Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 09:15 29 Mar 2024
- Bus plunges off South Africa bridge, killing 45
- Easter getaway begins with flood alerts in place
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
29th Mar (1913)
Foundation of National Union or Railwaymen (*)

Train RunningCancelled
09:00 Gatwick Airport to Reading
09:08 Newbury to Bedwyn
09:46 Westbury to Swindon
09:54 Bedwyn to Newbury
10:22 Newbury to Bedwyn
10:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
11:05 Swindon to Westbury
11:29 Newbury to Bedwyn
11:57 Bedwyn to Newbury
12:17 Westbury to Swindon
12:52 Bedwyn to Newbury
13:15 Swindon to Westbury
14:19 Westbury to Swindon
15:14 Swindon to Westbury
Short Run
05:33 Plymouth to London Paddington
06:37 Plymouth to London Paddington
07:03 London Paddington to Paignton
08:35 Plymouth to London Paddington
08:41 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
09:37 London Paddington to Paignton
09:45 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury
10:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
Delayed
05:03 Penzance to London Paddington
06:05 Penzance to London Paddington
07:10 Penzance to London Paddington
08:03 London Paddington to Penzance
08:15 Penzance to London Paddington
09:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
11:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 29, 2024, 09:29:26 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[159] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[68] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[63] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[62] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
[56] Return of the BRUTE?
[38] 2024 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Bath & the surrounding area service changes from 30 January 2022  (Read 1356 times)
Timmer
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 6293


View Profile
« on: January 22, 2022, 12:10:16 »

Sad but not unexpected news that service D1 will no longer operate between Warminster and Salisbury.

https://www.firstbus.co.uk/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/planned-changes/bath-surrounding-area-service-changes

Quote
First West of England is making some changes to its Bath services from 30 January, to address services that are financially unsustainable and introduce a number of timetable revisions to improve punctuality and reliability.

Following long-standing issues with commercial viability and detailed discussions with the West of England Combined Authority and Wiltshire Council, Service D1 will operate hourly, Monday to Friday daytime, from Bath to Warminster (Boreham Fields) via Trowbridge with the aid of short-term financial support from the Combined Authority. The D1 will operate hourly on Saturday and there will be no change to Sunday and Public Holiday services. 

Service D1 will no longer operate between Warminster and Salisbury due to low passenger numbers but Wiltshire Council is working to source a replacement. In line with the changes to Service D1, Service D1x between Bath and Trowbridge will also be withdrawn due to very low passenger numbers.

Amongst a number of changes to improve reliability and punctuality, all journeys on Service 19 between Bath and Cribbs Causeway have been re-timed. Revised timings will also apply to Service D2 between Bath and Frome, which will also benefit from an additional afternoon peak journey to cope with high demand…
continues to list other changes in the Bath area.

Quote
First West of England’s Managing Director, Doug Claringbold, said:

“We already made changes to some of our Bath timetables earlier last year, with frequencies reduced slightly on selected routes in response to the nationwide shortage of bus drivers, which has exacerbated existing difficulties with recruiting drivers in Bath and was impacting our ability to maintain service levels.

Unfortunately this comes on top of issues with the viability of some Bath services that pre-dated the pandemic and will not therefore be resolved by any recovery in passenger numbers. Although regrettably we have had to reduce service levels between Bath and Warminster and will no longer operate to Salisbury, the West of England Combined Authority has been able to provide financial support to a number of services to limit any changes coming into effect on 30 January.

We will continue to work with Mayor Dan Norris’ team, as well as Bath and North East Somerset Council and other stakeholders, to explore further options for protecting services. The challenges are significant, but we are committed to try and find the best solutions to keep people moving.”
Logged
wiltshirebloke
Jr. Member
**
Posts: 16


View Profile Email
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2022, 00:45:18 »

Beeline are picking up the replacement Service 24 between Warminster and Salisbury. Fingers kept crossed that connections will be kept, but are not guaranteed. 9 min turnaround at Salisbury end, 13 min at Warminster

Timetable reported to be as attached.
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40691



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2022, 08:23:00 »

Beeline are picking up the replacement Service 24 between Warminster and Salisbury. Fingers kept crossed that connections will be kept, but are not guaranteed. 9 min turnaround at Salisbury end, 13 min at Warminster

Timetable reported to be as attached.

Timetables from Wiltshire Council at http://option247.uk/timetables.html for both the 24 (Salisbury - Warminster) and D1 (Warminster - Bath) as they will run after next weekend.   Other timetables with short term changes are there too - TransWilts rail timetable as running at the moment thinned out due to Covid, and Melksham Town Bus running on a single vehicle, due to driver shortage.  Big thanks to Lee and Wiltshire Council for helping put these together in one place; various bits of social media publicity in the individual towns to let as many people as practical know what's happening.

First had planned to pull out of the whole D1 route - Bath to Salisbury.  In December, they registered plans to provide a very much more limited service out of Bath.  It follows a pattern that we've seen over a number of years as the old Bagerline services in Wiltshire have been lost and so I would characterise my (personal) reaction as "resigned to what they are doing" rather than shock. 

The way these things retrenchment things work is:
* A bus operator decides they don't want / aren't making [enough] profit on a route
* They register at 70 or 56 days notice a change with the commissioner
* The local authority is alerted, lets others know there's going to be a gap, and also works out if a service is socially necessary and if so if and how it can be funded
* The local authority sees if the original operator can be persuaded to carry on, or run something else to meet the needs, at a price
* Others are invited to bid / provide too (and it can be hard to find bidders)
* Bid(s) come in, contracts are worked out, and the service changes are publicised.

