2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Printable Version +- North East Buses (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums) +-- Forum: Local Bus Scene (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Operations, Management & Infrastructure (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +--- Thread: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched (/showthread.php?tid=3322) |
2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Adrian - 15 Mar 2021 Prime Minister launches £3 billion bus revolution Bus strategy to see passengers across England benefiting from more frequent, reliable, easier to use and cheaper bus services. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-launches-3-billion-bus-revolution Prime Minister Boris Johnson today (15 March 2021) unveils the most ambitious shake-up of the bus sector in a generation, which will see lower, simpler flat fares in towns and cities, turn-up-and-go services on main routes, and new flexible services to reconnect communities. Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Adrian - 15 Mar 2021 Following on from the discussion yesterday in the Nexus tenders thread, I notice that Shapps has put out a range of tweets including this: https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1371374505566859269?s=20 Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Andreos1 - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 9:54 am)Adrian Prime Minister launches £3 billion bus revolution So much in there to digest, but for me
RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - streetdeckfan - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 9:54 am)Adrian Prime Minister launches £3 billion bus revolution Hang on, are we sure we actually voted in the Tories? I wonder what this will mean for the operators round here, no doubt NEXUS will pounce on the offer to basically have control of all of the buses (and promptly ruin them), Durham Council will probably do sod all like usual. Great to see it looks like they're making NSA mandatory! RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - mb134 - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 10:25 am)streetdeckfan Hang on, are we sure we actually voted in the Tories? Friend linked me the Daily Heil comments for this. Christ, I forget how backward half this country is. It seems like they're wanting everything "turn up and go", so I can only assume they've looked at big cities then forgot the rest of the country exists. Areas where a DRT service won't be good enough, but where a bus every 5 minutes would be overkill and run the bus companies/councils into the ground within about a day. I'm welcoming of the plan as a whole but the Tories really need to learn how to temper expectations, how long until these are "world beating buses" much like our "world beating" track and trace... RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - streetdeckfan - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 10:53 am)mb134 Friend linked me the Daily Heil comments for this. Christ, I forget how backward half this country is. I'd definitely consider myself a Conservative, but I wouldn't dream of reading that shite. Then again, I'm one of the few people that actually reads a variety of sources (of different political leanings) before believing any of it. For 99% of journeys, a 30 minute frequency is good enough. The only reason you would want a higher frequency is for the extra capacity (and in some cases in order to make connections with other services viable). RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Adrian - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 10:15 am)Andreos1 So much in there to digest, but for me It seems to be enhanced partnerships by force*, rather than the voluntary method of present. I'm not convinced that this alone will repair a decade of destruction that austerity has reaped on bus services, not to mention the 6 years prior to that of an improperly funded and discriminatory ENCTS scheme. * of course you can still opt out, but it sounds like they're trying to stack it in such a way that its impossible. Similar to the regional devolution schemes/Mayors Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - ASX_Terranova - 15 Mar 2021 According to BBC News, The Government are spending money to implement new bus lanes, are there any places that would need this up here RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - James101 - 15 Mar 2021 There’s so much to take in & to be clarified but the enforced quality partnerships need to have a nationally mandated framework. I don’t see why a council with a poor track record of supporting buses (Hi, Hartlepool) would be any more motivated to support buses under this arrangement. What would prevent the operator and the council agreeing to *reduce* services to save costs? As for cross boundary services, it could be messy to get every local authority in which the X9/10/11 operate to agree. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Storx - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 12:54 pm)James101 There’s so much to take in & to be clarified but the enforced quality partnerships need to have a nationally mandated framework. I don’t see why a council with a poor track record of supporting buses (Hi, Hartlepool) would be any more motivated to support buses under this arrangement. What would prevent the operator and the council agreeing to *reduce* services to save costs? It's should be the North East Joint Transport Committee (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham) and Tees Valley CA (Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar, Stockton, Middlesbrough) who should be the 2 people controlling the budgets for it imo rather than the local councils doing it. I believe the Tees Valley pretty much do already anyway with the new DRT scheme all over the area. NEJTC on the other hand is a bit more messy, but it would be better if it was combined rather than the Metro (Nexus), Northumberland and Durham Councils running it who none have any interest in buses bar how cheap they can do it. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - omnicity4659 - 15 Mar 2021 Is there any elections happening soon...? Or something that needs distracting from...? Pie in the sky as always from the Tories but Joe Public don't know it's going to be dumped on the "too complicated" pile and eventually forgotten about. Bit like the tunnels under the Irish Sea. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - James101 - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 1:20 pm)omnicity4659 Is there any elections happening soon...? Or something that needs distracting from...? I’d say the fact Coronavirus Bus Service Support Grant is due to end well before passenger numbers will recover to commercially sustainable levels means that a lot of what’s been announced is very likely to happen 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Adrian - 15 Mar 2021 The Government statement on this should be after 3.30 today: https://twitter.com/HouseofCommons/status/1371456853578821638?s=19 Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Economic505 - 15 Mar 2021 Just to counter something written earlier. I’m old enough to remember integrated transport ran by the PTE. Happy to return to that. Go North East will defo resist. They will be forced to offer a good service , and not keep chopping and changing every few months. Remind me , how do I get a GNE bus to Hartlepool ? Is it the 230, or x35, or x5, or 55 or 55A? Oh balls, it’s been scrapped. