How to find your boarding point - why the same bus stop name can mean different places

One bus stop name does not mean one boarding point

"I got to the bus stop, but the bus I wanted pulled up on the other side of the road and drove off." For anyone not used to riding buses, nothing causes more confusion than this hunt for the right boarding point. To give the conclusion first: even at bus stops that share a name, it is perfectly normal for the boarding points to be split up by direction of travel and by route. At a railway station you pass the ticket gates and find the platforms for each direction side by side, but bus stops are scattered along the street. The typical picture is a single name, say X Station, with numbered boarding points from 1 upward dotted around on either side of a junction.

That is exactly why setting off with nothing but the name of the bus stop to go on can leave you watching a bus sail straight past you. This article explains why boarding points are divided, and then shares the knack of walking straight to the one you need, even somewhere you have never been.

Reason 1 - The direction of travel is different

The most basic reason is the direction of travel. Buses run on the left-hand side of the road, so on the same line a bus heading the opposite way stops on the opposite side of the street. Buses bound east, for instance, stop on the south side of the road and buses bound west on the north side, so two bus stops with the same name stand one on each side, facing each other.

The arrangement mirrors the platforms for each direction at a railway station, except that with buses there is no ticket gate or passageway linking the two boarding points. You have to cross at a pedestrian crossing, so if you realize late that yours is the one over the road, the bus may well leave while you are waiting for the lights. Checking on a map in advance which way your destination lies from the bus stop makes it much easier to work out which side you should be standing on.

Reason 2 - Stopping positions are separated by route

In front of a large station, or at a junction with heavy traffic, a great many routes share the same bus stop name. If every bus pulled up in one place they would end up nose to tail in a queue, and passengers would lose track of which bus was theirs. The usual answer is therefore to separate the boarding points by route or by direction served, and number them to keep things orderly: boarding point 1 for services toward X, boarding point 2 for services toward Y, and so on.

When that happens, the boarding points may line up along the same sidewalk a few tens of meters apart, or they may be divided between the inside and the outside of the bus circle in the station plaza. Where a boarding point stands on each of the four corners around a single junction, taking the wrong crossing means crossing twice more to put it right. Pinning down your boarding point number from the route number and the direction served, before you go looking, is the short cut that saves you the detour.

Broadly speaking, the ways boarding points are divided fall into the following three patterns.

Reason 3 - Road layout and one-way streets

Another factor that is easy to overlook is what the roads themselves allow. On one-way streets, buses may run along completely different roads outbound and inbound. In that case a boarding point with the same name stands on the next street over, and searching the far side of the road you are on will never turn it up. Near wide roads with a median strip, or close to a grade-separated junction, the places where you can cross are limited, so boarding points are sometimes set a little way back from the intersection.

Where buses start and finish at a terminal or a turnaround point, the drop-off area and the boarding point are often in different places, and waiting for your return bus where you got off can mean not catching it at all. Keeping in mind that the place you got off is not necessarily the place you board for the journey back will save you a lot of confusion.

Four tips for finding your boarding point somewhere new

Now that the reasons are clear, here are the tips for actually finding a boarding point.

1. Read what the stop pole says: the stop pole standing at a bus stop carries the numbers of the routes that call there, their destinations and the timetable. Check whether your route number and the direction your destination lies in are written on it. If they are not, that boarding point serves another direction or other routes.
2. Keep the route number and the destination together in your head: noting them as a pair, in the form route 都01 bound for X, lets you match them against both the stop pole and the bus's destination sign. How to read the numbers is covered in detail in how to read a bus destination sign.
3. At a station, look for the guide map: station plazas and terminals with several boarding points usually display a guide map listing the boarding point numbers against the directions they serve. Before you start wandering about at random, use the map to pin down your boarding point number. The official site of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation also carries boarding point guides for the major stations.
4. If in doubt, think in compass directions: it is also useful to make the broad judgment of working out which way your destination lies from where you are, and heading for the boarding point on the side of the road that runs that way. When you cannot be sure, the reliable moves are to check the destinations printed on the timetable at the stop pole, or to ask someone who is waiting.

One thing worth watching for is a temporary relocation of a boarding point for construction work or an event. When the stop pole is nowhere to be seen in its usual place, a notice giving the temporary location is often posted at the original spot, so instead of panicking, look around for signs nearby.

Once you know the boarding points, buses feel much closer to hand

Finding your boarding point is the first hurdle in using buses, and at the same time it is the kind of thing you never get wrong again once you have learned it. For the stops you use often, learn them along the lines you actually travel: boarding point 2 on the way out, across the street on the way back. When you are heading somewhere for the first time, looking up not only where the bus stop is on the map but also where the crossings and footbridges are makes getting around on the day far easier. The tighter your schedule, the more a mix-up over boarding points turns into a scramble. It is reassuring to aim for the trip before the one you need, and plan on reaching the stop a little early.

Once you have made it as far as waiting at the right boarding point, all that is left is to check the destination of the bus that pulls in and get on. The flow from boarding to getting off is set out in our guide to riding Toei buses. Read the two together and you will be able to use the buses with confidence even on a route that is new to you. As a first step on your next trip out, why not look up one bus stop and boarding point on the way to where you are going?