North East Buses

https://www.thisisthecoast.co.uk/news/lo...nd-whitby/

Transdev launch Whitby - Scarborough service.

CT Plus Yorkshire and Powell's now seem to be giving up as well.

https://www.route-one.net/news/hct-group...yorkshire/

Not good for people who rely on buses to get to work


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(14 Sep 2022, 8:38 pm)TEN 6083 wrote [ -> ]


Not good for people who rely on buses to get to work


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Presumably they’re running a Sunday service and none of their routes run on Sundays? I’d hazard a guess most are tendered too and it may be a decision that the local authority has made rather than the company.


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(15 Sep 2022, 4:42 am)Dan wrote [ -> ]Presumably they’re running a Sunday service and none of their routes run on Sundays? I’d hazard a guess most are tendered too and it may be a decision that the local authority has made rather than the company.


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If the decision is made by the LA, then fair enough (the LA is wrong though!), but if they're deciding to run a Sunday service, and the Sunday service happens to literally not exist. Then that is a stupid and ridiculous decision!

People on here seem to bang on about buses being a public service, and that is a primary example of not serving the public!

(15 Sep 2022, 5:05 am)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]If the decision is made by the LA, then fair enough (the LA is wrong though!), but if they're deciding to run a Sunday service, and the Sunday service happens to literally not exist. Then that is a stupid and ridiculous decision!

People on here seem to bang on about buses being a public service, and that is a primary example of not serving the public!

I'm guessing the fact that the day of the funeral has been classed as a bank holiday has something to do it? No service is the default for Connexionsbuses on Bank Holidays as they have no Sunday service.

For the most part it's a Sunday/Bank Holiday service across the country on the day of the funeral so we won't be seeing anything from the likes of Hodgsons & Scarlet Band either.

There's some exceptions however, for example DalesBus are only running their year round Sunday services whilst Moorsbus aren't running at all.

(15 Sep 2022, 4:42 am)Dan wrote [ -> ]Presumably they’re running a Sunday service and none of their routes run on Sundays? I’d hazard a guess most are tendered too and it may be a decision that the local authority has made rather than the company.


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According to Bustimes the 64 in Leeds does run on a Sunday, but that seems to be the only one . https://bustimes.org/services/64-leeds-a...2022-09-18

(15 Sep 2022, 1:04 pm)wibblejunior wrote [ -> ]According to Bustimes the 64 in Leeds does run on a Sunday, but that seems to be the only one . https://bustimes.org/services/64-leeds-a...2022-09-18

Connexions Buses operate the Monday to Saturday daytime journeys on the 64 - the evening and Sunday trips are operated by First Leeds from their Bramley depot (standalone on evenings, interworking with the 15 on Sundays). Indeed, Connexions are technically operating the daytime journeys under contract to First - and have been since they took over.

https://twitter.com/cityzapbus/status/15...8908770304

#Cityzap zaps for the final time on 19 Nov.

We've carried 1m customers since we started, but sadly the effects of COVID and rising costs mean that #Cityzap is no longer sustainable.

We hope to see you on #Coastliner which will continue as usual.

? https://bityl.co/Ecdy

More mythical 'desire' not working out then...?

1 million customers over 6 years isn't anything to shout home about. Working on a rough estimated average of 38 trips a day over 363 operating days per year, it's less than 13 customers per trip.

(22 Sep 2022, 9:52 am)Adrian wrote [ -> ]https://twitter.com/cityzapbus/status/15...8908770304


More mythical 'desire' not working out then...?

1 million customers over 6 years isn't anything to shout home about. Working on a rough estimated average of 38 trips a day over 363 operating days per year, it's less than 13 customers per trip.

GNE E400MMC is about 73 seats, so to assume the CityZaps is 65.

So each customer has on average 5 seats, for a passenger thats amazing, finically for the company not so much

(22 Sep 2022, 9:52 am)Adrian wrote [ -> ]https://twitter.com/cityzapbus/status/15...8908770304


More mythical 'desire' not working out then...?

