|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 18, 2024 15:25:55 GMT 1
The main point is that you can get better services for less cost with partnerships as in Oxford, Reading, Nottingham, Brighton and Leicester. You can get better services for less cost with large municipally owned bus companies 🤔
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 18, 2024 11:51:15 GMT 1
So franchising is bad because bus use in London has declined as a result of improved rail services, better cycle facilities and reduced road capacity 🤔 The only thing that's "stupid" is using factors that are entirely external to franchising to argue against franchising.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 16, 2024 22:32:12 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 16, 2024 20:23:20 GMT 1
There's nothing about it on Dalesbus yet but it's on NYC and Bustimes – from 5 May to 20 October there will be a new service 866 providing additional Sunday & BH buses between Skipton and Malham dovetailing with the current 864. An inbound working from Keighley at 0925 then hourly from Skipton at 0950 to 1650 (with a gap at 1350), return journeys hourly from Malham at 1040 to 1640 (with a gap at 1340) then a 1730 through to Keighley. As now, the 1050 from Skipton and 1640 from Malham run to/from Bradford.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 12, 2024 22:13:19 GMT 1
East Yorkshire working of the Ripon-York service has had a fair amoiunt of crticism this week in terms of the service to Boroughbridge High School. Initally they were claims that Transdev issued tickets were not being accepted, something East Yorkshire have denined. That now has been replaced by cpomplaints on late running. Arrivals at the school before todays almost on time working have have been 10, 43, 12, and 23 late. The 43 late on Tuesday was due to woerking from York to Ripon starting out 11 late and arriving at Ripon 40 late, after which they flipped it to working off a 182 from Knaresborough - the 23 late yesterday was largely due to the driver missed the turning to Scotton off the B6165 on the 182 0715 Knaresborough-Ripon going to Ripley and back thestrayferret.co.uk/bus-operator-defends-itself-after-parents-frustrations-over-new-boroughbridge-service/There have been numerous instances of drivers going the wrong way across a number of North Riding routes over the last week, in some cases missing out stops as a result, more commonly having to backtrack and so wasting time, and in at least one case by the looks of it spending several minutes trying to get the bus round an impossibly tight turn. I do have some sympathy for the drivers because these are routes that have an unhelpful number of different variations as well as following convoluted routes along minor lanes, but a lot of the cases where they have gone wrong are not at the points where a variant route branches off! They do also seem to have been unlucky, there are lots of cases of traffic inching along in Knaresborough and Ripon so I don't know if there have been roadworks or other external factors that have hit them there. And also just a lot of slow running, where for no obvious reason they're losing a minute or two at every village – which may be down to drivers' lack of familiarity with the route and just going a bit more cautiously than normal, or maybe slower boarding if passengers are asking questions. There's no obvious reason why the service should have fallen off a cliff. They are running pretty much exactly the same route and timetable that Transdev were running previously without any problems. The buses themselves are no less suited to the route, there's no reason why modern E200MMCs should have any trouble keeping to the same timings as middle-aged Versas. It isn't as though they have not sent out the full complement of buses from the depot every morning ... so fingers crossed that it is just teething troubles and everything will have settled down and be back to normal soon.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 8, 2024 22:57:57 GMT 1
Hodgsons being pretty much what you'd expect, supposedly some Sprinters have been acquired but unsure if its for this work or not (no tracking on the new routes sadly and didn't see the services they'd be likely do anyway). As they've taken on 4 vehicles' worth of work that usually used to be run by minibuses (18, 59/60, 147/150 and 155) it wouldn't be at all surprising, although depending on what type of Sprinters it would be disappointing if the move to a "proper" bus company didn't bring with it the requirement to use wheelchair-accessible buses, which several of NYC's own fleet aren't.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 6, 2024 16:40:24 GMT 1
Interesting that, as far as I can see, that list doesn't include any services operating across the county boundary (although no doubt I'll have missed something!), even routes like the Flyer A2 that are currently contracted by WYCA are omitted.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 6, 2024 12:44:45 GMT 1
What about the 164? Some Journeys run into North Yorkshire while others, just stay in West Yorkshire, but is operated by Castleford depot Good question. Almost certain that the service between Leeds and Garforth will be franchised, I believe the current plans are for the whole route to Selby to be franchised but that could change – especially as NYC are looking to improve the 64/164 with BSIP funding, although I'm not sure exactly what they have in mind.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 6, 2024 11:18:51 GMT 1
?? There's no mention of Bishop Monkton on that page. It's a shame that, having gone to the expense of getting Best Impressions to design timetable leaflets for them, they haven't got the PDFs on their website, but hopefully that's just a matter of time and they will appear shortly.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 6, 2024 11:16:57 GMT 1
I think if I were Craig Temple, I'd adjust the commercial 64 so it terminated over the border and so could still operate under a permit, maybe extend it to Sherburn Industrial Estate with a call during Summer months at Lotherton Hall? Obviously this would require an extra vehicle, but it is quite a good route to suddenly have taken off you for what may be a penny pinching sum in return. Extending it to somewhere viable like a fairly close by industrial estate may provide more custom from those living in East Leeds working out that way, and Lotherton will be popular in the Summer months. No way that any extension from Aberford to Sherburn or Lotherton Hall would be commercially sustainable, and the extra bus you would need on the service to incorporate it would make the whole route into a loss-making operation. Not to mention that it wouldn't change a thing. If WYCA want to put a Leeds to Aberford service into the franchise package then they will do that, regardless of any existing out-boundary services that overlap with it. They would then not grant a permit for Connexions to duplicate their franchised service.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 6, 2024 11:12:23 GMT 1
