I have not been able to get the VOSA database site to work properly for me for a few weeks now and recently have not been able to access it at all! I have though started working my way through Notices & Proceedings, the fortnightly summary by VOSA and bringing my Plymothian bus Services pages up to date. The last few weeks have been quiet on VOSA so just a couple of service updates have been added to my site yesterday:
PH1128051/1 DANIEL RICHARD TWEEDIE T/A A LINE COACHES, 9 BULLER ROAD TORPOINT PL11 2LD From: CREMYLL To: TORPOINT FERRY Via: Name or No: 32 Service Type: Normal Stopping Effective Date: 18-Aug-2014 Other Details: MONDAY TO FRIDAY
Short Notice Registration of New Services: 02 September 2014
Current and future timetables on Plymothian Bus Services:
32 Cawsands - Cremyll
510 Exeter - Okehampton - Camelford – Wadebridge
PH0006741/65 WESTERN GREYHOUND LTD, WESTERN HOUSE, ST. AUSTELL STREET, SUMMERCOURT NEWQUAY TR8 5DR Operating between Okehampton West Street and Launceston given service number 510 effective from 29-Sep-2014. To amend Timetable.
There will be a minor change to the timetable from Monday 29th September 2014. The 0845 departure from Okehampton to Exeter is revised to run at 0930, fast to Exeter thereby helping the 0940 departure from Okehampton have capacity as it goes via the villages into Exeter. The 1910 departure from Exeter will now terminate in Launceston, and not continue to Wadebridge due to low demand for this journey beyond Launceston.
© Barry Lewis (cc) - A reminder of happier times on the 510...
Recommended Reading
- STEVES BUS AND TRAIN PAGE: A Day Of Firsts. Now a few weeks ago I absolutely slated the Volvo 9700 Hybrid that First Essex operate on the 100 Lakeside - Chelmsford route. Hated them. Not this one. Loved it. Quiet, smooth, comfortable. A bit rattly which is always annoying in a new bus but I noticed the roads weren't exactly silky smooth so maybe a little leeway there.
- PUBLIC TRANSPORT EXPERIENCE: Four Cheers for the Fourth Estate Sorry, that should be "Four Jeers" The different statistic from the two different sources begs a number of questions. Who is telling porkie pies?
- NORWICH BUSES: Life after Norfolk - First 37157 (AU07DXT) With the arrival of the new luxurious Alexander Dennis Enviro400s, 37157 was one of five of the type which saw transferral to First Potteries, formerly Potteries Motor Traction.
Interesting that the through bus from Wadebridge serves the villages whilst the retimed journey runs fast. I'd have expected it to be the other way round, with the retimed short journey covering the villages and the through bus, with its longer journey, taking advantage of the faster route. By my reckoning both buses would then run together from Tedburn St Mary into Exeter arriving 10.32, and providing a duplicate vehicle along that stretch should one or other vehicle be full.
ReplyDeleteI do hope the problem with that idea isn't that the bus off that retimed 09.30 off Okehampton is booked to work the 10.20 out of Exeter, given that it's not now scheduled to arrive Exeter until 10.22!
Not related to Western Greyhound but First Kernow Unibus livery looks very smart https://www.flickr.com/photos/56793172@N05/15307138701/
ReplyDeleteI over heard a interesting conversation the other day, apparantly city bus in november are planning on changing the 50 time table and merge the end of the route in town to the start of the 43 route, with busses being re branded as gold flash
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like that is the case although I dont think it will go Gold Flash straight away. I believe the routes will be retimed to work through to begin with - but stay as two sep routes, but then be merged into one at a later date. all (strong) rumours for now though!
DeleteGold Flash sounds interesting but going to be difficult to recognise Stagecoach Gold and Gold Flash from the front wise
DeleteThey also said that they are thinking of introducing wifi on more busses possibly this so called gold flash. Only problem i see is one bus company with far too many colour schemes
DeleteOh for heaven's sake, what nonsense, it's a bit early to be whinging about that. Is it too difficult to tell a Red Flash from an ordinary red PCB decker? No, I thought not. Besides, from the front a Stagecoach Gold bus is as much black and dark blue as it is gold, let alone what the destination screen says.
