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Post by moz on Jun 10, 2023 15:47:18 GMT
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Post by twobellstogo on Jun 16, 2023 17:05:07 GMT
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Post by cardinal on Jun 18, 2023 15:28:24 GMT
The cuts keep coming. It’s quite depressing really because cost of living is still rising. Train services aren’t being improved in Kent either, some lines still on Covid timetables (ie High Speed)
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Post by greenboy on Jun 21, 2023 19:45:06 GMT
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Post by moz on Jun 22, 2023 16:55:47 GMT
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Post by greenboy on Jun 23, 2023 14:16:54 GMT
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Post by gwiwer on Jul 1, 2023 15:42:39 GMT
The bus has become irrelevant to far too many people. The delivery-van culture has reduced the need for even the house-bound to get out and shop. School transport is in some cases provided as a requirement but how many homes now run two cars becuase one parent has to work and the other does the school run? How many schools are clogged with cars at home-time which has a side-effect of impacting bus service reliability? Fares rose to levels few could afford or felt reasonable. Hourly services which have been perfectly acceptable for many years are now considered inadequate because of the "get up and go" society which demands everything now. Planning a journey around an hourly bus service isn't done any more.
To see former trunk routes such as the 2 axed entirely leaving significant villages with no public transport option is distressing to those of us in the industry but if people don't use the service what other option is there? Kent CC has chosen to withdraw funding from almost all supported routes in a county of very differing demographics. Huge rural areas with large distances to the nearest big town are fringed with a handful of major urban areas and conurbations. The contrast is stark. Stagecoach's "Loop" around Thanet for example is supported by the populations of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs and runs more often than the former East Kent 49 / 50 / 52 circulars once did, albeit with single not double deckers. But rural Kent cannot support commercial bus services with just a very few exceptions. Most of the weekly shopper buses which had been a feature of the county were withdrawn in previous rounds of cuts. Many places now have no public transport at all. This round of cuts continues that trend.
How long until the remaining key inter-urban links are broken? Rye - Lydd for example. And what then will be the fate of the Hastings - Dover operation? Try catching a bus to or from Sevenoaks - a large town - in any direction. Go Coach runs a few trips between school runs over former LT and M&D routes which once ran at least once an hour and every day. There is a residual daytime service south to Tonbridge. Nothing else. Ashford is about to head the same way.
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Post by greenboy on Jul 1, 2023 16:42:53 GMT
The bus has become irrelevant to far too many people. The delivery-van culture has reduced the need for even the house-bound to get out and shop. School transport is in some cases provided as a requirement but how many homes now run two cars becuase one parent has to work and the other does the school run? How many schools are clogged with cars at home-time which has a side-effect of impacting bus service reliability? Fares rose to levels few could afford or felt reasonable. Hourly services which have been perfectly acceptable for many years are now considered inadequate because of the "get up and go" society which demands everything now. Planning a journey around an hourly bus service isn't done any more. To see former trunk routes such as the 2 axed entirely leaving significant villages with no public transport option is distressing to those of us in the industry but if people don't use the service what other option is there? Kent CC has chosen to withdraw funding from almost all supported routes in a county of very differing demographics. Huge rural areas with large distances to the nearest big town are fringed with a handful of major urban areas and conurbations. The contrast is stark. Stagecoach's "Loop" around Thanet for example is supported by the populations of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs and runs more often than the former East Kent 49 / 50 / 52 circulars once did, albeit with single not double deckers. But rural Kent cannot support commercial bus services with just a very few exceptions. Most of the weekly shopper buses which had been a feature of the county were withdrawn in previous rounds of cuts. Many places now have no public transport at all. This round of cuts continues that trend. How long until the remaining key inter-urban links are broken? Rye - Lydd for example. And what then will be the fate of the Hastings - Dover operation? Try catching a bus to or from Sevenoaks - a large town - in any direction. Go Coach runs a few trips between school runs over former LT and M&D routes which once ran at least once an hour and every day. There is a residual daytime service south to Tonbridge. Nothing else. Ashford is about to head the same way. I think you're summed it up very well, so many people switched to online shopping during the pandemic and they're not likely to return to their old ways. It is quite shocking that the Ashford to Tenterden stretch is going to be left without any service at all, something that would have seemed unthinkable pre pandemic. This was once part of the 400 route from Canterbury to Hastings but it's a completely different world now. Villages like Bethersden and High Halden left without any bus service at all and no railway lines nearby and Wye on the other side of Ashford is set to lose its bus service as well although it does at least have a regular train service to Ashford and Canterbury and buses will continue along the A28. But as you say, what other option is there? It's a case of use it or lose and KCC can't go on indefinitely funding such services and to be fair they did fund last weekends free bus travel to try and get people back onto buses. |
