Bakerloo / Overground replacement bus services

The TfL website states that this week’s replacement bus services between Queen’s Park and Watford Junction are

718 : Queen’s Park - Harrow & Wealdstone
719 : Queen’s Park - Wembley Park
720 - Harrow on the Hill - Watford Junction

Why then is the 719 appearing in the Countdown feed as route UL43 / BAK? The 718 and 720 appearing at all.

Simon

Hi @SJCooper

The 718, 719 and 720 are new naming conventions for the Bakerloo line/London Oveerground Replacement buses replacing BL-1, BL-2 and H, these will also be used during a further closure in February. Depending on who is contracted to operate these services will depend if they appear in Countdown as they may be contracted to a non-TfL operator. With regards to the UL43 this is normally an internal number allocated for scheduling purposes which would be sent to the Countdown systems.

Regards
Matthew ( cc @GerardButler )

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I couldn’t decide if this was worthy of it’s own thread or not but as it’s related to Overground rail replacement bus route numbers it kind of fits here…

As per TfL website:
Service R: Willesden Junction - Queens Park
Service S: Camden Road - Holloway Road
Service J Gospel Oak (Highgate Road) and Seven Sisters
Service T Walthamstow Central (for Walthamstow Queens Road) and Barking

and in the Countdown feed data we have

LineID / LineName
UL77 / RAIL
UL42 / LO-S
UL8 / LO-J
UL7 / LO-T

Guess which one of these is causing our system a problem with route UL16 / RAIL (which is nothing to do with London Overground replacements)…

According to the Countdown API documentation:

“LineID - The identifier of a route. This is an internal identifier and is not equal to the route number displayed on the front of the bus / river bus. It should not be displayed to the
public.”
“LineName - This is the route number that is displayed on the front of the bus / river bus and on any publicity advertising the route.”

:frowning:

Can we have “proper” route numbers in LineName please and not vague ‘Rail’ type stuff?

Simon

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The problem here is similar to the temporary-bus-stop-closure one: despite it very nearly being 2023 rail-replacement bus services are being done thought uncoordinated local-decision-making that has no consistent public face.

I guess Frank Pick’s legacy has faded.