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One or Two Doors

RC169 considers an age-old question by looking at historic operations in central southern England—what are the merits or otherwise of a dual door bus? He looks at and compares policies at Hants & Dorset, Provincial and Southampton City Transport but first starts in Bournemouth…

Definitely not for the first time, this question arises, this time from my recent contributions regarding wheelchair friendliness (or otherwise!), and some of the subsequent comments. I thought it worthwhile to consider the question from a more general perspective. The part of the UK with which the owner of this blog and I are most familiar provides some interesting examples over the last sixty years, so I trust you will understand my concentration on central southern England.

Bournemouth Corporation

Bournemouth Corporation espoused the dual door concept for double deckers from the early 1930's, with front and rear doors, and two staircases, and a 'passenger flow' system – boarding at the rear and alighting at the front. With a few exceptions (wartime utilities and a few second-hand trolleybuses) the same configuration was used for many years.

The concept had been abandoned, however, in favour of conventionality when the first Atlanteans and Fleetlines arrived in 1964. One can only speculate as to the reasons why, possibly the economies of scale that would be available by making more space for passengers to travel outweighed the advantages that reduced dwell-time at stops that the multi-door layout theoretically offered.

Or was it that the inability to include a rear door and staircase in the rear-engined deckers so substantially altered the concept that it was not worth pursuing? The passenger flow concept would certainly not work so well when the two doors are not placed at the respective ends of the vehicle. I have come across rear-engined double deckers with multiple doors and staircases, but they have been considerably longer than the Atlanteans and Fleetlines of the early 60's. Since then, so far as I know, there have been no more dual door buses in the Bournemouth Corporation fleet.

Hants & Dorset/Wilts & Dorset—before the RELL

In the sense that double decks are generally used on busier services, with a greater flow of passengers on and off the vehicle, Bournemouth Corporation's application of the dual-door concept to double decks had some logic to it.

No such logic seems to have applied to the neighbouring Tilling Group fleets, Hants & Dorset and Wilts & Dorset. Both H&D and W&D bought Bristol LS single deckers in the early 1950s with dual doors (front and rear), but had abandoned the idea by the end of production of the LS model in 1957, and all of the dual-door vehicles were converted to single door within a few years. H&D seems to have wanted to follow its neighbour Bournemouth Corporation's passenger flow model, but the need to facilitate one-man (person)-operation put paid to the idea of boarding at the rear; although the flow could presumably have worked in the other direction (i.e. from front to back).

Other reports indicate, however, that the rear doors were not particularly reliable, allegedly having ‘minds of their own’ when it came to where and when they opened! Both operators’ contemporary Lodekkas had only one door and staircase, mostly with platform doors, though W&D did have some with open platforms for their urban networks in Salisbury, Basingstoke and Andover. Perhaps the narrowness of the doors on the LS model prompted the interest in dual doors—certainly the Lodekka entrance, even with platform doors, was much wider than the front door of an LS, otherwise it is hard to find the logic in fitting lower capacity vehicles with the means (theoretically, at least) to improve passenger flow.

Although a friend of mine recently restored a prototype LS to its original two door condition, I have no experience of dual-door LSs in service, so I have no idea how it worked in practice, but one must presume that it was not satisfactory, given that the vehicles were converted so quickly. In W&D's case, the loss of capacity (seating and luggage) seems to have been an issue, as many of their vehicles were dual purpose models, used on longer distance Armed Forces weekend leave services from the camps on Salisbury Plain.

It does, therefore, seem somewhat surprising that, ten years later, H&D and W&D (by now under common management within the THC group) adopted the dual-door concept again, and with apparent enthusiasm. First came Bedford VAMs, in themselves unusual vehicles in a THC fleet, though the dual door variety was also found elsewhere. Although the maximum permitted length of single deckers was now increased since the days of the Bristol LS, the VAMs were only slightly longer; however both doors were narrow, so perhaps the idea was justified—except that it had apparently not been a success a decade before. Additionally, this time the second door was in the centre, so the passenger flow concept inevitably did not work so well as when the doors were both at the extreme ends of the passenger saloon. At least one of the VAMs was built as a genuine ‘standee’ vehicle, with only 33 seats, and space for 25 standing passengers. At around the same time, one of W&D’s earlier Bristol MW coaches was converted to a bus with the addition of a centre exit.

Hants & Dorset/Wilts & Dorset—after the RELL

A year or so later came Bristol RELLs. At 36’ long, they were the normal maximum for the period, and, to some extent, dual doors followed a national trend for this type and size of vehicle.

