Scott, would your meeting with planners involve one from Plymouth (covering Cornwall)? Or was he/she moved to Southampton/Bristol? Unfortunately, totally devoid from reality, just someone who looks at TomTom route planner{other route planners are available} & plans as per their mileage/time.
I^m not aware of any collaboration with Plymouth, other than to say that they have the same Senior Management as part of the South West & Wales division, but I^ve heard similar stories from some of the Bath drivers. One told me that they ^use a magnetic pen to see how far it is^ (and base the times on that alone); needless to say, if I get in management, this practice will change. And speaking of which:
I believe a copy of their idea for rotue times is sent to each depot a few months before start date, but comments seem mostly to be ignored. Unlikely, but it would be good if that planner would travel every route during early morning, midday & evening to see how it actually runs & what changes should/could be made.
Wouldn^t surprise me, and they do the same with the University routes too; back in January last year, the University sent me the beta copy and I may as well have torn it to pieces it was so poor! (Partly as a consequence of this, they listened to me very carefully when planning this academic year^s timetable.)
As for travelling the routes, if I was in the planning department I would insist on it being part of the job - and if the company refused, I would do it in my spare time (which is usually spent either trawling the Internet or travelling anyway) instead!
{{To the extent that I've found myself on the recently form First Bus Customer Panel for Bath!}}
In internet casual looking, I came across the minutes from one of our County panels, & (no suprise), what they were being told did not equate to what we as drivers saw & knew. Very sad that the real truth was not being fully given.
Take comments with caution in mind............
Oh, believe me, I know all of this. I also have to put up with what the University say and do, so when it comes to Bath^s 15 - which, realistically speaking, may well count me as its most frequent passenger - it's a case of the old clich^
stuck between a rock and a hard place. Which is really annoying when it is the one route I can influence the most effectively...
A clear example was that I was advised that we had six Step Entrance buses running around at one point; I counted nine in service literally the next day!