Catch the Bus week, July 4th to July 10th 2016

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Unlike trains, where passenger numbers seem to grow year on year, the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s bus network outside London has carried a largely static number of passengers from year to year in the recent past - with, if anything, a gentle downward trickle. 

With that downward trickle, and with ever increasing costs and higher standards, formerly commercial bus routes start requiring a subsidy of they'll be withdrawn, and subsidised routes where a small hole in the budget becomes a gaping chasm, cured only by blocking / shutting off the route completely. 

"Catch the Bus Week is a national celebration of the benefits of taking the bus. We want to encourage people who don’t normally take the bus to give it a try. So come on, get involved!" - http://www.catchthebusweek.co.uk

There are "Catch the Bus" week events happening all over the UK - with dozens of transport authorities and operators taking part.

[ellendune]

Love to catch the bus to work, but whereas I can drive it in 15 minutes, the bus takes 90!

[bobm]

Ironically I plan to catch a couple of buses next week, neither of which will be running after the 20th July due to a cut in council subsidies.

[grahame]

Ironically I plan to catch a couple of buses next week, neither of which will be running after the 20th July due to a cut in council subsidies.

I should probably point you at our "Catch the Bus" week survey (as you have an SN postcode) which wonders if you'll be able to catch the bus in 2017 or 2018 in Wiltshire - http://option247.uk/busweeksurvey.html

[LiskeardRich]

As much as I like bus travel it's uncompetitively priced, uncompetitive timings.
To take the bus from Liskeard to Plymouth takes 3 times as long and costs almost twice as much (return) as the train.

Both Liskeard and Plymouth train stations are within 5 mins walk of their respective town centres.

For most people there is no competition - take the train.

Today my daughter wanted to go on a bus, so I took her from Liskeard to Plymouth and back. I was the only fare paying passenger the whole route in both directions. I therefore concluded bus travel is only popular with bus pass wielding pensioners. The single decker bus in both directions had approximately 80% of seats taken.

[grahame]

As much as I like bus travel it's uncompetitively priced, uncompetitive timings.
To take the bus from Liskeard to Plymouth takes 3 times as long and costs almost twice as much (return) as the train.
Both Liskeard and Plymouth train stations are within 5 mins walk of their respective town centres.

For most people there is no competition - take the train.

Yep ... buses are good for the shorter runs and trains for a bit longer to very long.  Average bus journey 6 miles; average train journey 20 miles.

Where there is a train option, we're suggesting in our neck of the woods that buses should connect with trains so that the longer journeys that are now station to station could use train for the longer part of the journey, and that the buses on parallel could really be a little more thinly sped or take in more 'burbs

[Rhydgaled]

Love to catch the bus to work, but whereas I can drive it in 15 minutes, the bus takes 90!

Five times slower than driving! That has to be one of the slowest bus routes in the country surely? In my case, it takes about an hour for my father to drive us to work. When he's away and I'm on the bus, it takes about 2hrs 25mins, including a 5 minute drive to be dropped off at the bus stop and the wait between buses at an intermediate point.

As much as I like bus travel it's uncompetitively priced, uncompetitive timings.

...

For most people there is no competition - take the train.

Unfortunately, some areas don't have trains. What I worry about is the competitiveness (or rather, lack of it) of buses against cars. Take the campaign for a Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway, the number of cars a DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) needs to take off the road in order to be saving greenhouse gas emmisions is supprisingly high, in rural areas buses are probably the most efficient means of moving pepole around. However, the current bus service between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth takes about 2hrs 15mins, 58% slower than the estimate of driving it, which isn't going to be particularly attractive to those without free bus travel.

Where there is a train option, we're suggesting in our neck of the woods that buses should connect with trains so that the longer journeys that are now station to station could use train for the longer part of the journey, and that the buses on parallel could really be a little more thinly sped or take in more 'burbs

Buses working with trains to enable longer public transport journeys would be great. The way I see it, motorways just shouldn't be necessary, cars should be used to get pepole in rural areas to the nearest bus stop (or the station, if there happens to be one close by), then buses for local journeys and the train for crossing the country. As for bus routes paralleling railways, couldn't they act as the 'stopping train' service? I feel that most railways (with the exception of suburban networks like those around London or the Cardiff ValleyLines, and where demand is sufficient for both slow and fast train services on the same route) tend to work best with just a few stations at large towns. My example for this is the Cambrian Main Line, Machynlleth, Newtown and Welshpool are the three main towns, so what is Caersws doing there and why are pepole trying to re-open Carno station? Carno and Caersws sound like a job for a feeder-bus to me, the obvious problem being sorting out the connections into and out of trains. Sadly, connections appear to be a very difficult problem to resolve.