However, H&D/W&D confused the issue for the passengers in that, in most of the years when they purchased Bristol RELLs, approximately a third of the batch were dual purpose vehicles with a single door. Logically, the DPs were used initially on longer distance services, such as Southampton-Bournemouth or Salisbury-Swindon, where the need for the enhanced passenger flow of a dual door vehicle was limited, but later they would be replaced on these ‘front line’ duties by newer deliveries of the same type, and the DPs would then be used on the same work as their dual-doored sisters.

So the public would see outwardly similar buses, some of which had separate exit doors, and others that didn’t. The cream roofs (later, white) would of course have distinguished these vehicles, but to what purpose? The travelling public would merely have seen more, and better, seats—not exactly likely to endear passengers to their dual-doored sisters and the associated concept.

Lastly, and in some respects, least, concurrent with the first couple of years of RELL deliveries, H&D/W&D received some 17 Bristol LHs with ECW dual-door bodies—only 30’ long, like the LSs in the previous decade, but these were unique in the THC (and NBC) group. In this respect, H&D's enthusiasm for the dual-door concept was beginning to look like an obsession. The only other LHs with dual doors were the Northern Counties-bodied examples for Lancashire United, which were slightly longer. As with the other dual-doored buses of the 60’s, the second door was in the centre, though presumably a rear door would have been possible on an LH, just as it was on the LS.

H&D/W&D abandoned the dual-door concept for the LH after a couple of years, so presumably it was recognised as inappropriate, and a loss of valuable seating accommodation. The bus versions of the RELL continued to feature two doors, but once the Leyland National became the standard large single decker for the (by now combined) fleet, a conventional single door was once again found to be adequate. At about the same time as Leyland National deliveries started, new double deck began to enter the fleet in large numbers, in the shape of Bristol VRTs, but these were all of the single door variety. To the best of my knowledge the 60’s/70’s generation of dual doored vehicles retained their centre exits throughout their lives (except possibly for a few of the Bedford VAMs), so perhaps the concept was considered to be more successful this time. Or perhaps, rebuilding was considered too expensive.

As was the case with Bournemouth Corporation, that seemed to be the end of the dual-door story as far as H&D/W&D and their successors are concerned, although I note that Go South Coast have recently received some Scania OmniCity double deckers with dual doors for use on UniLink services in Southampton; and I seem to recall some Ailsas acquired from South Yorkshire which ran for Hampshire Bus for a while—however, in terms of use, those belong more to the Southampton Corporation story.

Provincial (Gosport & Fareham)

Within NBC ownership, Hants & Dorset 'subsidiary' Gosport & Fareham t/a Provincial was a keen proponent of dual-door buses.

Some dual door Seddon Pennine 4 single decks had already been purchased new in 1968, and following the purchase by NBC on 1st January 1970, the new management realised that Provi had an urgent need to accelerate the modernisation process. Further single decks capable of one-man (person) -operation rapidly replaced Provi’s remaining fleet of disparate, non-standard, largely conductor-operated vehicles. The union endorsed the management's decision to secure buses that would help timekeeping, choosing first dual-door RELLs and then dual-door Leyland Nationals.

Here, at last, was a clear purpose—with the result that, by the mid-70's, the fleet was 100 per cent dual door, except for a small 27-seater required for Knowle Hospital with its narrow bridge en route. H&D's Nationals, as mentioned before, were single doored.

Matters got slightly confused when the Gosport & Fareham operations were merged with H&D's Fareham operations with the introduction of the ‘New Provincial’ MAP scheme in 1980, and further integrated at the creation of the Provincial Bus Company Ltd of 1983, when H&D was split and then vanished. Though there were considerable efforts to ensure that that urban mileage was dual-doored, occasional single door Nationals might find their way onto the intensive network and dual-door vehicles might occasionally be found on the inter-urbans to Southampton.

Southampton Corporation

This brings us to Southampton Corporation. Again, an early trial in the 1950's with some of the Guy Arab LUF single deckers, with a similar configuration to Hants & Dorset’s Bristol LSs, but with standee facilities and fewer seats, was abandoned fairly quickly, and the vehicles converted to a conventional fully seated configuration with a single door.

As with H&D, a dual door revival occurred in the second half of the sixties with 10 AEC Swifts. These were 36ft long, and the dual doors to some extent followed the fashion of the day, but logic again seems to have been absent from the thinking, as deliveries of Atlanteans started shortly after the first Swifts, but these were all conventional single door 76 seaters. The doorway widths of the Swifts and Atlanteans were similar, so the potential improvement in stop dwell times with the Swifts must have been considerable - but to what point, given that they only had 47 seats (+19 standing)? Was it simply the extra length that justified an extra doorway? Again, not really logical, as the walking distance from most of the seats on the upper deck of a double decker to the doorway must be more than from the rear of a long single decker. In any event, the Swifts were not a success in various respects, and when further single deckers were required a couple of years later, 33ft long Seddon RUs were chosen, with single doors.

