Rural buses - does anyone promote them?

[whole diary]

[Richard Fairhurst]

We have two buses here in Charlbury: the S3 Charlbury-Woodstock-Oxford (operated by Stagecoach) and the X9 Chipping Norton-Charlbury-Witney (operated by Pulhams).

Both were formerly commercially viable, just about. Post-pandemic both are now on subsidy and likely to be withdrawn unless their fortunes turn round.

It occurred to me earlier that I've never seen a single piece of publicity for either service. No leaflet drops, no posters, no advertising, no promotional fares, no community outreach. Nothing other than sticking timetables up at bus stops. The bus comes and the bus goes and it's up to you to find out about it.

As it happens, both services are fairly labyrinthine, partly as a result of the town's one-way system but also due to the way the S3 interworks with Chipping Norton services. I've lived here for 20 years and take an unhealthy interest in these things, and even I only figured out last week which way the evening S3 services leave Charlbury. The most common complaint I hear is that "I don't know where and when the buses go from".

Stagecoach and Pulhams are both generally thought of as good operators. So - is this normal? Are other Coffee Shoppers outside the big metropolises being regularly exhorted to get their local buses?

[CyclingSid]

Most of my bus journeys tend to be between local towns; Reading to Wokingham/Bracknell or Reading to Newbury.

services are fairly labyrinthine

This is normally (locally?) a function of subsidy to enable the availability (?) to the most number of potential passengers for the amount of subsidy paid. This means that buses through Wokingham tend to have their routes reviewed and changed fairly regularly so that the council thinks it is getting the most passengers for its pound. Gets gripes from the elderly passengers that Reading is causing the problem (their buses) but it is actually caused by their council (Wokingham).

West Berkshire does tend to advertise especially their cheap bus deals in the run up to Christmas. Never seen anything off bus in Reading despite the council owning the bus company.

Going "further afield" to Oxford I think there is less information now that Thames Travel has been completely absorbed into Oxford Bus. To High Wycombe I tend avoid Arriva (especially the back seats) as they had another bus fire this year, and seen another one towed out of Reading in the last month. Don't always have timetables on their bus stops.

I would have though with the current situation on the railways that bus companies should have been shouting their wares from the roof tops.

[WSW Frome]

Frome Town Council together with FAVBUG (local campaign group) are planning quite a large promotion of bus services (and I hope rail services too) in the area for early 2023. This will include features in the local newspaper and other material.

Frome Town Council being an unusual authority and quite dynamic has various "green" transport campaigns. This one will definitely be an awareness campaign since people do not seem to know the range of public transport services available even in a smaller town like Frome. One aspect will be use of services across town for medical appointments and town centre visits. Frome is quite well served for bus and train services, not always so frequent, but we do (still) have regular evening bus and train services to/from Bath and beyond.

The Melksham team have, naturally, undertaken similar promotions previously.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Not rural - but hopefully topical:

We moved to our new home in Nailsea, just over a year ago.  The road from which ours is a crescent off was on a bus route.  However, at the beginning of the first lockdown, that bus route was suspended - and never reinstated. I think the bus company were actually rather grateful to Covid, for giving them an excuse to quietly drop that particular service, without any of the locals raising a quibble.

To be fair, we are within just a few minutes level walk on footpaths to Nailsea's High Street and local facilities, and I suspect the financial realities of that historic rather convoluted bus route, from the end of our road, were therefore rather an embarrassment to the bus company.

As an aside comment, there are no bus services between our house and our local railway station in Backwell - no problem, it's a twenty minute walk: good for my health. 

CfN.

[Ralph Ayres]

I'm guessing that subsidised routes in particular don't get promoted. The funding authority will only see it as their role to make sure a service is provided to meet proven need rather than encouraging extra travel, and the operator won't be interested as they're getting paid anyway. 
Cynically I'd say that on occasion the local authority may deliberately keep awareness as low as possible in the hope that low usage will demonstrate that the service isn't needed and the subsidy can be dropped.  I've certainly come across cases where the only timetables on the ground have been put up by local residents worried that no-one knows the bus runs so it isn't getting used.

[eightonedee]

Living a bit further up the Thames, I think the answer is "no", but with a qualification.

