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Post by stevieinselby on May 6, 2023 23:25:24 GMT 1
Route branding was a Trandev Blazefield thing way before Alex Hornby arrived - Route 1, 36 and 770 (now 7) at Harrogate for example and for a while the 24 had been branded the Nidderdale Branch. To my mind, there's a difference between applying some extra vinyls to embellish the basic corporate livery and designing a whole new livery that looks nothing like the corporate livery. Splashing a big number 1 on the side of a red bus when all your other buses in the town are red makes it easy to identify what route the bus is on and which company runs it, that's absolutely fine and is good. But that isn't what they do any more. While I'm not the biggest fan of the current liveries for either Arriva or Stagecoach (and I think that in both cases, what they had before was far better), they have got a consistent brand. You see one of their buses, you know it's one of their buses. I am not massively bothered about different Transdev divisions having different liveries, but when within one division there are numerous brands and you can't tell that they are run by the same operator, that's a problem, especially if it's an area where they don't have a monopoly. Go North East is the same, and TrentBarton.
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Post by stevieinselby on May 2, 2023 19:30:47 GMT 1
www.transdevbus.co.uk/keighley/2023fares-keighleyDay Tripper up to £14 now, didn't it start off at £9. Doesn't feel such good value anymore but I suppose you can still get from York/Ripon to Manchester/Preston for £14. That said ever increasing prices for day tickets the greater the geographical area is a bit of a bugbear of mine. Essentially the bus companies are charging a single price for bus seat for about 16 hours. I could take that seat up for the full sixteen hours shuttling between Keighley and Bracken Bank for £3.80, or Skipton and Leeds for £5.70 or from York to Manchester for £14.00. Each days travel would be using exactly the same resources, i.e. one seat for 16 hours so why the huge discrepancy in prices. It's not like a taxi where the driver has to provide additional fuel the further you go, these are all scheduled services which will run anyway, whether the seat is empty or not. Yes, you could spend all day going backwards and forwards between Keighley and Bracken Bank, but in practice very, very few people would do that – most people will be making a small number of short journeys, and so £3.80 is a fair price for what the average person wanting to buy that ticket will do during the day. Bus companies are not going to set fares and tickets based on the 0.1% of passengers who want to spend the day gricing and ignore the 99.9% of passengers who are just going about their daily business.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 28, 2023 10:54:57 GMT 1
My job isn't well paid and has a hefty amount of responsibility, including the prospect of prison should I make a mistake that costs a life, but you see me cutting my cloth to meet my needs not downing tools demanding more pay! If drivers aren't happy I suggest they find better paid work rather than messing everyone around, I'm very sure we can find someone willing to take their place for the wage offered. Bring on the robots, I'd quite happily take a chance on a computerised automated driverless train than put up with this strike crap from a bunch of babies! There are already shortages of train drivers, which suggests that the job is not well paid enough for the level of responsibility and the demands and conditions. If you want train drivers to leave for better-paid jobs then we'll see even more cuts to rail services as TOCs are unable to recruit and retain staff ... or at least, not without significantly improving the pay deal, but that's the free market for you – if you want to have enough drivers then you have to pay drivers enough. Fully driverless trains on the national rail network are a complete non-starter, certainly not in the next 20 years. If your job really does demand a high level of responsibility then I hope you approach it with a better attitude than you show on here.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 26, 2023 20:18:38 GMT 1
Another new development is the reintroduction of a seasonal Sunday service between Garsdale and Hawes and then continuing to Castle Bolton (presumably via Askrigg) – great to see this side of the valley getting a Sunday service, slightly surprised it doesn't serve Redmire for the Wensleydale Railway as well – but no timetable or start date yet.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 23, 2023 22:35:19 GMT 1
With the state of the company at the moment what would be the cheapest option? The cheapest way to increase capacity is to use bigger buses. The cost of buying and running bigger buses is a lot less than the cost of buying and running additional buses and employing additional drivers so that you can run more buses.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 23, 2023 13:25:13 GMT 1
Has anyone seen what Dales & District are using on their new Ripon city services? The publicity talked about new minibuses, but obviously there's nothing tracking because they're still in the stone age (and a week after launch, still haven't got round to putting a timetable on their own website)...