DeletePerhaps the ex-London buses which are coming to replace those recently moved on might come in on this 50/43 route and in time, or straight away, be branded for this route
ReplyDeletethere is no more ex london buses coming.
DeleteIs there any news on what these vehicles are actually going to be?
DeleteCitybus going to mess up the 43 and 50 now too then by merging. The Blue Flash 42 service is a joke. The Tavi service is all over the shop and hardly ever on time and they hardly pick any passengers up now either.
ReplyDeleteAgree that the blue flash service is a mess at the moment. The timetable is impossible for drivers to keep to time on most of the day. Despite this passenger loadings are still pretty good though the patience of many regulars is beginning to run out as Tamerton buses are often over 25 minutes late during the peak.
DeleteSimple cause for this is they've (again) taken a bus out. They tried this a few years ago in 2011 though they very quickly realised this wouldn't work and put the 4th bus back in. It's the same now - the Tamerton runs desperately need that 4th bus back, it's just impossible for them to run a service of that length on three buses every 30 minutes. The timetable for Tamerton especially is horribly tight, and buses being around 20 minutes late for Tamerton is pretty much 'expected' now. The Tavistock end of the route isn't much better. I very much hope it's addressed soon - it's all very well spending fortunes on branding them as BlueFlash with free WiFi but what's the point if they can't get basic reliability right. It's not like they're only occasionally late or only by a few minutes earlier. Desperately needs addressing.
DeleteThe 83A and 86 on Sunday's are timed so when one bus comes into Tavistock the next one leaves, presumably you would think that it is the same bus the comes in that goes out, however most Sunday journeys have an hour layover at Tavistock to make the best timekeeping for events the run across the moors, where as citybus, Are every 2 hours and have one bus for the majority of the day so if there is a delay it is very difficult to Make up time.
DeleteI believe that there are 11 brand new single deckers on order. Perhaps these are for the new Gold Flash service.
ReplyDeleteno? where you hear that?
DeleteHeard this from a usually reliable source who works for Citybus. If the Citaros are going to be sold in December and as the 50 is not really suitable for deckers then this would make sense.
DeleteNot heard anything about Citaros being sold? And who says DDs not suitable for the 50? As someone who relies on the 50 every day I'd rather have the DDs than anything else. That said the Citaros are idea for the route even if I am not a fan
DeleteAnon 13:00 This is true .. trouble is , do Citybus care about messing this route up at all. Tamerton for example they have no competition so can mess customers around as much as they want, and Tavistock I think they have lost this one to First and they know it, the route change making it unreliable and subsequent price increase will only speed up this routes demise.
ReplyDeleteIt is stupid to dispose of DDA compliant Citaros when you have non DDA compliant Dennis Darts to replace within 18 months. It is also stupid to spend money on buses that are worth not much more than scrap value to make them DDA. First aren't doing it - they are putting in slightly newer, but DDA compliant single decks as replacements.
ReplyDeleteAn R reg Dennis Dart was modern technology when it was new - it's just an old banger now.
Why PCB are repainting them and running them still is beyond me. They aren't what people want to travel in, whereas a Citaro is what customers want to travel in. Refurbish them and they still look very modern, an old R/S reg Dart is still an old R/S reg Dart.
But then most passengers would be hard pressed to tell the difference between an R reg Dart and a 54 Reg Dart as they look pretty much identical from the outside. Also First have repainted older Darts included an R reg one and at least one former Hong Kong S Reg so they seem to think its worth spending a bit of money on old Darts too.
DeleteI agree with you re the Citaros though - I cant see these going anywhere unless its part of a vehicle swap with others in GA Group.