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Post by twobellstogo on Jul 1, 2023 17:07:20 GMT
The bus has become irrelevant to far too many people. The delivery-van culture has reduced the need for even the house-bound to get out and shop. School transport is in some cases provided as a requirement but how many homes now run two cars becuase one parent has to work and the other does the school run? How many schools are clogged with cars at home-time which has a side-effect of impacting bus service reliability? Fares rose to levels few could afford or felt reasonable. Hourly services which have been perfectly acceptable for many years are now considered inadequate because of the "get up and go" society which demands everything now. Planning a journey around an hourly bus service isn't done any more. To see former trunk routes such as the 2 axed entirely leaving significant villages with no public transport option is distressing to those of us in the industry but if people don't use the service what other option is there? Kent CC has chosen to withdraw funding from almost all supported routes in a county of very differing demographics. Huge rural areas with large distances to the nearest big town are fringed with a handful of major urban areas and conurbations. The contrast is stark. Stagecoach's "Loop" around Thanet for example is supported by the populations of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs and runs more often than the former East Kent 49 / 50 / 52 circulars once did, albeit with single not double deckers. But rural Kent cannot support commercial bus services with just a very few exceptions. Most of the weekly shopper buses which had been a feature of the county were withdrawn in previous rounds of cuts. Many places now have no public transport at all. This round of cuts continues that trend. How long until the remaining key inter-urban links are broken? Rye - Lydd for example. And what then will be the fate of the Hastings - Dover operation? Try catching a bus to or from Sevenoaks - a large town - in any direction. Go Coach runs a few trips between school runs over former LT and M&D routes which once ran at least once an hour and every day. There is a residual daytime service south to Tonbridge. Nothing else. Ashford is about to head the same way. I think you're summed it up very well, so many people switched to online shopping during the pandemic and they're not likely to return to their old ways. It is quite shocking that the Ashford to Tenterden stretch is going to be left without any service at all, something that would have seemed unthinkable pre pandemic. This was once part of the 400 route from Canterbury to Hastings but it's a completely different world now. Villages like Bethersden and High Halden left without any bus service at all and no railway lines nearby and Wye on the other side of Ashford is set to lose its bus service as well although it does at least have a regular train service to Ashford and Canterbury and buses will continue along the A28. But as you say, what other option is there? It's a case of use it or lose and KCC can't go on indefinitely funding such services and to be fair they did fund last weekends free bus travel to try and get people back onto buses. Albeit it was one journey, but compared to my regular haunts in and around North Surrey, my one journey on the 2 this year from Ashford to Tenterden was very sparsely populated. High Halden had a couple of passengers board/leave, but nothing in Bethersden at all and the double decker was carrying loads no higher than high single figures. I also sampled the Arriva 12 the same day from Tenterden to Maidstone, and that too had very poor loadings until the Maidstone suburbs. It may be a Kentish thing, I don’t know, but of the home counties journeys I’ve undertaken this year, Kent had by far the lowest loadings of all. |
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Post by gwiwer on Jul 2, 2023 21:14:06 GMT
It's not just Kent.
I use buses in West Sussex, Hampshire, Devon and Cornwall plus occasionally elsewhere. Most of them now carry single-figure passenger loadings if any at all. Service frequency plays a part. Cost (prior to the £2 fares) also affected ridership. Societal change has turned the final few fare-paying passengers away from buses in many areas. Many services - even the commercial ones - now rely upon school and college traffic plus the diminished use of free travel passes and the low rates of return many authorities offer for them.
Crawley to Haywards Heath, two significant towns, are linked by two routes. One operates on alternate hours. The other, slightly quicker, route offers just a couple of trips and not every weekday either. I used the latter and found it to be a very poor apology for a service. The bus, shabby and filthy, displayed no destination and the wrong route number but was on the correct stand at Crawley so I asked the driver. Said driver had the doors open well before departure time (something of a rarity) and was chatting to a lady friend. He had his stockinged feet up on the dash above the steering wheel and wore very casual clothing rather than company uniform. We left around 10 minutes late for no reason other than his ongoing conversation, went like the clappers, bumped off at least three kerbs along the way, crashed through overgrown vegetation and all the while this driver had just one hand on the wheel and his stockinged foot still up on the dash! The other - also stockinged - was making some use of the pedals but without any form of shoes being worn. Apart from myself and his lady-friend only one other person made use of the entire trip and that was for a two-minute ride into Haywards Heath probably aboard the first bus which came along rather than specifically waiting for this one. The fare, pre-incentive, was £5 for this disgraceful ride.
