Reading a new post on the excellent Omnibuses Blog which congratulates his local operator Transdev Yellow Buses (Bournemouth) for having what Barry Doe considers to be one of the best operator produced timetable booklets in the country. As to who Barry Doe is I will quote Omnibuses:
"He’s the intrepid and penetrative consultant whose eagle eye for publicity, fares, standards and deals has embarrassed and sometimes even shamed and humiliated those he considers as offering poor service."
As part of his web site Barry Doe lists the top local authorities in the country when it comes to timetable provision - and guess what? It seems we are being very well served by the local authorities down here.
Devon County and Cornwall County Councils are both congratulated on their timetables. Both have very different approaches but both do their job very well.
Now when I first read through his run down I expected Cornwall and Devon to be there. I was not so sure about Plymouth. Well Plymouth is indeed there - along with Torbay Council too.
You can read his full verdict on each authority here.
Of course Barry Doe is only looking at printed material here, but we are now also served very well on the 'net as now Citybus have finally joined in the fun and have excellent timetables available on line for all their services. It must be said that their timetable section on their web site may not look as well put together as First Devon & Cornwall but if anything it is slightly easier to use and comes in very hand indeed.
Well done to all the local authorities
Now if Plymouth could just get the real time information system up and running across the City properly then it really will deserve all the praise!
Thank you very much that you make mention of Omnibuses (again!).
ReplyDeleteAs some will know, I was in Plymouth over the summer (for just one day) and, of course, I picked up the city council’s booklets. It’s right and proper that Barry Doe places these offerings within the “best” category. One thing I did find odd was the number of booklets – if Cornwall (also in Doe’s top list) can manage with one book, could Plymouth city council also?
"http://omnibuses.blogspot.com/2006/08/plymouth-revisited.html"
It is anoying that there are 5 timetables to consult when 5 years ago all the routes were printed in 1 book, but at least the've been consolidated; in those interim 5 years every route from each company had a seperate timetable leaflet only!
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