on Thursday 14 March.
Do they assume that bus passengers are all retired and don't have jobs to go to during the week?
There are Civil servants/Local Government involved. They don't do weekends.....in fact anytime after 4pm is unlikely, especially on a Friday! 🙂
I "liked" that ... as it brought a smile to my face. But actually there are some excellent central and local government folks around who do and will attend meetings outside 9-to-5 Mon-to-Fri.
But you hit a massive problem with planning meetings that involve both working users and 9 to 5 employees who you're inviting to attend as part of their work roll. I can't offer you a solution, but some examples / thoughts
a) Our forum meet on 9th February - a Saturday - was scheduled on that day of the week through a vote here, but it was a really close run thing and there was no clear winner. Big "thank you" to Jane Jones for coming along that day -
GWR▸ rather than government, but never the less extra appreciated. For the record, we had invited other (national) bodies with which we are not quite so closely linked but may have been interested, and all four sent encouraging words but apologies.
b) TravelWatch SouthWest has traditionally been on a Saturday too - and we (speaking for the board) have noted a poor attendance from all but the keenest public sector members. Whether that's because it's weekend or for other reasons, I don't know. We also noted that - as per many public transport community groups (and we are a group of groups after all) - we have an embarrassingly more mature age profile than most, with a very high proportion of retired men (yes, gender issue too!). So we are switching - as an experiment - to a weekday this time - 20th March 2019. Looking through attendee lists for last October, and speaking with some doubtful people, we established that from / within our
TWSW» base the experiment was worthwhile. Fares from within the TWSW area are only a little peak higher (we appreciate that once you hit "the east" it's more for outsiders), and there is actually a better morning train service. The complementary coach from Bournemouth (back to the Shepton Mallet thread!) which is provided by GoAhead because the train service is so awkward will be running - thank you to GoAhead!
c) Yesterday's meeting in Keynsham was 16:15 to 18:00. I'm ashamed to say I arrived late - indeed so late that I was even after a gentleman who we always expect to come in late. Prior commitment in Melksham to 15:15, lack of suitable train thence to Keynsham, bus connections too slow and I drove and got stuck in a gridlock on the top of Bath. Noted that as we approached 18:00, people started to leave - I suspect that was because of evening family commitments. Good turnout mind, slightly younger and more gender mixed than TWSW.
I have no solution. If others do, please tell me.
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