On the contrary, it's not 'stupid' at all. In fact, it makes good business sense. If you have a batch of buses that you've looked after since new which are presumably still in good condition underneath, why not spend a bit on them to get a few more years out of them? Far cheaper than shelling out a lot more money for second-hand buses which may be newer but which you don't know, and which will still need a repaint and probably an interior refurb too. As Graham says, the passengers won't notice the age of the buses unless perhaps their condition is poor, it's really only enthusiasts who make an issue of it. It's not the age of the bus, it's the condition of it that matters, inside, outside and underneath and Citybus's R-reg Darts do belie their age rather well.
DeleteI heard that the reasons that the Citaros were being sold were too many accidents involving them, very expensive spares and that they still had a resale value. Whether this is true or not we will see.
DeleteIt's also worth noting that on all 'refurbished' SLF's (16,17,21,22,23,25) that they've completely re-trimmed the interior too; re-trimmed every seat. Combine that with their re-paint and the ramp fitted, they really don't look their age at all. I suppose the vast majority of passengers wouldn't be able to tell that the refurbished ones were anywhere near 16 years old.
DeleteTom, there is also another Dart in the spray shop, not sure which one it is (it is not 26, 35, 38, 61, 63 or 70). Anyone got any ideas?
DeleteWhen the 43 was merged with the 41 and ran through to Southway the service was a joke. Buses all running late, drivers not knowing which bus was theirs. Citybus just blame traffic hold ups around the city and not the fact that the route is to long with not enough buses to cover it. The most sensible option would be to merge the 43 and 44 like it used to be in the good old days.
ReplyDeleteWe lookk forward to another down grading of service.
Have you not seen manadon roundabout in the morning peak? Manadon Flyover in both peaks, Woolwell roundabout in both peaks, drake circus on a saturday, tailing right back to top of exeter street sometimes!
DeleteOur buses get stuck in this chaos day in day out. Maybe if more people left their cars at home, and travelled by bus, then the roads wouldnt be so congested, meaning more reliable bus services, and more people would travel to plymouth to shop rather than exeter, which isn't as congested.
It's much less fuss when u take the bus as london transport used to say.
We should have a car free day on saturdays as a trial. with possibly a special shopper dayrider to tempt people to leave their cars at home?
Sorry, but congestion is no excuse. Someone at Milehouse signed has a Service Registration to say that the company will run the timetable and route according to the document submitted to the Traffic Commissioner.
DeleteMy local Stagecoach subsidiary couldn't get my local route to run to time, they looked closely at the GPS data the buses send back and decided that the route needed an extra vehicle so they went out and bought one. A very positive move when they could have cut a little loop out in one town which would ahve saved the required time, but been a bit (but not hugely) inconvenient to passenegers. With another route which was struggling for time, they re-arranged the car workings to link with another route which had some spare time in it, oh and they re-equiped the route with the older vehicles with new rolling stock to match the newer buses on the other.
Citybus has a choice, it either runs a compliant operation, with achieveable timetables, or it can continue as it is and get called to explain to Ma'am.
11 brand new single deckers sounds good, guess that is replacements for 14 Citaros, and with more ex-London double deckers due I imagine 3 of them will make up the numbers against Citaros. Anyone know when the Deckers are coming?
ReplyDeleteI think the only we thing we know for sure is that we dont know what if anything is currently due! Rumours I have heard the most are that some new single deckers are due and possibly some secondhand DDs are due, but not from London. One commentator here indicated Citaros going but I've not heard this from anyone else yet - but it cant be ruled out! I had heard that if and when we get Gold Flash 43/50 then it would be run using the Volvo B7RLEs - but I cant see that there are enough of these tpo run the whole route so maybe we are getting some more?
Delete...and we know that GoAhead has promised the city industry leading profit margins (Stagecoach currently delivers 17%)!
Deletethere will be no more ex london deckers coming.
