News

The 410 bus has recently had an increase in daytime frequency from a ten minute service to an eight to nine minute one. This is more than welcome as the service does get very well used during the day but it remains to be seen whether it will help much with the overloading between three and four when the schools empty. Unfortunately the eight to nine minute service off-peak is also the peak hours service as it runs from seven a.m. till seven p.m. and it is in the peak periods that the worst failings of the route are shown up.

The route is exceptionally heavily loaded in peak hours. The section from Norwood Junction to East Croydon remains over crowded on school day mornings with buses regularly not stopping to pick up passengers in Davidson Road. In the evening peaks the service is even worse. It remains common for buses not to stop at East Croydon (Cherry Orchard Road) to the fury of waiting passengers and when they do stop they are very heavily loaded. The route is abysmally regulated at the best of times and peak hours are not the best of times, but even if the ridiculous bunching of the buses could be dealt with the route still needs a lot more capacity during those times. A fifty per cent increase probably wouldn't be overstating the issue.

As an aside, what has happened to the idea of compulsory and request stops? At a compulsory stop such as the first stop in Cherry Orchard Road it shouldn't be a requirement for passengers to signal to the driver to stop, and yet the drivers regularly ignore the stop if they are full. How do they know passengers don't want to get off?

One last thing. Being driven on the 410 can be quite an experience. I have heard that modern buses don't really lend themselves to anything but hard acceleration and braking but the 410 takes aggressive driving to the limit.