Great Western Coffee Shop

I have been totally frustrated by my efforts to get ANY response out of First Customer Services in Southampton, as First West of England just seems to be falling apart. I have tried personal and confidential emails to James Freeman, the new managing director, whose previous stellar reputation with Reading buses is now in tatters with the lustre coming off in large lumps. I heard he gave a 30 TV interview to Made in Bristol last week, but it is so low powered that it does not  even stagger out to Portishead,where I live and just peters out ...rather like the buses. Waits of an hour during the day for an advertised 15 minute service are common. I have tried to contact one of the 'Bell' traffic commissioners . Sarah ( local) or Beverley (national) but can find no way of contacting them via email.

Good idea, I've been thinking for some time about a post regarding First Bus services along the A4 at Taplow. Both now run by First.

We have regular busees from Maidenhead to Taplow on the A4.

The 75 from from Maidenhead to Heathrow Central is half hourly during the day and hourly at night to arounf 23:00. By and large it they run reasonably well but are often late due to traffic as they have to negotiate, the airport tunnel Langley Center, Slough Centre and the A4 through the Trading Estate so can get caught up. I believe they are heavily subsidised by LHR as part of their obligation to encourage use of public transport to the airport. They are part of the 7 series which provides services fro High Wycombe, Slough Maidenhead, Windosr etc. to both the Central bus station and Terminal 5.

The other service is the 53 from Binfiled to Wexham PArk Hospital which mangaes to stay in Bucks once it crosses teh river at Maidenehad. it used to be run by Thames Travel and was pretty reliable and usually ran  to time.

However, it has now been taken over by First with the same timetable it now seems to run 10 minutes late on most services. Coincidence?

Logic would suggest that what we / others do for trains should be done / work for buses too. But experience shows that there a significant differences in sentiment which mean that outcomes that have worked for us / work for us for rail don't work (or don't work as well) for bus (or "haven't done so far"). We can talk bus forums, community bus partnerships, local community volunteers looking after bus stops, bus campaigning and it's all rather different.

This forum welcomes bus posts in "Other Ways to Travel". So you have a bus forum there if you would like to use it; I grant you that the domain name isn't helpful ("firstgreatwestern.info") but that could seriously be looked at.  I suspect that the reason it's not taken off before might be partly in the name, and the sentiment, and not because there's an alternative out there which everyone uses.

Please feel free to post bus stuff.

If it gets big enough we'll open a separate bus board

If we start going separate site / more admin work, who pays?

By the way, we do have contacts in the Southampton Customer Service Centre, as well as in some other bus companies. And (in Wiltshire anyway) we're keen on Rail / bus integration.   The new TransWilts line timetable we (CRP) have produced includes the times of the buses that are available to people without extra charge if they hold a valid train ticket.

First Kernow has turned a leave as far as service is concerned, however their Facebook page is useless.

I sent a comment asking about times/route number for a journey between Penzance and Mousehole in the evenings as I want to visit the famous Christmas Lights.

Their reply was something like "What route number would you like"

If I knew that I wouldn't of asked!!!!!!

I have changes the "Other ways to travel" board to "Buses and other ways to travel" as a very clear flag to people that - YES PLEASE - post about buses!

I believe First Kernow customer service is based in Southampton, so the local knowledge aspect is very sadly missing.

All of First Bus divisions in the south, west, and south west* have their Customer Service in Southampton.

*They are:

Berkshire & The Thames Valley
Bristol, Bath and the West
Devon, Cornwall & Mid Somerset
Hampshire
Wessex, Dorset & South Somerset.

Buses now explicitly added to the "other ways to travel" board - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15059.0

They could call themselves "Western National" again and paint everything green.


OTC

Timetabling done from a computer in Plymouth.  Unfortunately this is sadly reflected in the services with late running in West Cornwall.  Up until recently, each depot did their own scheduling, then centralisation came about, and a 'not so good service' came about.
No allowances made for late running of bus - disabled passengers; rush hour traffic; impossible to drive timings between stops, etc, etc.  Don't get me started.
Simple enough to fix, but would involve the Plymouth office actually listening to why services are late (instead of blaming lazy drivers); a few spare busses and drivers. "Can't have the latter - they cost money.  Not having drivers sitting around all day doing nothing either".

As a delivery driver myself, GBM, so much of your post resonates with me.  :o

It would be great to get some of those 'expert' route planners out of their faraway office and give them the keys: "There you are: you show me how to do it, here in real life."  ::)

This also resonated with Scott (late of this forum), who was a senior planner.  Unfortunately he seems to have gone quiet - it would have been to our advantage if he'd joined First.
The crazy thing about driving our bus routes is that we're just given enough time to drive the route only without stopping.  Stopping, fares, queries, traffic problems, etc, make the run late.
I'm pleased (but saddened) that others are in the same boat by having distant planners who know nothing about the reality of the routes.

Am I sensing an explanation here into the answer to the question I've been asked locally ... "Why does the First bus service seem to suffer far more than the Faresaver one?" ... the answer's not been anything obvious to me, and indeed I have no data to back up the suggestion of differential delay statistics between the two companies.   A great pity, indeed, that Scott has gone quiet.

From documents received over the last few days, I understand that one of our members based in the Wilts / Somerset border country had a meeting that included First Bus Bath earlier this week, and wonder if he has comment from that?  A copy of the minutes from the meeting don't indicate any discussion or reliability and late running, but it does usually come up at a meeting which  :( I had to miss this time.

Come back Scott, we miss you - all is forgiven.
Discussions to outside bodies generally take the following format "Late running? Timetables are set out to ensure this doesn't happen.  It's our lazy drivers who come out late from their mealbreak - this causes the problem.  We'll address that issue immediately". Very strongly worded memo to all depots and drivers about coming out from mealbreaks on time; you will be monitored and disciplinary action,to follow.  Unfortunately (most) drivers come off mealbreak on time/early but have to WAIT for their bus to come in (late).  Then there is further delay as one driver signs out & takes his stuff & the new drivers signs in completes his paperwork; logs into the ticket machine (these can be v e r y  slow); and sorts his change out.  Even more delay. And this with a less than five minute changeover scheduled. Next public meeting it is announced "we've monitored and spoken to our drivers, things will improve" .  It doesn't of course, so the following meeting is told that timetable changes will be made.  That finally helps, but in our case has only happened in the peak summer months.   sigh.

I have just looked at the timetable for the 14/18 in cornwall as my drive to work takes me along the exact route of said bus from redruth to truro. The bus is timetabled for 36 minutes. If I'm starting work between 0830 and 1000 it takes a minimum of 45 mins to drive to work. Likewise if finishing between 1500 and 1800 it takes a minmum of 45 minutes to get home.
The bus also has to pop off route to go into one of the villages which will easily add 5-10 minutes to the journey.
I see noway is a 36 minute bus time possible from redruth to truro in 36 minutes

Remember there are short bus lanes in Truro which helps a few minutes.