1 million customers over 6 years isn't anything to shout home about. Working on a rough estimated average of 38 trips a day over 363 operating days per year, it's less than 13 customers per trip.

I thought Covid would get the blame. 

Even if you divide it up over the 4 and bit years prior to Covid, they're hardly earth shattering numbers.

According to buslistsontheweb the Cityzap MMC's seating layouts are H41/27F, which would be 68 seats in total.

(22 Sep 2022, 11:29 am)Andreos1 wrote [ -> ]I thought Covid would get the blame. 

Even if you divide it up over the 4 and bit years prior to Covid, they're hardly earth shattering numbers.

But we're constantly told that these are creating desire, so where are all these folk full of desire to get on board a bus crafted by everyone's favourite design agency?

Passenger numbers have been shrinking for years, as we both know, but covid remains the excuse of choice in the absence of any creativity to achieve growth.

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(22 Sep 2022, 1:32 pm)Adrian wrote [ -> ]But we're constantly told that these are creating desire, so where are all these folk full of desire to get on board a bus crafted by everyone's favourite design agency?

Passenger numbers have been shrinking for years, as we both know, but covid remains the excuse of choice in the absence of any creativity to achieve growth.

COVID was likely one of the final nail in the coffin for ZAP (and many other services) although from my experiences from using the service over the years it's never been particularly busy, always carried in the region of 20-30 pax max whenever I've caught it and at least 80% of those will have been concession pass holders, may as well have bought single deckers if they felt the need to buy new stock as I think I've only seen it remotely close to full once or twice. The post-COVID reduction in frequency from half hourly to hourly certainly won't have helped bring the passengers back either.

I've always thought of CITYZAP as more of a vanity project to Hornby than anything else, I feel some other companies would've binned off it ages ago and not bought specifically high spec new buses for it. I do wonder if ZAP would've continued for much longer had the opportunity to take over operation of the X98/X99 not come up especially as they can directly redeploy all the buses from ZAP onto it.

I still feel bus companies are relying too heavily on route branding, fancy timetable leaflets and gimmicks to try and and gain/retain passengers which do work to a point but it can only go so far and I see argubly little benefit to forking out for all these things like outside design agencies to design liveries and feel the money could be better utilised elsewhere.

(22 Sep 2022, 12:15 pm)wibblejunior wrote [ -> ]According to buslistsontheweb the Cityzap MMC's seating layouts are H41/27F, which would be 68 seats in total.

Sounds right as it doesn't have anywhere near as many single seats as the B7TLs did.

(22 Sep 2022, 5:12 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]COVID was likely one of the final nail in the coffin for ZAP (and many other services) although from my experiences from using the service over the years it's never been particularly busy, always carried in the region of 20-30 pax max whenever I've caught it and at least 80% of those will have been concession pass holders, may as well have bought single deckers if they felt the need to buy new stock as I think I've only seen it remotely close to full once or twice. The post-COVID reduction in frequency from half hourly to hourly certainly won't have helped bring the passengers back either.

I've always thought of CITYZAP as more of a vanity project to Hornby than anything else, I feel some other companies would've binned off it ages ago and not bought specifically high spec new buses for it. I do wonder if ZAP would've continued for much longer had the opportunity to take over operation of the X98/X99 not come up especially as they can directly redeploy all the buses from ZAP onto it.

I still feel bus companies are relying too heavily on route branding, fancy timetable leaflets and gimmicks to try and and gain/retain passengers which do work to a point but it can only go so far and I see argubly little benefit to forking out for all these things like outside design agencies to design liveries and feel the money could be better utilised elsewhere.


Sounds right as it doesn't have anywhere near as many single seats as the B7TLs did.

Personally I don't actually think Covid was here.