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 15, 2023 12:30:59 GMT 1
This is all Thorpe Park has ever needed - a diversion of services rather than a dedicated one. It is some commitment by Arriva though with the 163 to be diverted at that frequency. Wonder how many extra drivers it'll add to the boards. One extra bus on the route would allow them an additional 7 minutes running time each way, which ought to be enough to run up Century Way and back.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 12, 2023 21:19:33 GMT 1
Not sure on the accuracy of the bustimes info - the RS1 is meant to be serving a new housing development not the middle of nowhere en route to the (closed?) Army Barracks which the listed Chatham Road timing point would imply. Seems reasonable to me. The new housing development is off Clotherholme Road – but it doesn't look like it would be particularly suitable to run a bus through the estate, so running on the road past the estate and then turning round at that crossroads is probably the best option.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 12, 2023 19:25:56 GMT 1
Question is are they going to bother putting any bus stops and timetable cases up - its a dark art in Ripon knowing there is a bus along a road away from Transdevs routes and even more so where it is actually going to stop. There is an old United flag which might be served by the RS1 on the Kirkby Road (Google streetscene link would not work) No point in putting any infrastructure in place, the routes will be a faint memory in 25 months after the S106 funding has run out. They've never bothered with flags for any of the Ripon city services before – although there are registered stops, it appears to run on a hail-and-ride basis, assuming you can divine which roads it runs along, which they won't tell you anywhere – so unlikely they will do anything remotely useful or constructive now.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 12, 2023 19:22:34 GMT 1
NYC are touting it as good news, even though as far as I can see they have got square root of sod all to do with it, it's all developer S106 and the city council who have put the money up for it. Slightly worrying that, according to the article, "Ripon City Council has been working on the plans for five years" ... what have they been doing for 5 years, washing cars at the weekend to raise the money? NYC have excelled themselves today, tweeting about it with #Rippon (sic), and on the linked web page it says "The timetables will be live from Monday next week (17 April)" as though that it is something to be proud of when they've had 6 weeks since the routes were registered to produce timetables before the launch but they just couldn't be bothered.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 12, 2023 12:35:39 GMT 1
Seems that there are some improved local services in Ripon from Sunday although the new North Yorkshire Council isn't that much improved on the old NYCC for information; at least you do not now need to dowload a pdf only to find its not changed. Dales & District are listed along with the council minibus fleet and Saturday journeys are to be introduced. www.northyorks.gov.uk/roads-parking-and-travel/public-transport/bus-service-changes-and-newsRS1 to the western suburbs gets a new route "with additional journeys every half hour" and theire is new RS4 to North Bridge. Those twin bastions of incompetence, North Yorkshire Council and Dales & District, strike again. NYC has only just this week updated its "forthcoming changes" page after a two month wait, less than a week before a raft of changes and after several changes that hadn't been announced in the last update. Neither NYC nor D&D have produced timetables for the new services, but then we would never expect them to actually promote their buses or try to encourage people to use them – fortunately Bustimes has got the gen. - RS1 to Bishopton now run by D&D, increased to hourly Monday to Saturday including peak times (but minus one journey at lunch time) and with an extended route around Bishopton
- RS1 extended beyond the bus station to the new M&S with two journeys per hour, on a 20/40 split
- D&D now running weekday journeys on the RS2 at 0740 and 1735. NYC off-peak timetable unchanged but now also runs on Saturday
- RS3 timetable unchanged but now also runs on Saturday
- New NYC RS4 running three times a day to Ure Bank, Monday to Saturday off-peak
It's all slightly odd, the addition of Saturday journeys is very welcome, but the changes to the RS1 in particular have the whiff of S106 funding to me and I can't see them being maintained beyond that – especially the journey to M&S, which is less than half a mile from the bus station. But because the bus coming in from Bishopton sits and waits in the bus station for 8 minutes before continuing to M&S, and at least as long on the way back, it would be quicker for most people to walk – I really don't see there being any demand for 2 buses per hour between the bus station and M&S! The RS4 looks like it is just filling in time where the bus currently does a loop on the RS1 but won't be needed for that any more.
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 10, 2023 19:01:57 GMT 1
The power units in the Versas are damaged beyond economic repair, one Versa is undergoing trials with a new power supply however that's not guaranteed to work so the rest won't have any work done until a fully tested power unit is approved, be it that or another one. Was that from their previous use on P&R, or because they've been sitting in a shed for two years unused? It doesn't say much for the powertrain if 5 years of fairly light duties was enough to knacker them 😲
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Post by stevieinselby on Apr 10, 2023 18:38:32 GMT 1
York Hospital Park and Ride has been withdrawn on April 1st so the re-opened Poppleton Park and Ride, also introduced on April 1st, could well be using buses previously used on the Hospital Park and Ride, and not some of the Leeds Electric fleet as rumoured. Why would they need to source any additional vehicles, when they've got a dozen electric Versas that have been sitting in James Street doing nothing for the last couple of years? Interestingly, the 59 isn't tracking on bustimes so I don't know what vehicles they have been using!