[grahame]

Catching the bus to catch the train ... sometimes the services are there, it's just the information that needs correlating and the bus stops that need moving! http://option247.uk/bustotrainweek.pdf



With thanks to Bobm for the picture of 150/247

[John R]

For a minute I thought that was an exceptionally impressive cross platform interchange. 

[grahame]

As for bus routes paralleling railways, couldn't they act as the 'stopping train' service?

yes YES YES.

Take a look at our corridor leaflet as an example - at http://atrebatia.info/TWRailCorriderMiniGuideTRIM.pdf

Swindon	Bus	Train
Royal Wootton Bassett	Bus	|
Lyneham	Bus	|
Calne	Bus	|
Chippenham	Bus	Train
Lacock	Bus	|
Melksham	Bus	Train
Semington	Bus	|
Hilperton	Bus	|
Trowbridge	Bus	Train
White Horse Business Park	Bus	|
Yarnbrook	Bus	|
West Wilts Trading Estate	Bus	|
Westbury	Bus	Train
Rode	Bus	|
Beckington	Bus	|
Frome	Bus	Train

Just a pity that the bus from Chippenham only occasionally serves the station, and in both Melksham and Frome they never do ... and that there's little available in the way of through ticketing.  Yet  ...

Also backing up earlier post ... 90 minutes by bus from Swindon to Chippenham, 13 to 20 minutes by train.

[ellendune]

Love to catch the bus to work, but whereas I can drive it in 15 minutes, the bus takes 90!

Five times slower than driving! That has to be one of the slowest bus routes in the country surely? In my case, it takes about an hour for my father to drive us to work. When he's away and I'm on the bus, it takes about 2hrs 25mins, including a 5 minute drive to be dropped off at the bus stop and the wait between buses at an intermediate point.

Part of the reason is that there is no direct bus so must go into town. This lengthens the distance quite considerably as well as the traffic delays. Also as the direct bus from town to work was cut a couple of years ago so must now factor in a 20 minute walk from the nearest bus stop.

However, since I last checked they have joined two bus routes together so there is no longer a need to change buses in town.  So my 90 minutes has reduced to 1 hour.  Also have to factor in a frequency factor (the bus is every 20 minutes during the day but back to 1/2 hourly by the time I leave work.   

However, this is still not an acceptable option except in case of emergency.  It is only slightly faster than walking the direct route (5 miles).

[grahame]

Connections between bus and train remain, though, one of the less-tuned elements of timetable planning.  Take a commuter journey from Beanacre, Lacock or Lackham (all between Melksham and Chippenham) into Swindon.  The first bus leaves at 07:09 / 07:12 / 07:16 and reaches Chippenham Station at 07:26.   There's a Swindon and Paddington train at 07:25.   On the way back, the 17:30 train off Swindon arrives at Chippenham at 17:43.  The last bus to Lackham, Lacock and Beanacre leaves Chippenham Station at 17:41.

I can put a positive 'spin' on the morning connection failure, as there a TransWilts train from Chippenham into Swindon at 07:31.   Alas, no alternative in the evening for anyone who finishes work at 17:00 even beside the station in Swindon - the previous train is 16:57 from there.  I really wonder if there's a reason that bus can't run 7 minutes later. It's broken from the daytime pattern by that point, and it's the last run of the day for the vehicle - so no knock-on. I can't spot any onward connections off it;  there could be a problem with driver hours if they're as tightly scheduled to the limit as many Faresaver diagrams are.

[Chris from Nailsea]

There are "Catch the Bus" week events happening all over the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) - with dozens of transport authorities and operators taking part.

North Somerset Council noticeable ... by their absence. 

[ellendune]

North Somerset Council noticeable ... by their absence. 

I don't know given how few local authorities mentioned as a percentage of local transport authorities, the GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) region seems quite well represented.  You could add many other not listed.

[LiskeardRich]

Plymouth Citybus have an offer on for under 18s to travel all day for £1 when accompanied with a fare paying or concessionary pass holding adult.
I noticed under 18 as standing out rather than the standard under 16.