DeleteThis idea of high profit-margins rings a bell in my mind. Many, many moons ago, when First Western National reigned supreme in Cornwall and much of Devon, the orders from Aberdeen were to achieve, I think, around 16%. This was the time when they were winning every tender they could by fair means or foul, when they were failing to provide the services to the extent that the managers were wearing out the carpet in the Chief Transport Officer's office in Devon County Hall and when they were deliberately bidding impossibly low for school contracts so that private operators were going out of business one by one. However, once they had the overwhelming network they wanted, managers here struggled to achieve much profit at all, let alone 16% - with the result that Laira Bridge saw a rapid succession of managers given twenty minutes to clear their desks. Apart from the character who was reputed to have sacked the postman for not wearing uniform, they were decent people, too, who treated their staff well - but could not, with a rural network, achieve anything like the profits demanded. One outcome of this was that two companies emerged - Truronian and Western Greyhound - who could run services properly, had low overheads and could cope with a lesser profit margin. Both made huge inroads into First's network.
DeleteGo Ahead Citybus can make 17% in the city - possibly - but, if they have their eyes on a rural network as well, they may struggle. History, if ignored, has a nasty habit of repeating itself.
The story about the postman and uniform (he wasn't wearing a tie) is true!
DeleteBack in my day at WN, Badgerline Group wanted 15% from all Group companies. As the MD of the time said "on a sunny summer day in peak summer I might make that in Cornwall, I can achieve it on some routes in Plymouth but the guys in Bristol only have to drive out of the depot to exceed it..." Yes, times change, but the pressure has long been on in the south west. And I'm sure that it doesn't matter much if your head office is in Weston-super-Mare, Aberdeen, Newcastle or indeed, Perth.
As for history repeating itself, would anyone care to speculate how the ownership link between the buses and trains in First-land might have affected things? Onward connections, through tickets and so on all look good in the rail franchise submission, even if the territory is too far from Whitehall for anyone to see the reality of an aged bus fleet. If we didn't now have First Great Western, would we have First Devon & Cornwall?
Especially as 3 of the Volvos are used on 42A/B, which according to some commentator required another bus anyway (paint 103?) which would leave 104-109, 6 buses, which is definately not enough for 43/50
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about the merging of the 43/50, two popular services which seem to work well as they are. Would it not be a better option to use the new single deckers to fight Mount Batten in a bright yellow or green (or gold) flash livery - and perhaps, here is radical thinking: Mount Batten - City Centre - Barbican/Hoe (combine with current 25), with perhaps some kind of link ticket to the water taxi too. It might make more of a public transport link to our main asset and promote our links to the sea.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting idea. Maybe also extend the 25 to Durnford Street and the Royal William Yard, maybe even the Torpoint Ferry, providing a half-hour circular from Mount Batten to the Hoe, Cremyll Ferry and Torpoint Ferry. Would also increase frequency to the Cremyll Ferry to every 15 minutes, combining with the 34. A really interesting idea.
DeleteOnce Boris has gone off to be an MP, what's the guessing that a few Borismasters would become surplus to requirements? Now there's a thought .....
ReplyDeleteI have long wondered, too, if some Plymouth corridors are intense enough to justify trams. If they were high-platform, Manchester-style, it would be possible to have tram-trains from Tavistock/Gunnislake and also from an A38 Park-and-Ride out beyond Saltash (a long-dormant plan was Trerulefoot but that is a long way out), Sherford would be another candidate for a high-quality, high-capacity service. Now there's another thought .....
No chance whosoever of any Borismasters becoming surplus.
DeleteBack in Ken Livingstone's day, there was no chance of any artics becoming surplus - they were still buying them. Boris thought they were monstrosities and wanted modern-day Routemasters. Who knows whether the next Mayor of a different political persuasion thinks the Borismasters are too expensive to buy and too expensive to run, especially with a crew of two, and wants to phase them out. I doubt if we shall see any in Plymouth, though, even if they have to be sold cheap because nobody wants them.
ReplyDelete