The death of the ugobus concept

First have now put the new timetable for the Ugobus 15 from the 20 February. Oh dear - what a mess.
I guess the headline change is that only two buses an hour go into Mainstone. The third bus seems to sit at Asda for the 6 minutes it would have been running around the Mainstone loop. I can see this is going to be a real nuisance to everyone who catches the bus from this busy bus stop. It gets really crowded there at the best of times without buses sitting there doing nothing. The only benefit I can see from this change is that it might help buses get back to timetable as this service has been very unreliable recently especially in the evening peak mainly due to the Marjon run and Derriford.
The other big change seems to cut right across the whole idea of the Ugobus network. A straightforward easy to remember timetable with buses sticking to the same route. Even without having to remember that one bus doesn't go into Mainstone the new timetable is impossible to remember now apart from the times between 10:00 and 15:00 when they do keep to a twenty minute clock face timetable.
At the moment I know that I have a bus from Asda at 7:41 8:01 8:21 - easy to remember. I will now have buses at 07:31 07:52 08:12 08:35! I guess I will have to try and get the 07:52 although I might as well get the Citybus 50 and walk from Derriford as the 15 takes so long to reach Derriford roundabout as it still goes up into Marjon.

The saddest part of all this is the loss of the easy to remember timetable which surely was the whole point of Ugobus. Have they given up on the whole concept? For a view on the history of this service pop along to my Plymothian Transit Extra page for the route where you can see the introduction of a new service 15 from the 11 October 2009 with 4 buses an hour Monday to Saturday and two buses an hour on Sundays. By February 21st 2010 it was down to a twenty minute frequency and then August 2010 saw the loss of the Sunday service. October 2010 saw the route run into Marjon as the 7 was culled. This brought double deckers onto the route which was a bonus but the reliability has been poor. Plymothian Transit Extra

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Related Links

• Ugobus 15 Page Plymothian Transit Extra
• New timetable 15 from 20 Feb 2011 First Devon & Cornwall
• Ugo Southampton Plymothian Transit November 2010
• Ugo the long way round Plymothian Transit October 2010
• Ugoing going gone Plymothian Transit September 2010
• I go somewhere else soon Plymothian Transit September 2010
• U dont go there anymore Plymothian Transit August 2010
• Ugoing going gone Plymothian Transit September 2010
• U go free for a week Plymothian Transit July 2010
• Catch 22s Omnibuses October 2009