I hesitate to even bother to post this, as the topic seems so small and the problem is so easily solved, but apparently the Busdriver’s Tramways Union has been “in discussions” for over 18 months on this topic, and they still don’t have an answer.
Jesus wept. The incompetence of people in charge! It is all very solvable, for the price of less than $20.
The problem, dear reader, is that the new buses, apparently only the electrically powered new buses, are “dangerous” at night as there are too many reflections, caused by bright lights inside the new buses, and the driver cannot safely see the road. A bus driver, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to threaten his job, said the buses are fine in areas with significant amounts of lighting, such as the central city. Here’s the proof (above), with a photo from the DomPost. Presumably taken from the point of view of one of the drivers…
“But as soon as you get out into the suburbs, you can’t see a thing,” the driver said. “Once it’s dark, all you can really see is the reflection of the inside of the bus. You can barely see the road.”
Hmmmm. 18 months and no solution. Perhaps, if I may, the driver, or the union, or the owners, should go down to Bunnings (there’s one near the Bus Depot) and purchase a can of matt black spray-paint. Mask out anything you don’t want to turn black, like the yellow hand-rails, and spray merrily for a couple of minutes. Allow to dry. Problem solved. Honestly – it’s not that hard to resolve.
Here’s a quick mock up of the finished result, which will do fine for starters. Sure, you could redesign all the handrails, move all the internal lighting to face the other way, install a dimmer, put blue bulbs in (instead of white fluorescent tubes), but the simplest, safest, cheapest, quickest and most immediate change you can make is to stop the bright white surfaces reflecting.
The Eye of the Fish. Solving the city’s problems, one at a time, with no charge. You’re welcome!
Or just automatically dim the lights when the door closes?
Exactly. It shouldn’t be that hard to solve the issue. The problem seems to be the intransigence of the owners of the buses to allow anything to be done – no doubt there is some silly regulation put in place by someone who has never driven a bus about the right of the passenger to read a book or some such thing.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-blue-light-in-the-back-of-the-bus-designed-to-discourage-sleeping
The answers here swing between “It helps the driver see better” to “It stops passengers injecting heroin”.
Take your pick. :D
https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/turn-off-the-white-lights/Content?oid=15377795
?In December 2018, Port Authority started a trial program to reduce the glare of interior lighting on the windshield to improve bus operators’ vision at night. Two buses, one from the Ross garage and one from West Mifflin, installed blue lights that line the ceilings of the bus on either side. When the bus makes a stop and the doors open, the white lights are activated to ensure riders can get off safely. “
Sounds almost too sensible to work! :D
It also mentions a trial of them in Wellington (!) which didn’t convince Metlink that it was worth it.
The article author says that the trial lights look way more intense than the Pittsburgh ones. So maybe it was set up to fail?
Yes to reducing white light. But yes also to painting things black, or very dark matt colours, on any surface facing forward. It’s really basic. I think I learned about this back in primary school, if not high school. You can have all the white surfaces and colours facing towards the back of the bus – but for anything facing forward, it needs to be dark, matt, preferably black or dark brown. You physically just cannot reflect a light off it. Works every time to reduce the reflections.
A second point that hasn’t been made yet – all bus stops should be illuminated, and not just with posters selling things. An illuminated bus-stop will be easy to see in the dark – and often this is provided for free from the Adshel people. Just do it…..
Except that handrails etc are deliberately brightly coloured so that they’re easy to see, and if they can’t be seen easily as people move down the bus they can’t be grabbed easily, which rather defeats their purpose.
And if lights are dimmed, that mustn’t happen while passengers may need to grab something, for the same reasons.
Bus stops should indeed be illuminated!
ps your quick mock up of the finished result looks to me to be the same as the original photo.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/106167009/one-less-headache-for-wellington-public-transport-users-as-buses-lose-blue-lights
The blue lights were still crazy bright though. Same problem, just a bit less white, and it gave everyone a headache.
Just dim the damned lights.
A few years back when I still lived in Wellington and had just moved to a new suburb in winter, I used to regularly miss my stop on the dark roads around the back of Wilton, because the reflections off the interior windows made it extremely hard to spot landmarks. Reducing reflections is good for passengers at night too.