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - mb134 - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 11:32 am)streetdeckfan I'd definitely consider myself a Conservative, but I wouldn't dream of reading that shite. Then again, I'm one of the few people that actually reads a variety of sources (of different political leanings) before believing any of it. The frightening thing is that, for a number of people, that rag is their main source of news. Agreed though, not enough people fact check news before taking the first source as gospel because it aligns with their personal beliefs (which, often, wouldn't be their personal beliefs if they'd bothered to actually do some reading once in a while). I find 20 to be the sweet spot myself, majority of routes that aren't wholly in a city don't need more than that on the whole. As soon as you start taking it down, especially if you want a clockface timetable, you then have half hourly or hourly. Half hourly for me is a tricky one, on one hand those services don't tend to deserve an increase in frequency, though at the same time I find that service frequency will put people off using it for their commute, for example, as if they miss one it's an awful long wait on a cold morning. Same thing with hourly - on current (pre-Covid) loadings there's not a chance in hell I'd suggest something like ANEs 57 should be more than hourly, yet if it was would those in Ashington/Bedlington be more likely to use it to get to work in Cramlington, or those in Delaval more likely to use it to Whitley Bay? It's ultimately a balancing act, which is why I think this statement from Boris quite irresponsible, between being attractive enough for punters and making enough money to keep the wheels turning. With every 20 minutes, you generally find that there are other reasonably frequent services on those same corridors, leading to an increased confidence for passengers that they'll be able to catch a bus easily, resulting in healthy passenger numbers. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Adrian - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 2:17 pm)Economic505 Just to counter something written earlier. I’m old enough to remember integrated transport ran by the PTE. Happy to return to that. Go North East will defo resist. They will be forced to offer a good service , and not keep chopping and changing every few months. Remind me , how do I get a GNE bus to Hartlepool ? Is it the 230, or x35, or x5, or 55 or 55A? Oh balls, it’s been scrapped.It actually looks like most operators, including Go North East and Stagecoach, have spoken out in favour of this. https://twitter.com/gonortheast/status/1371474118151974914?s=19 https://otp.investis.com/generic/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=273&newsid=1460855 I was a bit surprised by the latter, so I'd be interested to see the finer detail and how the benefits for customers stack up vs benefits for operators. Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - streetdeckfan - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 2:23 pm)mb134 The frightening thing is that, for a number of people, that rag is their main source of news. Agreed though, not enough people fact check news before taking the first source as gospel because it aligns with their personal beliefs (which, often, wouldn't be their personal beliefs if they'd bothered to actually do some reading once in a while). The issue is going from a 30 minute to a 20 minute frequency is a 50% increase, that's quite a big jump, and some routes just won't be able to justify it. (15 Mar 2021, 3:14 pm)Adrian It actually looks like most operators, including Go North East and Stagecoach, have spoken out in favour of this. If the big operators are in favour of it, then there must be more to it that we haven't heard yet. On the surface, it seems like they're wanting to do over the whole country what they're doing in Manchester, but if the ops aren't opposing this then there has to be something. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Ambassador - 15 Mar 2021 Not surprised the operators are speaking out in favour - less commercial risk for them. We're not going to see a return to pre COVID levels for sometime and that will put a strain on the coffers. Franchising and local control is seen as some big evil and it worked for a long long time up here with the PTE and it worked really well. The concern of course would be Gannon and Co and Nexus being in charge of the implementation. Just look at the utter farce that is the lack of regionwide smart cards or contactless. None of it really addresses the age old problem of tempting car users out of their cars (and away from taxis) onto buses but it's a start. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - Jamie M - 15 Mar 2021 I'd love to know who this re-incarnation of "bus bill" this is aimed at? It's clearly not at the humble car user, rather people who don't already have cars. I'd have thought these are the sort of people who would be using the bus regardless of these initiatives... There's zero pull factors to convert, and there's surely no push factors from automobile manufacturers the other way. The system needs a full re-envisagement top to bottom. I'm also struggling to think who is paying for all of this. Sounds like mystical magic money trees again. Are we going to pay by an increase in fare? Or by increase in taxation on top of all of the covid drama. 10 years to late to me. All of this (bar contactless) could have been done before. Buses have had GPS tracking for as long as I can remember, "smartphones" have been popular for at least 15 years. Bus lanes are habitually ignored due to traffic levels and just as it's human nature. People park wherever they want. It's a sorry state of affairs that is a catch-22 to break. RE: 2021 "Bus Revolution" launched - mb134 - 15 Mar 2021 (15 Mar 2021, 3:40 pm)Ambassador Not surprised the operators are speaking out in favour - less commercial risk for them. We're not going to see a return to pre COVID levels for sometime and that will put a strain on the coffers. See, I had thought this too (data had very much suggested it) however a couple of drivers I've spoke to over the past week have said that there's been a definite pick up with them hitting the enforced capacity on a couple of trips and school dupes very much being required. Obviously even that isn't near the usual level of travel, with reduced frequencies at the moment as well, but it is a promising sign that we hopefully won't be too far off - particularly when pubs, clubs, shops and restaurants fully open back up (and the mask requirement is gone). |