We have a community bus (actually some elderly minibuses that look like they started life as semi-ambulances) run by a public spirited local person with volunteer drivers, and it is promoted through our monthly community newspaper, the Goring Gap News.

Apart from that there's hardly anything. I'm vaguely aware that Oxford Bus run something called the River Rapid service between Oxford and Reading, but don't see any publicity locally. I had to go on-line to find out where the nearest Reading Buses service gets to (it's Upper Basildon). But here in Goring & Streatley we are lucky enough to have a half-hourly train service that gets us into the centre of Reading in about 12 minutes.

I very seldom use a bus locally - I think I have been on more in France in the last few years! I have used one in Didcot to get to and from the garage that services my car if they cannot offer a courtesy car, but go on-line to find out what is running - which to be fair seems quite a comprehensive network covering a lot of the Wantage/Abingdon/south of Oxford area that's not so well served by rail.

I think the reason for so little publicity is that those who run the services simply assume that we all look everything up on-line, which is actually probably correct. With the severe decline in local newspapers, and the increasingly fractured nature of social media, it must be hardly worth the effort to do anything else. Tough though if you are elderly and not on-line.

[Hafren]

Thinking about the subsidised secondary routes near me - both urban and rural...

There are a few dominant local operators - primarily First, but also some other major plays. Mix of commercial and subsidised routes, mostly moderately frequent, or at least regular through the day. Day/weekly tickets useful as they can be used on all routes as long as the same operator is used. People know these companies run several routes in teh area, and a look at the websites shows the routes available. A lot of flaws with the service provision, but  essentially there's a well-known service provision.

Then there are the 'fiddly little routes'. In some cases 1-2 hourly, in some cases a few each day. Several companies involved - fine for pass-holders, but not so useful for those on day tickets. In many cases, the route varies a bit with each journey. Some are designed to connect with 'main' routes, but others aren't.

In reality the 'urban circular' type routes are probably are only useful to pass-holders, because the able-bodied will walk to the nearest main road for more frequent services, but they would probably be more useful if they were set up better. There's one that goes past my house, but I couldn't tell you when it runs. There are no designated stops, and my road doesn't appear on the rudimentary maps. The only designated stop is one by a nearby pub, which is shown in the timetable and on maps/planners; even that one doesn't have a sign. Which is fine for rural and occasional routes (and indeed more the norm in deep rural areas) - probably cheaper than maintaining stops - but without even the odd waypoint added to maps/planners/timetables, only regular uses would know where to wait for it! The map doesn't even hint that it passes my house, and many locals wouldn't even have heard of the company if only really familiar with the big players! If someone living on my road were shopping and a bit tired and happened to be ready to leave town when the bus is due, they might pick it over a route to the nearest main route, but as there isn't integrated ticketing they wouldn't unless they were a pass-holder.

It strikes me that if several of these 'urban circular' type journeys were linked, maybe into a 'city circle' type service, they could run to a more regular timetable, rather than sporadically (often a few journeys in a row, then none for a bit, then the afternoon batch - perhaps partly because of shift/lunch patterns, and partly because of swapping between the routes). And if there were integrated ticketing - be it an area-wide franchising model or one company just running hte whole lot - they would be more useful to everyone.

It's great that a particular market segment is served by these buses, but when I've seen them they aren't full to the brim, and if someone put the time into reviewing them perhaps they could be that bit more commercially useful.

The rural 'fiddly extra' routes are generally better - more defined routes, run by the same operator as the main axes, and designed to connect therewith, and quite useful for tourism so there is some marketing, although it's inconsistent. There are however some oddities - one or two (not sure how much they've survioved post-Covid) that run on certain days only for shoppers etc, and one that I've seen advertised at stops - possibly run on a voluntary or 'community' basis of some sort. The only way I know about it is from seeing advertising sheets at stops in that area. The photos (not sure if token/clipart or actuially representative) show coaches - not sure if a coach co runs it, or if someone has basically hired the coach. It runs on certain days only, between main axes so that it's useful for popping to shops etc - and the advertising at the stops says it's for pass-holders only. I can understand why in a way - perhaps avoids some sort of additional admin hurdle - but it could be more commercially useful if they could carry fare-payers as well. Again, perhaps if this type of route were linked into some of the others it could run daily, carry all passenger types etc.