Last week I was in Cornwall. An area where the local authority hand-in-hand with Westminster is doing a good deal to promote bus travel and offers a single brand and ticketing system no matter who runs your bus. Prior to the £2 fares the all-day any-operator Cornwall-wide ticket had been reduced from £10 to £5 and many local fares halved. That didn't seem to improve ridership all that much. Now we have the £2 fares and the day ticket is still £5 meaning you save money if you make three trips. The Lands End Coaster, which is the only local bus for numerous villages west of Penzance but is also pitched as a tourist service, was carrying very good loads on an hourly (each way) circuit taking almost four hours. The local Tin Coaster bus which offers the direct service between Penzance and the area I was in has been cut from a peak of four-an-hour in the 1990s to two and now just one an hour. Other than the morning and afternoon college runs it was carrying just 2 or 3 passengers per trip. And that' at £2 or using free passes.
Despite being a lifelong supporter, user and enthusiast I can see that the British bus, outside main urban areas, has become irrelevant to most people in the 21st Century. Something more than a £2 fare needs to be dangled as a carrot otherwise the only way people will get back on board is by use of a big stick. More buses more often where BSIP plans have been funded and put in place seems to be paying dividends. It needs that much and more across the counties and the regions to save the bus outside our main towns and cities.
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Post by gwiwer on Jul 5, 2023 17:12:07 GMT
By way of a contrast and at the same time as Kent loses another swath of bus services neighbouring East Sussex, always supportive of local public transport, announces a significant enhancement of its services. With the support of a successful BSIP campaign some commercial routes are extended and or significantly enhanced, some contracted routes are boosted and some evening and Sunday services are restored which have been unavailable for many years. Including Hastings - Tenterden where they will not longer offer onward links with anything going towards Ashford ..... so much for joined up thinking. www.eastsussex.gov.uk/roads-transport/public/bus-service-improvement-plan/improvements-to-bus-services |
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Post by moz on Jul 6, 2023 16:21:53 GMT
How long until the remaining key inter-urban links are broken? Rye - Lydd for example. And what then will be the fate of the Hastings - Dover operation? Try catching a bus to or from Sevenoaks - a large town - in any direction. Go Coach runs a few trips between school runs over former LT and M&D routes which once ran at least once an hour and every day. There is a residual daytime service south to Tonbridge. Nothing else. Ashford is about to head the same way. The Hastings - Dover run was decimated years back. The 100/101 only run between Hastings and Rye, only the 102 runs Rye to Dover which means if you want to get to New Romney from Rye you have to sit through Lydd-on-Sea, Lade and Greatstone as nothing other than the 11 runs along New Romney High Street and Hammond's Corner. Also, apart from the last journeys, there are no guaranteed connections at Rye. Moz |
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Post by gwiwer on Jul 13, 2023 20:14:12 GMT
How long until the remaining key inter-urban links are broken? Rye - Lydd for example. And what then will be the fate of the Hastings - Dover operation? Try catching a bus to or from Sevenoaks - a large town - in any direction. Go Coach runs a few trips between school runs over former LT and M&D routes which once ran at least once an hour and every day. There is a residual daytime service south to Tonbridge. Nothing else. Ashford is about to head the same way. The Hastings - Dover run was decimated years back. The 100/101 only run between Hastings and Rye, only the 102 runs Rye to Dover which means if you want to get to New Romney from Rye you have to sit through Lydd-on-Sea, Lade and Greatstone as nothing other than the 11 runs along New Romney High Street and Hammond's Corner. Also, apart from the last journeys, there are no guaranteed connections at Rye. Moz Something of a contrast to the early Stagecoach days when they combined the Brighton - Eastbourne, Eastbourne - Hastings, Hastings - Rye, Rye - Folkestone and Folkestone - Dover routes into one marathon numbered 712. It ran through every hour iirc and with many shorter workings to provide suitable headways over the busier parts such as Brighton - Eastbourne and Folkestone - Dover. For the enthusiast this brought the unusual sights of East Kent's bus-grant coaches in Brighton and Southdown's tall Volvo Citybuses in Dover. It presented all sorts of operational issues however as drivers didn't work through and could be presented with an unfamiliar vehicle type with differing ticket machine fitments. Punctuality was also a major issue given the length of the route and the heavy traffic often encountered. Seaford - Brighton was and is notorious for severe traffic delays while Eastbourne and Camber Sands in summer could grind to a halt. Passenger accustomed to a double-decker on the busy Sussex coast suddenly found apparently random journeys worked by a coach with fewer seats, more steps and no luggage racks inside which was very unpopular. Local passengers demanded a reliable and more localised service. It was swiftly broken up into Brighton - Eastbourne and Eastbourne - Dover sections with the latter soon becoming Eastbourne - Hastings and Hastings - Dover. That remained the position until the most recent round of cuts which, as you mention, split the route across Rye once again and have thinned the service across what