Apologies if this question was already asked, but what will happen to routes like X98/8 with them being entirely in West Yorkshire and Transdev's 7 with the vast majority of the route being in West Yorkshire? Also, the Connexions depot is in Wetherby, but they run some services only in North Yorkshire such as the X12. What will happen to those routes when franchising happens? Any routes that WYCA wants to have as part of the franchise agreements will be part of the franchise agreements, regardless of who currently operates them and where their depot is. The X98/X99 are entirely within West Yorkshire and so will be included in franchising. The 7 is predominantly in West Yorkshire, so in my view should be included (at least as far as Wetherby), but at the moment it looks like WYCA are not including it and so are expecting Transdev to apply for a permit to run it. Connexions' depot is in North Yorkshire, and they stopped running the X12 at the start of last year. Many of their services are largely or wholly outside West Yorkshire, and will continue unchanged.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Apr 1, 2024 13:29:01 GMT 1
I think this is down to Transdev not sorting out their Google Adwords properly, rather than Google themselves. Something Mr Hornby would be all over in a flash. It isn't down to Adwords, it's just basic bog-standard inexcusable incompetence. Any even remotely competent webmaster knows that when you are rebuilding your site, if key pages (ideally all pages, but sometimes there is a limit for how much work you can reasonably put in) move to a new URL then you set up a redirect so that anyone going to the old URL is seamlessly and invisibly taken to the new page. This means that Google etc will quickly update their indexes to use the new page, but until they do that then the old links will still work. I've been doing this – and complaining about people who don't – for 25 years, this is not anything new or complicated or niche, it's the absolute bare minimum that anyone running a website should do.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 28, 2024 15:31:04 GMT 1
There are changes to the 864 for Summer, though, with minor timing changes and the 1730 from Skipton becoming an 873. Isn't that just a timetable change, though? It's only a summer timetable if it's going to revert back to what it has been up to now in October...
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 28, 2024 15:07:36 GMT 1
NYC have finally updated their "upcoming changes" page with the April changes, and it's something of a dog's dinner, with any services that have a change of operator being listed twice, and several entries not making sense, including: - 81, new East Yorkshire service replacing CastleLine, but route description is for Lonsdale Buses 81. - 59 and 864 Dalesbus, reference to summer timetable, but these are all-year services. One bit of good news is that the Dales & District 73 is going back up to roughly every half hour, although exact headways are a bit hit-and-miss at times, to accommodate a couple of journeys running as 53 and diverting via Leeming village and Londonderry en route (replacing the Hodgsons 53), and as is common with these kind of routes there are some hour gaps. It's reassuring to see that they haven't completely given up, although they do give the impression that their online presence is managed entirely by someone's grandad when it's raining too much to go to the allotment, with the website still not even mentioning the RS1 that they started running a year ago, and posts on Facebook like this 😳
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 26, 2024 23:24:53 GMT 1
Theres a new registration on VOSA from Harrogate Coach Travel aka Connexions for a 960 Ilkley Bus Station to Ikley Bus Station via Leeds Road Ben Rhydding effective date 18 May along with variations to the 961 and 964 from the same date. I wonder if they're going to split the Ilkley town service back to how it used to be, with a loop from the bus station to Hebers Ghyll and back, and a loop from the bus station to Ben Rhydding and back, rather than one big loop covering both that gives passengers a long journey in one direction or the other. It would be tight but it looks like there's just about enough time to do that.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 25, 2024 19:03:14 GMT 1
Also, the train is very sporadic with large gaps, e.g Doncaster to Selby is at 15.28, 17.28, 19.10, 20.24 etc where as an hourly bus wins over the train frequency. I would rather wait an hour and get a train that got me home in 15 minutes (time from now, 1h15) than a bus that departs now but takes 1h45 (time from now, 1h45). The window where it could be possible to be home sooner by getting the bus is narrow even if the timetable is optimised for it, which it never would be, and anyone capable of planning will just arrange not to travel at those times. As evidenced by the fact that the bus was withdrawn because not enough people were using it.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 25, 2024 11:36:08 GMT 1
I'd say there would be quite a few based on bus fare v train fare with the current £2 each way, defo pass holders would. Running a service purely for people who travel on a free pass and don't want to pay for the train is rarely a winning strategy. If you're not getting any paying passengers then you're not going to cover your costs, we've seen it over and over again. If there had been enough passholders travelling to justify the service then Arriva wouldn't have withdrawn it 🤷🏻♂️ A return train fare is under £10 off-peak, with the bus fare cap you're saving £6 at a cost of 3 hours of your time, I don't think many people would consider that a worthwhile trade-off.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 24, 2024 23:56:10 GMT 1
(Slightly confusing presentation on that website, which makes it look as though they are proposing a new consultation with those changes!) The idea of a bus from Selby to Doncaster is irrelevant. There is a train every 2 hours that does the journey in 15 minutes – pretty much nobody is going to catch a bus that takes 1h40. What there might well be a case for is buses from Askern & Norton to Selby, and buses from Eggborough & Whitley to Doncaster, and it might be that the most efficient way to deliver those overlapping journeys is with a bus running through from Selby to Doncaster, but that is subtly different!