It was the reduction in some fares with Northern and the brand new Class 195 trains that put the nail in imo. You can use the York to Blackpool service which takes 32 minutes (twice as quick) for £1 more paying full price off peak and if you buy advance tickets, heck even buying a ticket for 7am tomorrow now or even in 15 minutes from now it's only £6 for a single which works out the same price.

There's no reason for anyone to use it quite literally unless you like sitting on buses for the hell of it especially considering it stops nowhere between York and Leeds and arguably the train station is more central than the bus station in Leeds anyway and the Class 195 have everything you get on any bus plus a toilet, better ride, no traffic, tables and so on.

It's very different to Newcastle to Stockton / Middlesbrough up here where it's Class 156 trains and they go for a merry jaunt around the world with capacity problems.

(22 Sep 2022, 5:12 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]I've always thought of CITYZAP as more of a vanity project to Hornby than anything else, I feel some other companies would've binned off it ages ago and not bought specifically high spec new buses for it. I do wonder if ZAP would've continued for much longer had the opportunity to take over operation of the X98/X99 not come up especially as they can directly redeploy all the buses from ZAP onto it.

I still feel bus companies are relying too heavily on route branding, fancy timetable leaflets and gimmicks to try and and gain/retain passengers which do work to a point but it can only go so far and I see argubly little benefit to forking out for all these things like outside design agencies to design liveries and feel the money could be better utilised elsewhere.

I think he turned it into a vanity project, like he does with most things, but it doesn't need to be anything more complicated than a basic York to Leeds express service - a low cost alternative to the train. I really struggle at how they've managed to get this one wrong.

(22 Sep 2022, 6:51 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]Personally I don't actually think Covid was here.

It was the reduction in some fares with Northern and the brand new Class 195 trains that put the nail in imo. You can use the York to Blackpool service which takes 32 minutes (twice as quick) for £1 more paying full price off peak and if you buy advance tickets, heck even buying a ticket for 7am tomorrow now or even in 15 minutes from now it's only £6 for a single which works out the same price.

There's no reason for anyone to use it quite literally unless you like sitting on buses for the hell of it especially considering it stops nowhere between York and Leeds and arguably the train station is more central than the bus station in Leeds anyway and the Class 195 have everything you get on any bus plus a toilet, better ride, no traffic, tables and so on.

It's very different to Newcastle to Stockton / Middlesbrough up here where it's Class 156 trains and they go for a merry jaunt around the world with capacity problems.

From the reactions I see on FB it seems that people prefer CityZap than the trains which are apparently "scruffy". However I don't know if that was aimed at the 195. 

For me I would probably pick the train as the CityZap doesn't run that late or early tbh. The train is probably more convenient I am not sure of the frequency but I am pretty sure there will be atleast 2-3x trains an hour which have plenty of carriages.

(22 Sep 2022, 7:11 pm)Unber43 wrote [ -> ]From the reactions I see on FB it seems that people prefer CityZap than the trains which are apparently "scruffy". However I don't know if that was aimed at the 195. 

For me I would probably pick the train as the CityZap doesn't run that late or early tbh. The train is probably more convenient I am not sure of the frequency but I am pretty sure there will be atleast 2-3x trains an hour which have plenty of carriages.

Believe it's just hourly the Blackpool to York train, there is other services but they're quite expensive the TPE / XC trains as it's more about long distance travel so they try to price local traffic off.

Probably people who haven't used them, believe it used to be Class 158 trains before hand which even then aren't too bad tbh.

(22 Sep 2022, 8:01 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]Believe it's just hourly the Blackpool to York train, there is other services but they're quite expensive the TPE / XC trains as it's more about long distance travel so they try to price local traffic off.

Probably people who haven't used them, believe it used to be Class 158 trains before hand which even then aren't too bad tbh.

Tbf Refurbed 156 & 158's aren't bad, its just that they need 4 cars and not 2 car trains. 

The worst thing really about the train is the breaking the sound is awful.

