Changes to Countdown

Countdown is the system which tells you - often inaccurately - when your next bus
is due. (Otherwise known as RTI - Real Time Information)

London Buses have just announced the system is to be upgraded:

Through the advances in information technology, TfL is now able to provide a
more complete information service showing bus arrival predictions for every
one of London’s 19,000 bus stops through a number of different methods (or
channels), including mobile phone text messages, fixed and mobile web, as well
as providing a new generation of bus shelter mounted signs.

This new Countdown service allows TfL the opportunity to provide RTI across its
entire bus network for the first time. New media channels and formats allow TfL to
reach more passengers than ever before, in a cost effective way.
The introduction of internet and text messaging services will secure access to
bus RTI for Londoners both at and away from a bus stop. These services will be
complemented by a new generation of Countdown signs which will provide RTI at
around 2,500 key bus stops in London.

The Internet and text message services are scheduled to be available in 2011. The
roll out of 2500 new Countdown signs will commence in spring 2011 and will be
completed by summer 2012.

Well - sounds like good news - except only one of the two existing signs in Fortune Green ward will remain - at the end of Garlinge Road. (The other, further back on Shoot up Hill near Minster Road is to go)

This is what I have written in response to the consultation:

As hardly any of the existing or proposed lie within my ward of Fortune Green - I don't really have any precise locational comments. Except for the proposed removal of the sign at Shoot-up-Hill/Minster Road which is a fairly isolated stop and not one I would like to wait twenty minutes at at night without knowing if a bus was coming!

This really brings me to the point I have always made re countdown. When one is waiting at a stop with several routes which are parallel for at least the next section of the journey (eg Finchley Road) and it is in a brightly lit, well populated area with frequent services, Countdown is nice to have, but when the route is infrequent or irregular and stops are isolated (eg many parts of the C11 - both in NW6 and in Highgate) Countdown can be VITAL in deciding whether to wait at the stop in a state of some anxiety, or start to walk. I do somehow think they have the whole idea wrong!
But perhaps such a stranded passenger will be able to text in for the info!