Arriva North East: Upcoming Service Changes

Jimmi

10,970

21 Mar 2023, 12:27 pm #2,987

(21 Mar 2023, 9:54 am)Andreos1 Stagecoach did some council runs for Oxford Council that involved guaranteed connections.
Tried it once and it was a disaster to be honest.

Paid for my single on the first bus, clarified the connection would be waiting for me in Bampton and the driver confirmed.

Got to Bampton, could see the connection waiting. My driver indicated the waiting bus could move on and there was nobody to make the change.

Obviously I reminded the driver I was wanting that connection - cue flashing lights and beeping horns.
Fortunately the second driver saw this and stopped the bus.

Absolute shambles.

Think they were less than hourly frequencies too.

My bus was continuing to Witney, so a connection could have been made from there, but that wasn't the point. I wanted some new mileage and had paid for that particular journey.

I've certainly seen some timetables from across the country where there's an indication in the timetable that the bus will wait, usually for around 10 minutes after departure in event of the delay of a connecting/bus rail service (the Wednesday only 572 from Ravenstonedale to Barnard Castle has this in the timetable for a connection from the rail service at Kirkby Stephen).

Dalesbus and Moorsbus have similar mentions in place but I've had connection issues on both, whilst it falls under marketing and ticketing for Moorsbus, the 128 isn't really involved in this so sure enough once when the M5 from Stokesley was delayed, the connection was missed (was literally approaching the 128 from behind and it pulled away from the stop at Helmsley on time). I almost fell foul to a similar occurrence on Dalesbus in the past where I was travelling from Ingleton on the 881 (Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire) where we would change to the 831 (Arriva Yorkshire) at Settle to reunite with the 830 (ANE) at Hawes to head home, only the driver on the 831 pulled away from Settle just as the 881 was approaching, fortunately in this instance at least, the driver came back to the stop otherwise we were either going to have to walk back to the station at Settle and use multiple trains at great cost to ourselves or stay on the 881 to Malham then get a selection of other Dalesbus services to eventually end up in Leeds where we'd still have to pay for trains to get home.

This 58/59 connection arrangement is not customer friendly in the slightest, all well and good putting that connections will be made but if it goes wrong in any form, it's going to be a major issue for passengers, missed connection at Kelloe to the 58 (1 hour wait for next bus unless you walk to Coxhoe), should the 59 decide not to wait at Kelloe for a 58 from Durham (2 hour wait for next 59). Many have already expressed their displeasure in this arrangement, including the likelihood that they've already faced cancellations with the current 57/57A so if a 58 which connects with a 59 should be cancelled, then its 2 hours wait for next 58/59 combo. There is also the question as to what would constitute a "severe delay" how long do we expect the 59 to hang around before departing?

Honestly, although it would take longer, if you live in the Trimdons at least, you'd argubly be better off connecting to/from the X12 & X21/X22 at Sedgefield, 58 & X21/X22 at Wingate/Station Town or change at Peterlee, these would take longer but have a more regular service although has the downsides of longer journey times and no through ticketing arrangements (can see the latter being a problem too).

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