Just looking on trainline now, there are 8 trains between 6:45 & 7:45 (Monday 26th September) between Leeds & York, they're all under £8, except for the 7:44 which is £8.80. Northern, Cross Country & TPE

When people compare the cost of the train and the bus, they always seem to assume that everyone lives within walking distance, and travels to somewhere within walking distance, of a train station, which is unlikely to be the case.
Which means they're probably going to have to use another form of transport to get to the train and/or when they get to their destination.

Just as a little example, if I were to travel to Darlington, on paper it looks like taking the train from Bishop is the best option, it takes ~25 minutes compared to ~45 minutes on the bus, and for only 20p more than the bus! That's a bargain for the amount of time saved.

But, I happen to live 1.5 miles from the train station, that's a half hour walk. But, the bus to the train station only takes 5-10 minutes. However, that adds an extra £2.50 onto the cost. So, if we assume that the times line up (which they don't), then I'm paying an extra £2.70 to save 15-20 minutes.

But wait, there's more! The train station in Darlington is a 10 minute walk from where I'd want to be! So, I'm only saving 5-10 minutes, and I've had to walk half a mile!

In reality, end to end taking the 'faster' option actually takes an extra 15 minutes, and costs an extra £2.70.

(22 Sep 2022, 8:01 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]Believe it's just hourly the Blackpool to York train, there is other services but they're quite expensive the TPE / XC trains as it's more about long distance travel so they try to price local traffic off.

Probably people who haven't used them, believe it used to be Class 158 trains before hand which even then aren't too bad tbh.

Historically the trains and reliability haven't been the greatest and many people still think Pacers are trundling on lines across the North of England.

Off peak, Northern has two near direct trains an hour between York and Leeds (plus two taking a longer route via Harrogate) and the off peak single fare at least is just £3 (even on the Harrogate services).

CityZap's main form of marketing was using how bad the train services in the area are by targeting "fed-up commuters" and other rail passengers, just looking around on Google and a lot of the marketing is geared towards making out the trains to be overcrowded and more expensive, they use seemingly the largest price of a day return ticket to drive the argument that they're expensive and using ZAP saves money and the recent strikes has seen them post on their socials suggesting to use them instead even when it's just been CrossCountry striking only losing one service an hour. On the short lived Leeds to Manchester CITYZAP they tried getting that market by occasionally offering Rail users to try the service including a week of allowing season ticket holders to use it in 2017. Hornby has made multiple comments about the Northern services to/from Harrogate as well and proceeds to big up the 36 as being the best thing since sliced bread.

(22 Sep 2022, 9:50 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]Historically the trains and reliability haven't been the greatest and many people still think Pacers are trundling on lines across the North of England.

Off peak, Northern has two near direct trains an hour between York and Leeds (plus two taking a longer route via Harrogate) and the off peak single fare at least is just £3 (even on the Harrogate services).

CityZap's main form of marketing was using how bad the train services in the area are by targeting "fed-up commuters" and other rail passengers, just looking around on Google and a lot of the marketing is geared towards making out the trains to be overcrowded and more expensive, they use seemingly the largest price of a day return ticket to drive the argument that they're expensive and using ZAP saves money and the recent strikes has seen them post on their socials suggesting to use them instead even when it's just been CrossCountry striking only losing one service an hour. On the short lived Leeds to Manchester CITYZAP they tried getting that market by occasionally offering Rail users to try the service including a week of allowing season ticket holders to use it in 2017. Hornby has made multiple comments about the Northern services to/from Harrogate as well and proceeds to big up the 36 as being the best thing since sliced bread.

So there is, always thought it was only 1 train per hour.

Let's be honest though people aren't stupid and can see through all that. All a massive failure of deregulation as there's absolutely no argument for the bus service existing at all for any reason at all really.

It's not as if buses can shout from the rooftops about their reliability with all the cancellations they have which I believe Transdev were seriously impacted by aswell down there.

(23 Sep 2022, 8:41 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]So there is, always thought it was only 1 train per hour.