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 31, 2023 22:14:17 GMT 1
WYIS are reporting today as being the last day of Transdev working the 12 and for tomorrow only it will be worked by York Pullman but using Reliance vehicles. That checks out.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 28, 2023 18:24:58 GMT 1
You need to look at the truth. Hornby started the service commercially, when First withdrew that leg of the X84. That was the wrong decision, so they then had to go cap in hand to the Council for a subsidy. Even that isn't now sufficient, and they now want to cut the service further, which the "Friends of Dales Bus" are rightly criticising. Absolute nonsense. They stepped in to run the 784 (as it was then) in the hope that they could save it and make it viable by running it at a lower operating cost than First had done as the X84. The industry has not recovered as well as hoped and the general economy has fared worse, and so the route remains unprofitable, and needs subsidy to keep it running. If they hadn't stepped in in the first place then the council would have had to fund it for the last 18 months as well as in the future, and for the last 18 months there would have been a worse service on the route. When Transdev decided that the 64 and 72 were not commercially sustainable in the current climate, initially NYCC put in place short-term funding to maintain the existing timetables – it was never their intention to keep this going long-term, as they don't subsidise any service to run more than every 2 hours as a matter of policy. This planned reduction in service is simply the transition from the short-term "oh heck, we need to do something to keep the wheels turning" phase into the long-term planned timetable phase.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 27, 2023 22:57:39 GMT 1
Maybe if the 64 still went Otley and maybe if it replaced the 62 Leeds Bradford Airport it could have picked up more passengers. You mean you want them to reinstate routes that they have already abandoned because they didn't get enough traffic, as a solution to other routes not getting enough traffic? 🤔
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 23, 2023 23:30:36 GMT 1
Rather than attach this to any specific service change period, I thought I'd start a new thread due to launch dates being spread throughout the Spring/Summer. Service 822 from Pocklington via York and Ripon to Pateley Bridge and Grassington will start on May 7th, no timetable available yet. One of the most infrequent services going, service 825, will launch in June running just once a month each way, so god help those who miss it lol! www.dalesbus.org/825.htmlHaving seen the very low number of passengers using it, I'm less surprised that they couldn't justify a weekly service and more surprised that they are bothering at all with one bus a month. It also appears that the KLCH routes – Preston/Lancaster to Richmond via Hawes, and Lancaster to Malham via Settle – have disappeared from the programme, and no indication that KLCH will be running any Sunday service on the 580/581, which is all rather disappointing. Although there is the very good hourly service between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale, that doesn't do a lot for getting people into the Dales when there are no onward connections from there.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 23, 2023 10:21:31 GMT 1
It might be to do with congestion. With roads as they are timetables are becoming fictional however well run the bus company. They might have stats on daily congestion which is fed into scheduling. It is a mess for customers and wil reduce patronage. But maybe it would be worse to try to keep clockface. AS we get more and more cycle lanes and more and more cars buses may be foreced to abandon all routes. see twitter.com/beetrootandpeas Daily congestion is not so predictable that one journey can be timed at 47 minutes and then the journey 17 minutes later at 49 minutes and then the journey 26 minutes later at 48 minutes. It's nonsense.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 22, 2023 23:08:46 GMT 1
If the stop is shared with other services that could be a factor as could how use of a bus station is charged; simply departures or time on stand. They're doing the same in York, where there is no bus station and buses just layover at bus stops on residential roads at each end of the route - see my post up-thread at Mar 6, 2023 at 10:38am - just random intervals and random journey times that make no sense at all.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 22, 2023 17:50:47 GMT 1
576 Timetable now on too, pretty much every 20 min at tea time peak! Also, looks as though the 184 arrives in Oldham at xx05, why make it depart at xx19?! Make it xx20. Same with a lot of services now, leaving at random odd minutes. New evening 576 times now leave at xx03/xx33 from Halifax... Why? It is like there is some sort of mission to make timetables as messy as ever and unmemorable. Yes, First are on a mission to make all their timetables as unfriendly and incomprehensible as possible. They've done the same in York, it's absolute garbage what they're coming out with now.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 19, 2023 20:28:30 GMT 1
www.dalesbus.org/uploads/1/1/3/9/113919127/875.pdfSpot the new service and operator, who aren't that new to Leeds itself, however for the first time ever (apart from excursions) they'll be seen running through North Leeds and Otley, and you'd never think back in the days of other red buses you'd be seeing them do so up that way. It's an interesting one. At the start of the season, they are running a bus from York via Leeds to Grassington, which then continues to Hawes. Then at some as yet unspecified time, that bus will terminate at Grassington, and a connection will be available to Hawes at the same time on the York via Ripon to Grassington and Hawes service. The timetable for that isn't available yet, so I'm not sure if that bus will then just sit at Grassington for 4 hours until it's time to return, or if it do something else in the meantime. Last year, the York to Hawes via Ripon service started at the start of the season although finished a few weeks earlier than the Leeds to Hawes service. I'm puzzled as to whether Leeds really needs three buses in quick succession to Wharfedale (two of them running at the same time), but with only one of the three calling at Bolton Abbey and Burnsall – at least on the way back, they are a bit more spread out, but still doesn't address the fact that two of the three miss out a couple of key destinations. If for most of the season the EY bus isn't going to Hawes then I would have thought it would make more sense to use a single decker and run it through Bolton Abbey.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 14, 2023 18:42:56 GMT 1