That wasn't quite the end of dual door buses in Southampton, as in more recent years, under First ownership, various secondhand double deckers from parts of the First empire have been drafted in to the fleet, including dual door examples from London (and elsewhere), but it does not appear to be part of a deliberate policy to introduce separate entrance/exits to the fleet. A few artics also operated briefly in Southampton for a while.

Comparisons

The only consistent factor seems to have been the operators' own inconsistency and lack of logic. Only Bournemouth Corporation were really consistently committed to the dual door concept - and they abandoned it just when it seems to have become fashionable elsewhere (for a few years)! The other operators mentioned only ever had a small proportion of their fleets fitted with dual doors, so there was little possibility that passengers would get used to the concept of separate entrance and exits. By using the dual door vehicles mixed with single door examples on their services, they precluded the possibility that even a small group of passengers (on a specific route) would become familiar with the idea-though Southampton Corporation did restrict their single deck fleet to specific services, but with long common sections with other services operated with single door buses. So the 'experiments' (if they were seen as such) may not have yielded valid results.

The owner of this blog pointed out that H&D's RELLs with dual doors worked well on the street and in Bournemouth Bus Station, but if drivers at Poole bus station were tempted to use the middle door while unloading on a stand rather than upon entry to the station, there were issues. Modern health and safety considerations tend to favour bus stations where the passengers remain on the concourse and do not walk onto the operating area. Obviously, having dual door buses that deposit their passengers onto part of the operating area (possibly next to the exhaust pipe of the adjacent bus!) conflicts with the health and safety principle. Southampton's West Marlands bus station was of a similar pattern to Poole's, but the alighting stop was less convenient, and certainly not used by all services.

Having some experience of the situation in Germany prompts a comparison, and I think that the rest of mainland Europe follows a similar pattern. All buses and coaches in Germany, from the van-derived minibuses upwards (in terms of size), have at least two doors. The advent of low floor designs, particularly the more recent generations, with engines mounted in the rear offside corner, have opened up the possibility of rear doors again, so that some operators have been specifying rigid single deckers with three. However, casual observation (e.g Frankfurt/Main or Freiburg/Breisgau) suggests that these operators have subsequently reverted to the more usual two-door arrangement. German practice also differs in regard to bus stations. I cannot think of any 'concourse' type bus stations, and they all seemed to be designed to avoid the need for buses to reverse. Most are unsupervised.

A couple of points are, however, worth noting about the German system: first, all doors are generally used as both entrance and exit-there is normally no 'passenger flow' system related to the doors. Passengers are regarded as having a responsibility to ensure that they have a valid ticket, rather than the driver having a responsibility to ensure that they do. This approach almost certainly has a greater impact on stop dwell times, even if the flow of passengers is 'one way' (i.e. all boarding or all alighting) it will naturally be quicker if two doors are available instead of only one; whereas the 'passenger flow' concept will not reduce the dwell time at stops where the majority of passengers are boarding.

Secondly, special research carried out for this posting, in the form of a five-minute walk to the bus station, reveals that German buses do not have full depth emergency doors on the offside, which strikes me as an example of British standards being higher than our continental neighbours'. Having the second (emergency exit) in the offside (or rear) surely ensures more possibilities for escape in the event of an emergency? It seems that the German regulatory authorities are satisfied with the provision of hammers to break the offside windows in the event of an emergency. The structural integrity of the vehicle may be better without a full depth door in one side, but what about the structural integrity of the passengers?

Conclusions

Dual door buses seem to have been fashionable in the UK for short periods in the 1950s and again in the 1960s but apart from London, they seem to have largely disappeared now and I am inclined to think the industry has got it right.

Despite the introduction of sensors, I don't think that passengers have complete confidence when a door is not under supervision of the driver (or conductor). The fall in the numbers of short distance travellers (those who would travel just two or three stops) means that the instances of stops with large numbers of passengers boarding and alighting at the same time is not so great, so the need for the 'passenger flow' type of system has largely disappeared; while the operating environment, particularly in terms of payment systems and bus stations, means that the continental model does not fit well in the UK; while the traditional British desire for a seat means that the space occupied by additional doors is better used to make a more comfortable environment for the passengers.