176 bus service cut from November

TfL have announced as part of the retendering of the 176 bus, the service will be cut from every 8 minutes (7 peaks) to every 10 minutes during the day, with the current 12 minute evening and Sunday service remaining the same. No change to overnight buses.

The route will be operated by Go-Ahead London who run the 185 route with new hybrid buses.

Now while most of us use the Overground and Southern to get into central London, this is still a well used route which could affect some of our more less well off residents who work in Zone 1 along with a reduction in services between FH and Camberwell Green and Penge which will put strain on the 185 and 197 buses.

TFL have suggested to make up for the cut in services users should buy diesel cars and use those instead. They haven’t of course but I find this amazing when we are told to use public transport and they cut it.

Am I misinterpreting this or does it basically mean there will be one less bus per hour in peak times? If so, I would have thought it would have been better to keep the peak number and reduce the off peak by one per hour. I do note that outside of peak times, busses are generally only half full or sometimes less so.

9 buses per hour in the peaks, 8 off-peak currently, so a cut of three buses per hour during the peak, two off-peak.

The peak vehicle requirement under the present contract is 28 buses, this is being reduced to 24.

Walking to Sainsburys this morning a 176 went past me, it was rammed. This really is a stupid idea.

Exactly. That bus is busy all day and not just at 8am.

Incidentally when the railway line is closed for engineering works, passengers get the 176 into town instead of the indirect replacement bus service which leads to full buses even on Sundays.

An ill thought out decision which will only put more pressure on the other bus routes in FH, especially the 185.

My limited experience with the 176 or the 185 is that people use it more for local travel largely between FH, Dulwich and Camberwell/Peckham. For most the 1.5 hours to central London is just too much.

So while this is still tragic, we should lament the loss of peak services as a loss to our local transport network rather than a commuter service to Trafalgar Square or Victoria.

I got some information from TfL with the assistance of Councillor @John_Paschoud

In the case of the 176, we are looking to reduce the Monday-Saturday daytime and weekend nights frequency to better match the route to the actual usage experienced. This proposal was put in place following a review of the passenger usage on the 176, however I would add that this proposal is also looking to include additional peak flow journeys towards Tottenham Court Road in the morning and towards Penge in the afternoon to accommodate the extra usage at these times. These changes are due to occur in June 2017.

I hope they add extra busses during busy time, the 176 and 185 are rammed at rush hour.

So they’re looking to cut the service much earlier before the tender contract finishes in November.

It looks like they’re basing their data on journeys within Zone 1 which are lighter during the day, especially towards Penge than the other way round.

However, the daytime service is still busy between Camberwell and Forest Hill in-particular and even between FH and Penge, it takes the strain from the 197 which isn’t reliable at the best of times.

What they should do if they want to reduce the 176 in Central London is to increase the 197 to every 10 minutes (currently 12) to compensate for the loss of capacity between Dulwich and Penge, leaving the 185 to take the strain towards East Dulwich and Camberwell.