Noting carefully the use of the words "affordable", "viable" and "direct replacement".
There have been 27 trips around the southern loop of the T1 per day (between 06:58 and 23:22 at Manro Road shops) and 19 trips on the eastern loop (Horse Road time) until now, and I'm sure your right in reporting that the ones you're familiar with have been busy. Of the 27, perhaps only the 07:52, 08:34, 10:04 and 10:34 into town are busy - maybe the 15:04, 15:34 and 16:04 too. Catering for commuters (first 2 services), Pensioner pass holders shopping (first two buses picking up after 09:30) and the ones later in the day after college. And if those 7 are 70% loaded, but the other services have (say) 3 people on them, public perception is "busy"
170 people tell you bus is "always crowded" (and see 70% loading)
60 people tell you "route is quiet" (and see 8% loading)
... calculated average loading (with college traffic) 24%
Take away college traffic during holidays
100 people tell you the bus is "always crowded"
70 people tell you "route is quiet"
... calculated average loading (without college traffic) 18%
Without a college on the eastern leg, and with the first arrival into the town not until 08:57, just 2 out of the 19 trips look like being likely candidates for busyness. Lets's say they have that 70% load
70 people tell you the bus is "always crowded"
50 people tell you the "route is quiet"
... calculated average loading 18% all year
Purely educated guesses, you'll appreciate. Arrivals into Trowbridge at 09:26 and 09:34 probably used to be busy when they accepted senior passes, but with the cutoff going back from 09:00 to 09:30 there has been a dramatic reduction in numbers using buses in the area at that time. Pensioners have told me "I can't use the XX:XX bus any longer" and that seems to be the general ethos, whereas the technicallity is "I would have to pay myself to use the XX:XX bus now, just like everyone else, but I choose not to do so". Result - even more appearance of busy buses as the already-peaky traffic condenses into even fewer services making an even-peakier operation.
T1 has been 2 vehicles, run commercially (and bear in mind that even a commercial service is supported by taxpayers in the form of free bus passes and perhaps by
BSOG▸ ), and an evening service of 6 trips on the southern loop, supported by Wiltshire Council and using a vehicle shared with route 234. We aretold that the evening 234 service has been costing ^47000 pounds per annum in support, 19,500 journeys being made, and a subsidy of ^2.40 per journey. The supposedly complete list of subsidies from Wiltshire Council does not list the T1 at all, and at a guess it may have been included within the 234 contract. So the withdrawl of the commercial services, and the inability to find an affordable / viable alternative actually saves the council money, cutting the services they provide while the finger is pointed at the operator who's withdrawing.
It's my understanding that there were indeed very few (just one!) bidders for the contract. Although you'll see lots of different company's buses running around in Wiltshire, many or even most of them are short of drivers, and furthermore they regard the T1 and what was being requested as a difficult route. One just wonders how much it's truely a problem route, and how much the current changes provide an opportunity to refactor.
Perhaps an idea would be to route the 87 Devizes service via Dursley Road/Wiltshire Drive, as the 67 North Bradley service is already routed via Rutland Crescent?
I believe that we could do very much better, indeed, by looking at the network as a whole; adjusting other routes to cover gaps is something of a step in that direction, and is indeed being done on the 234 sections which leave unserved communities - the x34 taking in Leap Gate, Rode, and St Thomas Road (hope I have that right?) on certain runs. And such changes [are / may be] [partly] funded by council support. Yet to a great extent that's just looking at the edges - almost crisis management to ensure at least some service remains. Problem is that if the sticking plaster fails to provide a more cost effective solution than the thing it's fixing, we'll be back in the same loop next year with the sticking plaster being lost as an attempt is made to save the other more viable parts of the by applying a sticking plaster that keeps
them for a further year.