was always a rather under-used section. Lydd - Camber was once served only by a twice-daily summer-only service (426) and Rye - Camber was only a couple of trips in winter. I suspect most users are only travelling to or from the next major town anyway so through services were more an operational thing than driven by commercial considerations. A couple of years earlier Stagecoach attempted to link the Worthing - Brighton route with those eastwards to Camber producing an unlikely Worthing - Camber through route 799 every two hours. This replaced some trips on the 230 (Worthing - Brighton) and those routes mentioned above to Camber. Also worked by coaches instead of deckers this proved equally unpopular with both staff and passengers. It started from Worthing coach station rather than the time-honoured sea-front bus stops (though was altered to also serve the usual Brighton-bound stop there after a few months of complaints) and again was usually late, could not be readily boarded by the less-able and had nowhere for shopping trolleys or buggies unless the driver got out and opened the locker. I gather the main purpose in this case was to retain work for coach drivers as the traditional Southdown "South Coast Express" and London routes had been run down or withdrawn by NBC and Stagecoach had no interest in keeping the remaining few trips. |
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Post by moz on Jul 25, 2023 2:36:13 GMT
The Hastings - Dover run was decimated years back. The 100/101 only run between Hastings and Rye, only the 102 runs Rye to Dover which means if you want to get to New Romney from Rye you have to sit through Lydd-on-Sea, Lade and Greatstone as nothing other than the 11 runs along New Romney High Street and Hammond's Corner. Also, apart from the last journeys, there are no guaranteed connections at Rye. Moz Something of a contrast to the early Stagecoach days when they combined the Brighton - Eastbourne, Eastbourne - Hastings, Hastings - Rye, Rye - Folkestone and Folkestone - Dover routes into one marathon numbered 712. It ran through every hour iirc and with many shorter workings to provide suitable headways over the busier parts such as Brighton - Eastbourne and Folkestone - Dover. For the enthusiast this brought the unusual sights of East Kent's bus-grant coaches in Brighton and Southdown's tall Volvo Citybuses in Dover. It presented all sorts of operational issues however as drivers didn't work through and could be presented with an unfamiliar vehicle type with differing ticket machine fitments. Punctuality was also a major issue given the length of the route and the heavy traffic often encountered. Seaford - Brighton was and is notorious for severe traffic delays while Eastbourne and Camber Sands in summer could grind to a halt. Passenger accustomed to a double-decker on the busy Sussex coast suddenly found apparently random journeys worked by a coach with fewer seats, more steps and no luggage racks inside which was very unpopular. Local passengers demanded a reliable and more localised service. It was swiftly broken up into Brighton - Eastbourne and Eastbourne - Dover sections with the latter soon becoming Eastbourne - Hastings and Hastings - Dover. That remained the position until the most recent round of cuts which, as you mention, split the route across Rye once again and have thinned the service across what was always a rather under-used section. Lydd - Camber was once served only by a twice-daily summer-only service (426) and Rye - Camber was only a couple of trips in winter. I suspect most users are only travelling to or from the next major town anyway so through services were more an operational thing than driven by commercial considerations. A couple of years earlier Stagecoach attempted to link the Worthing - Brighton route with those eastwards to Camber producing an unlikely Worthing - Camber through route 799 every two hours. This replaced some trips on the 230 (Worthing - Brighton) and those routes mentioned above to Camber. Also worked by coaches instead of deckers this proved equally unpopular with both staff and passengers. It started from Worthing coach station rather than the time-honoured sea-front bus stops (though was altered to also serve the usual Brighton-bound stop there after a few months of complaints) and again was usually late, could not be readily boarded by the less-able and had nowhere for shopping trolleys or buggies unless the driver got out and opened the locker. I gather the main purpose in this case was to retain work for coach drivers as the traditional Southdown "South Coast Express" and London routes had been run down or withdrawn by NBC and Stagecoach had no interest in keeping the remaining few trips. On the occasions I did 'Wave' work through to Hastings the 100/101 were well used along what would be considered the country sections of route between Dymchurch and Ore, regardless which branch you worked. People liked it because it was fairly reliable and got them closer to home - something Marshlink can't do. With some slack built into the running times then they would have worked great but SSE got a new broom with a sidekick who thought they knew better and culled the through service. I still think it would be workable, but it would take a large operating competitor to prove me right. Moz |
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Post by twobellstogo on Jul 29, 2023 16:24:40 GMT
To see former trunk routes such as the 2 axed entirely leaving significant villages with no public transport option is distressing to those of us in the industry… The 2 (Tenterden - High Halden - Ashford) has been partially saved - the route will have three return journeys in the middle of the day Monday to Saturday from 14th August. |
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