Airports Council International produce a series of best practice guides based on their regular Airport Service Quality benchmarking exercise. The one on Baggage Carts (trolleys), published in 2008, has some interesting statistics.

Airports where carts are free to use score higher on "Availability of baggage carts" than those which charge or ask for a deposit.

90% of airports have carts which can be used in lifts, 62% on moving walkways, and 12% on escalators.

44% have brakes, although the report doesn't say what sort.

The usual ones at airports have brakes which are only on - applied - when a passenger activates them, usually by holding two parts of the handle together.

By contrast, carts used on railway stations normally have the brakes on unless someone holds the two parts of the handle together: only then is the brake off and the cart can move. This, obviously, is a safety measure - no-one wants baggage carts on a railway line!

But it does pose a problem when the station is at an airport. What kind of cart do you use? If you use one where the brake isn't normally on, then it can't be safely used on the station - passengers can't take them to the train door.

An issue for airport railways!

In the course of some research, I recently used a bus, rather than the Airport Express, to get from Hong Kong International Airport to downtown Hong Kong.

The A11 bus costs HK$40 (rather than the $100 of the Airport Express). Once it started off, it took over 45 minutes to get to Wan Chai (the Convention Centre area). However, it started loading 7 minutes before departure. At that time of night buses were running every 20-25 minutes: they are every 15 minutes in the peaks.

The train, running every 10 minutes, would have taken 23 minutes to Central: the free connecting shuttle bus would have taken about 10 minutes to get from there to Wan Chai but I might have had to wait for it since they run every 24 minutes.

The buses on the A11 route are the massive six-axle double deckers operated by Citybus (and others) throughout Hong Kong. They have 94 or 102 seats - reasonably comfortable, to the extent that I didn't notice the level of comfort. This one, at 20:55 on a weekday evening, was almost full.

Many of the passengers had bags: there was a big luggage stack by the exit door which got quite full.

One problem when boarding was that some passengers had self-help baggage trolleys - sometimes very full self-help trolleys. They had to load the contents and themselves onto the bus and pay their fare - something which seemed to make them forgetful of the fact that their trolley was then left lying abandoned in the way of other intending passengers!

The bus was so full that I went upstairs, where the headroom was quite low - I couldn't stand upright. A nice touch was that I could see a television screen which showed the luggage stack - so if I'd had a bag there, I could have kept it under some kind of surveillance from my upper-deck seat.

On the journey to the city on open and relatively uncrowded roads, the motion was a kind of back and forward roll, as if the top deck was trying to overtake the bottom deck and was being reined in. In the city, where speeds were lower, the ride was much more bumpy. I did manage to make notes for this blog on the move, and to transcribe them afterwards - but smooth it was not!

Before (and to a degree at) each stop, there was some shuffling of bags in the luggage stack as people extracted their own from the heap. People didn't board the bus in the reverse order of disembarkation! However, stop times seemed quite short.

There are 12 scheduled stops between airport and Wan Chai: not all were made. They were shown on LED displays.

The bus then continued to North Point. Generally the bus was limited to 80 km/h.

The Airport Express would have been more comfortable, more frequent and almost certainly quicker. However, unless passengers were just going to Central they would have had to make an easy interchange between train and shuttle-bus there. The waiting area at the airport - unlike the bus station - is under cover and air conditioned. Luggage accommodation, passenger information, headroom and seating are significantly better on the train.

From this unscientific test, value of comfort looks quite low!

I was first pleased, then amused - a bit - by the information system at Dubai Airport's Terminal 3.

When I got to the reclaim belt, the tv screens said that the last bags from my flight would be on the belt within 24 minutes. Very efficient!

The number counted down - 23 minutes, 22 minutes, 21 minutes....

When it got to 1 minute and my bag was among several which had not appeared, I wondered what would happen next!

The message disappeared - and about 5 minutes later, more bags - including mine - appeared on the belt!

Nice try, guys!

Note that for the next few months the inter-terminal shuttle between North and South terminals is out of action.

Instead, there is a bus shuttle.

The route to it is well signed, but it is different. At South Terminal, you need to head for the bus station - as you leave the railway station and go into South Terminal, turn left not right. At North Terminal, you need to go up an extra level - to Departures. And you need to allow more time - at least 10 minutes at quiet times and 20 minutes at busy times, rather than the 2 minutes one allows for the Transit.

See Gatwick's website, www.gatwickairport.com

Having tried this, I can vouch for its unpopularity. People did not like using a shuttle bus. I have seen reports that it is adversely affecting BA's traffic from Gatwick - they use North Terminal - and benefiting airlines like BMI.

Is there a better alternative? Ideas, please!

The buses are of reasonable quality, but they are internal airport buses. They have a lot of luggage rack space at the front, entrances front and centre and seating up some stairs at the back. Part of the problem is the circuitous route - particularly at night, when you have few visual clues as to where you are.

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