I don't travel enough by bus. A lot of my journeys are longer distance where rail is much quicker. And a lot of my journeys are early in the morning, in the evening, or on Sundays where buses no longer run, rather forcing me to the train even if there is a more direct bus
route.
Yesterday, I listend to James Freeman of First Bus West of England (Bristol, Bath, Weston, West Wilts) talking about their services ... and in the evening I had the opportunity to sample the service - taking the one remaining service 271 that runs from Bath to Urchfont at 20:00 (schedule - 20:10 actual) six days a week.
Here are my notes from James's talk - excuse the typos / done on the fly
James Freeman
First West of England
"Bristol in Particular"
* People Business
* Detail
* all work together
* Make buses do what people want
* Attitudes are key
* It takes time
In Bristol
Fairer Fares has changed the way people travel. In Bristol - verwhelming success 137k jounetys + per week / 20% up
17.6% in last year; 68k fare paying passengers
10% due to fares changes
Problems - bus capacity, driver recruitment. + 25 vehicles
70% pay less now
Highest employment in UK▸ - HARD to get drivers. 140 short on 1600
100 single -> double deck
Route branding - no-one knows where they go?
376 every 30 mintues SEVEN days a week, Bristol to Wells and Street
More buses. Later nights, Faster Routes. Better Apps
"Never have a viable network outside cities"
"The Word" to all our employees.
Committed to the fight to encourgae public transport
His talk was (I believe it may have been requested) Bristol-centric; I used the service from Bath bus station.
The bus station was crowded, but the information place closed, toilets closed, and no visible customer facing staff. Boards at both ends of the room displayed destinations and times (or "x minutes") for buses. Only final destinations shown - so you had to know that the "Urchfont" bus (it's the only one of the day to Urchfont, which has a population of around 500) is also the service that runs toMelksham (25,000) and Devizes (18,000). A City map of bus routes is available, but where there used to be a map of the routes that run out of the City we now have commercial adverts. When the bus arrived, it actually came in to another bay; no change made on the departure board, no tannoy announcement. The driver did come into the public and shout "Urchfont bus on stand 7"
As far as I can make out, the bus station has no WiFi for public use, though it is covered by a First Bus network that's presumably just for staff. However, you can get intermittent connection if you log in through buses that are there on stands. Presumably that will get better as more buses get WiFi ;-)
The bus service back to Melksham was fine - bit of a rickety old bus, but no problem; quite happy with that. It does have a modern LED display which I think is supposed to inform passengers along the way. I made a note of the scrolling message - it's the subject line for this post - and it makes me realise how little I know about buses because I don't understand what these messages - which I've see on may buses (almost as standard) over the last few year - actually means. The "s" of "sit" flashes if that makes any difference in the explanation anyone can give me.
James talked about Bristol ... and I can't help contrasting his very positive message with some of the things I see / feel in Bath and West Wilts.
We have no "twice an hour, 7 days a week" like Wells and Street. It doesn't seem like we're all working together when the elected portfolio for public transport stands up
in public and tells James that we want to work with him, but that emails are not answered and calls shielded by a secretary. And when the evening x34 / 234 service - a continuation of the contracted route bewteen Wiltshire Council and First Bus that was supposed to restart last month after the August hiatus in which there were alternative train services - seems to have disappeared into the long grass. And when our local customer service rep's role has been moved to Norwich - again emails unanswered.
A new local contact has introduced himself in the past few days, but not as yet provided any answersI find it's very informative to listen to what other audinces are told, and very interesting to put myself in the shoes of others.
The cynic's view of this business of First buses to Melksham might be that First Bus have other "far more important" matters than the routes in the east of their area, and we get the dregs. And that an evening x34 / 234 contract would be more trouble than it's worth. As far as the council's concerned, if they can go though the motions of getting a quote but not follow it though, while they watch previous users find alternatives (or loose their jobs / give up nights out) then it's a budget saving that can be blamed on others. I don't
think I'm a cynic, but the pieces do rather line up in this case!
