contractors who put up timetables aren't very efficient
» TfL aren't printing timetables any more
» Some other reason
Interestingly, there's no such problem with spider maps. The spider map in the bus shelter at King Edward Street is only one week old. Someone's clearly updating those. But nobody's updating the timetables, or checking on them, or giving a damn basically.
Sometimes it's not just Bus Stop M that has a problem.
