"SPUR asked Stokle to draw two transit maps for them (full disclosure—I edit SPUR’s monthly magazine, The Urbanist), with the intent of demonstrating how a single, unified transit map might provide greater accessibility and ease of use and to stimulate conversation about how transit decisions are made." The maps are interesting but I think flawed. More later, perhaps.

Using a Linksys WRT54GL, a Sparkfun 7-segment LED block, and a slightly dismembered model of a Plaxton Pointer single-deck bus to make a display of when the next bus is due. Nice.

The BBC on US coach travel: "Rising petrol prices and a new breed of British-owned discount operators, based in the densely populated north-east corridor, have made the coach a viable alternative to the car, plane or train for a growing number of travellers." "Inter-city bus travel grew by 7.1% in 2011, compared with 1.5% for air and 1.16% for rail, according to DePaul University."

"Bus shelters were once boringly functional affairs." Then advertising got involved.

"As a puzzled, stressed and curious newcomer, whether I quickly and fully embrace a system, or whether I avoid it for a long time is an interesting measure of how “usable” the system is." An interesting look at some issues that put people off buses. (I'd say London does reasonably well on these, assuming you speak English, but it's far from perfect even so; nobody knows about the five bus maps you can get, for example.)

"NaPTAN is a GB national system for uniquely identifying all the points of access to public transport in GB. It is a core component of the GB national transport information infrastructure and is used by a number of other UK standards and information systems. Every GB station, coach terminus, airport, ferry terminal, bus stop, etc., is allocated at least one identifier."

Chris Heathcote on London Bus, TfL, and the future. It's persuaded me to install the app; I pride myself on being autistically dorky about journey planning but the London bus network is too big to hold in your head. (Conversely, I can't see why anyone would pay for a Tube map on a phone.)

TfL have apparently completed fitting the iBus technology to their 8000-bus fleet. Now to get the data out: even Evening Standard technology bloggers are calling on the Mayor to give third parties access.

Reminiscent of OnABus (RIP), but with the added bonus of having actual buses on it. (Well, not really, because it's a web page. It has representations of buses. Still.)

"this policy has absolutely nothing to do with common sense value-for-money policy-making and everything to do with ideologically-nonsensical politicking." Why bendy buses are good value, and the problem of stairs.

"Portland installed a system that lets users track bus arrivals by cellphone; afterwards, people thought that service had improved, with more buses, and more of them on-time. But outside the tracking system, nothing had changed."

On the loss of bendy buses from the 38, 507 and 521 next year. Travelwatch: the status quo has "overwhelming advantages, in terms of accessibility, effective use of limited road space, and minimisng time spent at stops".

It's that time of year again: Smoke issue 13! This time, the magical mystery 521 and its Strand wormhole, and looking for Nine Elms (before the Americans colonise it). And much more, no doubt.

Scroll down and there are strange, but potentially useful, little lines next to each of the bus routes showing (I think) how many buses there are. Needs a bit of work, but not a bad idea. The map at the top of the page is nice too.

Thoughts on money, smartcards and so on. "It is possible to ride on [London buses by] recording the oyster-beep [and playing] it when you touch-in" has the ring of truth.

As mentioned in the Guardian, an experimental map plotting the live locations of (some) buses and trams in Helsinki on a Google map. Can we have this in London now please?

A nice piece on the London iBus project (complete with the usual grouchiness from regular passengers about the annoucements) that also looks at what Helsinki's doing in public transport information.

Good lord, what will the crazy colonists try next?

A set by Christopher Herwig, an excerpt from a book.

"[Bendy buses] are involved in 2.62 collisions with cyclists per million miles, compared with 0.97 for other buses. And they have 153 accidents per million miles, compared with only 87 per million on non-bendy routes."

Seems sensible to me. Might curb the plague of mobile phone speaker abuse, at least.

Islington Labour put flyers around on Sunday asking for hybrid buses in the borough. I was dismissive: "there's no double decker hybrid yet". Except now there is. Hurrah.

New Conservative council, old Tory policies [later] The BBC updated the story: TfL aren't happy. Good for them.

In numerical order. See also the amount of vandalism-affected routes.