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 21, 2024 0:50:21 GMT 1
What does this mean please? “ unnecessary time table padding outside of peak hours” I have not heard that before now sorry It's when they allow far longer for a journey than it needs, so that buses are waiting for time all along the route in normal traffic conditions. It should mean that buses never arrive late, but it's frustrating for passengers to be have your journey time extended unnecessarily.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 15, 2024 13:38:01 GMT 1
I think we are perhaps overthinking the amount of thought that needs to be put into cross-boundary services? TfGM didn't put much thought into it, and they haven't had any issues. Issuing a permit is probably easier than we think! For routes that are primarily Outside like The36 and Coastliner, it's going to be very straightforward to issue a permit. Any travel within WY is fairly incidental to their operations. The complication comes from routes that have a significant proportion of the traffic being within WY. If the franchised network covers off that traffic with routes that are entirely within WY then that might have a detrimental effect on passenger numbers on those longer routes. Or alternatively, if those Outside routes are left to cater for large numbers of journeys within WY then are those residents getting an appropriate level of service for their council tax? I'm thinking there of routes like the Transdev 7. WY could ignore it completely as it goes into NY, and let Transdev run it on a permit – but then the residents of the WY settlements of Boston Spa, Clifford, Bramham and Thorner don't have a WY bus service, so there's a potential democratic deficit. Or alternatively, WY could franchise the route between Leeds and Wetherby, but then what happens to the section of route between Wetherby and Harrogate? These certainly aren't insurmountable issues, and I'm not necessarily expecting them to have the answer straight away, but it would be reassuring to know that they are considering this aspect of it seriously.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 13, 2024 11:55:30 GMT 1
If it's similar to the Manchester approach, 164 & A2 will be covered as they are run by West Yorkshire depots, with routes run by NY depots such as the 7,36 & 840/3 routes having to gain a permit to operate into WY. How the X98/9 & Connexions routes will work will be interesting, being routes fully within WY but operated by NY depots unless they 'do a 184' & get moved back to a Leeds depot on the launch date. I don't think the depot that currently runs the service is at all relevant. (In particular, the Flyer services are ambiguous, as they depot is in Idle but is registered as part of Yorkshire Coastliner based in Malton). What matters is whether the service is principally a West Yorkshire service that nudges outside the area, or principally a North Yorkshire/South Yorkshire/Lancashire/etc service that extends into WY. The 36 and Coastliner routes are very clearly NY services that run into Leeds, so I would expect those to continue to be run by Transdev with a permit, likewise the 412 only just cuts into WY at Wetherby so would be on a permit basis. Other Connexions services and the X98/X99 that are entirely within WY would unquestionably come under the remit of franchising. I would expect the Transdev 7 to do so as well, as the majority of the route is in WY and it provides the only bus to several communities in WY, but surprisingly it appeared to be missing from the proposals.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 11, 2024 23:21:24 GMT 1
It'd be a really sad day without Ross Travel being around Pontefract or Castleford, one of the best operators to exist in the county, smart drivers, modern buses, buses always clean and tidy. Then let's hope they put in a decent bid! The WY proposal does like it's a lot more friendly towards small operators than the GM model was, so let's hope that some of those good independents are able to get contracts.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 8, 2024 12:33:52 GMT 1
I'm intrigued as to why! I can't believe it will be cost effective to buy a brand new double-decker for school or contract work, and passenger numbers on their stage carriage services certainly don't merit it. (Their busiest routes are probably the 19 and the Dalesbus 874, both of which have height restrictions and can't use double-deckers). But having said that, they've bought a load of brand new Evoras that are only being used on school and contract work now, so it's obviously profitable for them...
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 6, 2024 12:56:52 GMT 1
That's because they're probably on the fiddle. Was on a Stotts bus a few weeks ago and the driver was giving out tickets that previous customers had left in the machine. Hard to see how they could be on the fiddle for card payments though.
|
|
|
Post by stevieinselby on Mar 5, 2024 23:59:50 GMT 1
They've always had that line on for as long as i can remember but i think with contactless & tap on/tap off they could be re-enforcing it which if that is the case i can see a lot of the drivers in hot water because since it went to £2 flat fare with them i've only had 2 drivers so far select the correct stage i'm travelling to. As well as the many passengers who don't bother to take the ticket It would help if there was consistency across bus companies about whether they would issue a ticket for a single fare – some do and some don't, and some drivers will act snotty if they aren't issuing tickets and you look like you're waiting for one.
|
|