Lots of rumours can end up flying around (which worries the passengers) even for a service which is pretty darned vital to the communities served - and indeed past record is that it's far from certain that gaps will be filled.  It's also a bit of a panic to plan what should be long term provision over a very few weeks.  In this current case, I would like to record my admiration of the work done behind the scenes by the teams at both Withshire and WECA» (West of England Combined Authority - about) - Option 24/7 has been somewhat in the loop in helping to explain the above process so we're aware of various "it might be [only] this" stuff which I do not propose to document here as it would confuse now that we have something worked out.   Which is:

* An hourly bus from Bath to Warminster on the same D1 route that has been running until now.  Funded with support from WECA until April (so it's a short term contract) and operated by First (West of England) from Bath.  With low bridges at Limpley Stoke and Yarnbrook, the route is limited to single decker vehicles.

* A bus ever two hours from Warminster to Salisbury on what will be known as route 24. Funded with support from Wiltshire until April (so also a short term contract) and operated by Beeline from their headquarters in Warminster.

The timetables are co-ordinated to that the incoming bus from Bath drops off through passengers in Warminster who have a few minutes to connect (alternate hours only) into the Salisbury bus. The bus from Bath then provided a loop around the suburbs of Warminster.   In the opposite direction, the bus from Salisbury arrives and drops people off a few minutes before the return D1 journey, starting in the 'burbs, calls.

The theory is "good connections" but if one vehicle or the other is significantly late, the connections will be broken. My understanding is that under traffic commissioner rules, delaying the onward bus by waiting could lead to penalties, and in any case you would be "robbing Peter to pay Paul" with what could well become a knock on delay, especially on the 24 which has quite a tight turn around - indeed it's probably OK in the winter, but if the roads in Salisbury get very busy in the summer, or there are significant road works, or indeed if there are lots of passengers adding to the time spent at stops, it gets tight.

And ... I am not sure what's happening on through fares - I know it has been looked at.  In Utopia, both services would call at Warminster Station to connect all ways with trains, and journeys like Codford to Bath and White Horse Business Park to Salisbury would be single-ticket, multimodal, advertised, marketed, guaranteed, co-ordinated. But this in not Utopia - it's Wiltshire.  The desire is there, but the vested interests enshrined in law have made it impractical thus far.

We are in for a further round of this saga over coming months as the various parties look to sort out the spring and summer service on the corridor, not helped by the lack of any clear joined up direction from HMG / DfT» (Department for Transport - about) on funding bus services after March.

 

Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40691



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2022, 08:36:10 »

To add ...

As their (First's) route and depot network has been of late, the D1 has been a long, thin branch out of Bath.  With their Westbury depot shut down, the "far end" of the route in Salisbury has been prone to extended delay when a vehicle has problems out there during the day, having to get an engineer / new vehicle / recovery crew all the way out from Bath. 

Operation from a depot in Warminster, actually right beside the route, makes huge sense. Even if the "incident rate" is the same, incident resolution should be so much quicker!
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40691



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2022, 11:31:50 »

I have posted some general thoughts on most appropriate (most useful) discussion and campaigning at http://www.passenger.chat/25953sanityneeded which included a hefty chunk on "D1". January changes are done BUT they are only short term and we need to monitor progress and help work out the next stage ...
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Mark A
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1302


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2022, 21:42:05 »

Sad but not unexpected news that service D1 will no longer operate between Warminster and Salisbury.

https://www.firstbus.co.uk/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/planned-changes/bath-surrounding-area-service-changes


Thanks for posting this, it helped me find out what's happened to Bath's 6/7 buses serving Larkhall as its not easy to find the timetable on their web site - they previously ran to/from the bus station, but to assist timekeeping are now turning round at the Guildhall. So, a seven minute walk between there and the railway and bus station & bus/train connections rather weakened, especially if encumbered.

In the evenings from 8pm they *do* still run from the railway station (evening runs funded by the local authority) but as they're only hourly by then, connections from trains are likely to be grim.

Just from the point of view of people travelling within the city and making connections by bus, the 6/7 services are now a less attractive proposition, given that Bath has a largely hub-and-spoke model of services, and the days of me taking a bus to the station for the 9:08 train to Waterloo seem very distant.

(The enquiry desk at the bus station's also gone - though still physically present and accessible. There's no notice on it to say that it is now unstaffed, so I stood by it being ignored by all and sundry for a few minutes till a driver passed by and kindly sorted my enquiry - but if I'd been a visitor and not known in what direction to walk for the bus, this would have been a bit of a challenge. It's also a challenge for people who need to catch one of the services to, say, Twerton that run from something called 'Ambury' as many Bath people don't know where that is, let alone visitors...)
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40691



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2022, 22:13:44 »

(The enquiry desk at the bus station's also gone - though still physically present and accessible. There's no notice on it to say that it is now unstaffed, ...

No, but there's a notice on the outside inviting you in:



They'll tell you what you can do at Christmas (last year? this year?) on another notice:



And the route map (last Saturday) was showing routes than had already seen their last service.  Only slightly out of date - some of the maps in the buses showing routes that cease in April 2020



while directly across on the same bus YOU are extolled to keep up to date



Public transport has cut its costs to the extent that is turning off its business - new users will be put off by things like the above; they may make one Journey if they can work it out, but they're likely to be put off, and they're likely to share their stories with friends.


Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page