Not the usual issue, you’ll be please to know. Or perhaps not.
If you look at
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/bus.data.tfl.gov.uk/schedules/Schedule_94-sSu.pdf on the TfL website, a number of pages show something rather odd. Some of the journeys have a F code against several timings in succession.
My understanding is that the F code is means to indicate that the driver’s duty has come to an end. So, taking the very first journey, I would really not expect driver duties to finish at seven successive timing points!
I can see the same issue on
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/bus.data.tfl.gov.uk/schedules/Schedule_72-sSu.pdf
I think it may also have affected a handful of earlier schedules, such as
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/bus.data.tfl.gov.uk/schedules/Schedule_265-MF.pdf
I’m tempted to ask what the F is going on! I note that all three routes are London United, though that may just be fluke.
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@mjcarchive i raised this with our colleagues in the Bus timetables team. apparently the F means that the (bus driver) duty finishes and doesn’t appear again in the schedule (e.g. the driver has finished his rota and it changes to a new driver)
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@neamanshafiq
I thought that was what I had said!
The problem is that the F code is there for several successive timing points for the same journey, as in these examples. Take the very first trip in the 94 schedule.
The first driver’s duty finishes at GDHKPR at 0532.
A second driver then drives the bus for 1 minute to SBGNUR where their duty end.
A third driver the drives the bus for 5 minutes to NTHLGT where their duty ends
and so on, until 8 drivers have apparently been involved over 28 minutes in getting the bus from one end of the route to the other!
This has to be nonsense. It looks as if once the F code has appeared on a journey it is then reappearing in error against all subsequent times for the journey (except arrival at the terminus).
I hope that makes the issue clear. Does it matter? Well, it doesn’t affect passengers and maybe the driver and the supervisors are able to just ignore the error, but an error it surely is, a very new one and only present on a handful of schedules.
Also affected - recent schedules for 18 105 (two more London United routes). It doesn’t affect all recent London United schedules but then it would not show up on routes where reliefs do not take place mid-route and probably not where a WTT has been created by copying from an earlier schedule.
It may be that it is a more general problem that I just happen to have found on London United routes but on the face of it, something has changed on the production of their WTTs from mid-March.
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@neamanshafiq
Is there any progress on this please? Does my explanation of the problem need to be clearer?
@mjcarchive i have passed these details to our colleagues in the Bus Operations team. they are going to raise this with the Bus Operator as it does look like something that needs correcting
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Excellent. 18, 94 and 105 have been corrected. 72 and 265 still need attention, methinks.
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72 and 265 corrected this week so I think it’s all clear on this now. Well played, folks!
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