London buses now claim in advertisements quite proudly how they have now; “4 in 5 buses now have CCTV” (cctv = camera surveillance for non-UK citizens). For those of you who know anything about London’s public transport history would know that buses until a while ago used to operate with a driver and a conductor, the conductor would sell tickets, give useful travel information to travellers and make sure that the bus was clean and that everything was in order. Alas, it was considered more efficient to get rid of the conductor as he plays a redundant part of the journey and costs too much to have. Nowadays we have a bus driver who sells the tickets which now takes on average 30 seconds more per stop. The problem with loosing the conductor has caused, a) people climbing on the bus in the exit, b) fake passes that the bus driver hardly has a chance to look at, c) unsavoury cretins causing allsorts of trouble to decent passengers and lastly, d) vandalism and graffiti. Hence the call for the surveillance cameras we now have.

The point that I’m trying to get at is the following: each of these new buses which now have about 8 cameras on-board must need someone to supervise the video feeds, and that isn’t including the cost of the installation and maintenance of the cameras. The cameras are not a preventative measure; they’re just tools for incriminating the guilty. So, why not just have a conductor on the buses giving useful information, cutting down travel times by selling (and checking valid passes) and making sure the bus is good order instead of paying for some useless equipment and some security company to supervise the video feeds.

It is so antisocial.

posted by a-v0id at 9:31 pm & filed under Uncategorizable! | No Comments »