Doubt Transdev would get it passed the competition authorities due to the Team Pennine ops I can't imagine that they would give two hoots. There are numerous examples up and down the country of areas where one bus company has an effective monopoly in a particular town, city or area. Unless there's any evidence of them being involved in harmful anti-competitive practices, it won't even be on their radar.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 12, 2023 18:57:03 GMT 1
I want to friendly challenge no serious attempt at investment to grow their market Friendly challenge accepted. Based in Selby and looking towards North Yorkshire rather than West Yorkshire, a lot of the changes that you've mentioned were not on my radar so there may have been some genuine improvements there that I wasn't aware of. As a general passenger, I couldn't give two hoots about a college bus. That's all it is, a college bus. Sure, members of the public can use it, but when it only runs during term time it isn't a public transport service. What I see are cuts. The 42 used to run every hour, then it was every 1½ hours, now it's every 2 hours. When the weight limit came in on Cawood Bridge, Arriva were not interested in acquiring any light-weight vehicles to run it and just abandoned their passengers. The Selby to Leeds corridor used to be every half-hour, then it was reduced to every half-hour to Sherburn only and every hour to Leeds, then it was every hour right through to Leeds, now it is every hour to Sherburn only and every 2 hours to Leeds. Doncaster and its northern satellites have lost their direct services to Selby and Pontefract. Local services around Selby to Brayton and Thorpe Willoughby have been reduced with some areas no longer being served at all. The inconsistent branding and a general feeling of a fleet that – while more modern than it has been – is uncared for. Little or no attempt to post current timetables in any kind of proper format at bus stops. A website that has been unfit for purpose since it was unveiled 3 years ago and which they have done nothing to resolve, with timetables that (if you can even find the bloody things) are riddled with inaccuracies and are utter gibberish (which is a much more longstanding problem than the current website but which again they have shown no interest in addressing). Constant fiddling with timetables by a few minutes here, a few minutes there, which makes no difference to overall punctuality or reliability but means passengers have to stay on their toes all the time. Social media feed that often doesn't mention changes to routes and timetables that are coming up or any information about roadworks and planned diversions. Yes, there may have been some new routes or improved frequencies but these are often not given time to bed in before they are abandoned, and there doesn't seem to be much of a marketing drive to encourage people to use them. I'm not saying they are a terrible company, I've seen far worse over the years, but there's nothing there that makes me think that there is any drive to make things better.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 10, 2023 0:18:17 GMT 1
If Transdev do have a tendency to "get away with more" where other operators would get called out for it, that may be because they usually operate a high quality service and so people may be more inclined to cut them some slack. That may also be because they are a more local operation – OK, they are owned by a multinational parent company now, but their UK base started as a Yorkshire company and has now spread to Lancashire but remains a northern operation – whereas big players like First and Arriva come across as faceless corporate monoliths who have no "real" interest in Yorkshire, it's just one of many places where they try to make money. That is probably especially true for Arriva, with their nation-wide branding (not that I'm necessarily against that, although I don't like the latest incarnation).
What grates for me about Transdev is the constant hype, how everything has to be hashtag-amazing even when it demonstrably isn't, and trying to sell every change as an improvement even when it's demonstrably a degradation – but at least they are trying, whereas the social media feeds of other companies are dismal. We also see a lot of cancellations posted by Transdev (although incomplete), far more than for any other operator, but I don't know whether that is because they genuinely have more cancellations or if it's that they are more proactive in trying to tell people about them whereas other operators just leave you wondering if and when your bus will ever turn up. But on the plus side, they do try to be innovative and to make improvements, in contrast to First and Arriva who often appear to be in a permanent state of managed decline with little or no serious attempt at investment to grow their market.
I try to be fair and even-handed, but I'm sure I do have biases and prejudices that I'm not aware of. I have had serious gripes with most operators in the region at some time or another, but as the wheel turns in most cases the particular thing that provoked my ire gets sorted out and is no longer an issue or at least no longer a priority.
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Post by stevieinselby on Mar 9, 2023 22:49:14 GMT 1
At the far end of North Yorkshire - the 80/89 between Northallerton and Stokesley is moving from Abbotts to Coatham Connect next month, with the promise of a better timetable. Abbotts have run the service since at least 2004, and for much of that time it has been their only stage-carriage service.
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