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Author Topic: Trapping people in their villages  (Read 22022 times)
Tim
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« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2015, 14:30:33 »

In remote areas not well served by buses, or where existing services are under threat, I feel that more could be done to make bus services viable.
Perhaps have the bus company deliver mail, parcels and light freight such as small deliveries to local shops.

I've seen this done in Iceland and Norway (where they have plenty of remote villages).  Norway is also rather good at integrating tourist buses with service buses and also with their ferries and trains, so you might have 100 people on a coach/rail/boat trip who are tourists off a cruise trip or doing a "fjord tour", but the tourists keep the ferry links to remote villages viable and the  coach will stop a couple of times in the middle of nowhere to pick up a local coming home from college.  In Iceland, the tourist bus coming out of Reykjavik each morning stops at local fuel stations to drop off boxes of part backed bread for the shop and Amazon parcels.

Or in small villages, have the bus driver read utility meters. The reading of large numbers of meters would cause undue delay, but to read say one meter a week should be reasonable and the utility company should be willing to pay for this service in remote areas.

Maybe, although I think that will all be being done remotely soon with smart meters

The other approach would be to increase the population of many small villages a bit by building more housing. Few people would support large scale redevelopment, but most villages would NOT be spoiled by the building of say 5 new family homes. That's another 20 or more potential passengers for the bus service, and more trade for the village shop, public house, and post office.
Such additional housing should in my view be of a similar style and price to existing homes in the same village, so as not to unduly alter the character of the village.

Absolutely agree.  Too many villages have become outposts of well off retirees.  Some new "ordinary" homes would give a better social and age mix.  I get the sense that building more houses though would provoke the usual NIMBY reaction. 

The main problem with UK (United Kingdom) buses since deregulation is lack of stability of service.  Would you move to a village on the basis of a decent bus service to your work place?  Would you trust that that bus service would still be running in the future?  You might if it was a railway service (and Freshford for example thrives in part due to the presence of a station).  If you were a logistics company would you use buses to transport your parcels knowing that the service could be stopped with only a few days notice?  If you were a package tour operator would you book your customers onto a service bus to, lets say get them to Stonehenge, would you trust your customers with one of the UK's bus companies?  or would you lay on your own coach?
« Last Edit: November 02, 2015, 14:36:53 by Tim » Logged
JayMac
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« Reply #16 on: November 02, 2015, 14:43:31 »

Absolutely agree.  Too many villages have become outposts of well off retirees.  Some new "ordinary" homes would give a better social and age mix.  I get the sense that building more houses though would provoke the usual NIMBY reaction. 

My Mum and step-Dad, despite not being well off retirees, are dead set against proposals for new housing, including a social element, in the village they live in. Something I find mildly amusing as they are living in a 1980s build house on a small estate which a previous generation of village NIMBYs campaigned against.
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #17 on: November 03, 2015, 11:17:52 »

...the service could be stopped with only a few days notice...

That's why buses are superior to trains, in some eyes (not mine, I hasten to add): Flexibility! Smiley

Is there an answer to the question of sustainable rural transport? A combination of factors has stripped most small towns and villages of their original purpose and turned them into little more than outer suburbs, with too low a population density to enable the economic provision of services. Opening a new railway station in a town or village may serve as a nucleus for development, but essentially it does this by making it a better-connected suburb of the city that is now more accessible.
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Rhydgaled
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« Reply #18 on: November 03, 2015, 11:26:26 »

Is there an answer to the question of sustainable rural transport?
Transfer responsibility for tendering bus services from councils to TOCs (Train Operating Company), making the bus services a franchise commitment of the rail franchise? No idea if that would work out, just throwing the idea out there.
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Tim
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« Reply #19 on: November 03, 2015, 13:48:54 »

Is there an answer to the question of sustainable rural transport?
Transfer responsibility for tendering bus services from councils to TOCs (Train Operating Company), making the bus services a franchise commitment of the rail franchise? No idea if that would work out, just throwing the idea out there.

No idea how it would work either but I do think it is an idea worth exploring. 
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Richard Fairhurst
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« Reply #20 on: November 03, 2015, 14:12:42 »

For those in the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)'s southern region (as it were...) I believe there's going to be an item on bus subsidy cuts on BBC South Today at 6.30pm today.
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Fourbee
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« Reply #21 on: November 03, 2015, 14:26:24 »

They might also show the fella from the lunchtime bulletin who used his photocard driving licence number (or I'm guessing, part of it) with a 7 day season from Basingstoke to Twyford. GWR (Great Western Railway) are looking for ^170 from him or I think it's court this Friday IIRC (if I recall/remember/read correctly).
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« Reply #22 on: November 03, 2015, 15:34:02 »

They might also show the fella from the lunchtime bulletin who used his photocard driving licence number (or I'm guessing, part of it) with a 7 day season from Basingstoke to Twyford. GWR (Great Western Railway) are looking for ^170 from him or I think it's court this Friday IIRC (if I recall/remember/read correctly).

OT; he's not the only one who does this.
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Tim
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« Reply #23 on: November 04, 2015, 10:18:12 »

They might also show the fella from the lunchtime bulletin who used his photocard driving licence number (or I'm guessing, part of it) with a 7 day season from Basingstoke to Twyford. GWR (Great Western Railway) are looking for ^170 from him or I think it's court this Friday IIRC (if I recall/remember/read correctly).

Presumably instead of the official Rail photocard?

If that's against the rules then I don't condone it although its hardly the crime of the century because the railway will still have got the correct fare off him.  A slap on the wrist and a small fine would seems the appropriate punishment.

Having said all that, the rules are a bit silly though aren't they.  Is there any reason why the rules shouldn't be changed to allow a photo driving licence to be used as a photocard for a season ticket?  Surely they are deemed secure enough.  It would save the railway and the passenger a bit of money if unnecessary issuing of photocards was avoided.
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Fourbee
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« Reply #24 on: November 04, 2015, 10:27:54 »

It's my fault for dragging this thread off topic with the tenuous connection of South Today Smiley. The photocard issue has being brought up over on this suitable thread anyway:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16354.msg186053#msg186053
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« Reply #25 on: November 04, 2015, 10:44:57 »

Having said all that, the rules are a bit silly though aren't they.  Is there any reason why the rules shouldn't be changed to allow a photo driving licence to be used as a photocard for a season ticket?  Surely they are deemed secure enough.  It would save the railway and the passenger a bit of money if unnecessary issuing of photocards was avoided.

I suspect t would add a whole raft of ID checking options onto railway ticket inspection people - if a driving license then what about a passport?  And what about an international driving license ...

It also strikes me as a curiously perverse message to allow the "competition"s photo ID when rail competes so often with the private car for journeys.
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #26 on: November 04, 2015, 11:13:41 »

I think it is very reasonable to expect to be able to use your passport or driving licence as proof of identity; the proprietory ID card should only be necessary for those who don't have one of the others. I don't see this as a 'whole raft', and I don't see the need to accept any other form of ID which may not such obvious bona fides.

I gather that in some states of the USA it is normal for people who can't or don't drive to have a 'non-driving' driver's licence - essentially an ID card by another name.

 
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #27 on: November 04, 2015, 11:39:08 »

Having said all that, the rules are a bit silly though aren't they.  Is there any reason why the rules shouldn't be changed to allow a photo driving licence to be used as a photocard for a season ticket?  Surely they are deemed secure enough.  It would save the railway and the passenger a bit of money if unnecessary issuing of photocards was avoided.

I suspect t would add a whole raft of ID checking options onto railway ticket inspection people - if a driving license then what about a passport?  And what about an international driving license ...

It also strikes me as a curiously perverse message to allow the "competition"s photo ID when rail competes so often with the private car for journeys.

It's really very simple - does the photo on the Passport/Driving license match the holder? Yes? Then accept it.

This is one of the fundamental problems of the railways - customers are expected to fit around their often archaic rules & processes "this is the way it works around here", rather than these being adapted to suit customers in the 21st century.

As a valid photographic driving license is perfectly adequate ID to board a domestic flight in the UK (United Kingdom), I can't see why it shouldn't be enough for a clippie at a railway station.
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Rhydgaled
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« Reply #28 on: November 04, 2015, 12:05:40 »

It also strikes me as a curiously perverse message to allow the "competition"s photo ID when rail competes so often with the private car for journeys.
We're getting off-topic, but isn't it even more perverse that I was enable to buy a 3yr 16-25 railcard when I was otherwise eligible because the 3yr car was (I think) only available online and online purchase of a railcard requires 'competition' ID (passport or driving license)? I don't drive and haven't gone overseas for years, so my passport had expired (apart from Eurostar, overseas travel involves use of 'competeing' modes too).
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« Reply #29 on: November 04, 2015, 12:40:34 »

[rant]

For fear of going further off-topic, the noun is LICENCE.

 Angry Sad

[/rant]
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