Let's be honest though people aren't stupid and can see through all that. All a massive failure of deregulation as there's absolutely no argument for the bus service existing at all for any reason at all really.

It's not as if buses can shout from the rooftops about their reliability with all the cancellations they have which I believe Transdev were seriously impacted by aswell down there.

Have they? I haven't seen anything about them, but does TransDev even made a profit. 

Wonder how Team Pennine are doing the most advertising I see for TransDev is when they have free/£1 ride on the harrogate electric buses.

transdev for the X99/X98 in Sky Class are offering £3K joining bonus for drivers with a PVR license.

(23 Sep 2022, 8:41 pm)Storx wrote [ -> ]So there is, always thought it was only 1 train per hour.

Let's be honest though people aren't stupid and can see through all that. All a massive failure of deregulation as there's absolutely no argument for the bus service existing at all for any reason at all really.

It's not as if buses can shout from the rooftops about their reliability with all the cancellations they have which I believe Transdev were seriously impacted by aswell down there.

I went off using the service after intending to catch it from Leeds to York one Sunday when they only operated half a service all day and had to sprint across Leeds to catch a train to meet a connection at York to continue to Darlington.

I've heard accounts that the York routes are (or at least have been) pretty bad for cancellations from driver shortages and its been an issue even before the global shortage and it was the more rural routes that seemed to get shafted, things quickly went to hell after they took on former Stephensons of Easingwold routes and drivers quickly jump ship and was always the 31X was always the casualty at the time with the section between Easingwold and Helmsley only operating every 2 hours so was frequently left with a 4 hour gap in service whilst ZAP would carry on without issue, I also suspected that during a time when a lot of ZAP B7TLs were off they nicked the B10BLE's off the 31X and instead allocated them to ZAP.

(23 Sep 2022, 8:44 pm)Unber43 wrote [ -> ]Have they? I haven't seen anything about them, but does TransDev even made a profit. 

Wonder how Team Pennine are doing the most advertising I see for TransDev is when they have free/£1 ride on the harrogate electric buses.

Can't comment on profits but there's been quite a few 'temporary' timetable cuts. The 36 the flagship route for example used to be every 10 minutes and it's down to every 15 minutes now.

They've got their lists though aswell - https://www.transdevbus.co.uk/harrogate/service-updates. The 36 has been down to every 30 minutes today - copied below

Friday 23rd September

#The1
Harrogate to Pastures 1.21pm
Pastures to Harrogate 1.50pm

The1B
Harrogate to Eastfield 2.31pm
Eastfield to Harrogate 2.57pm

The 1C
Harrogate to Carmires 3.51pm
Carmires to Harrogate 4.16pm

The 1D
Harrogate to Pastures 9.21am
Pastures to Harrogate 9.50am

#The 7
Harrogate to Leeds 2.10pm,4.15pm
Leeds to Harrogate 4pm, 6.20pm


#The36
Harrogate to Leeds 7.35am, 9am, 9.25am, 9.55am, 10.55am,12.55pm, 1.25pm, 2.25pm, 2.55pm, 3.25pm
Leeds to Harrogate 7.40am, 8.55am, 9.55am, 10.25am,10.55am, 11.55am, 1.55pm, 2.25pm, 3.25pm
Starbeck to Leeds 6.23am
Leeds to Starbeck 4pm, 4.30pm

---

(23 Sep 2022, 9:25 pm)Jimmi wrote [ -> ]I went off using the service after intending to catch it from Leeds to York one Sunday when they only operated half a service all day and had to sprint across Leeds to catch a train to meet a connection at York to continue to Darlington.

I've heard accounts that the York routes are (or at least have been) pretty bad for cancellations from driver shortages and its been an issue even before the global shortage and it was the more rural routes that seemed to get shafted, things quickly went to hell after they took on former Stephensons of Easingwold routes and drivers quickly jump ship and was always the 31X was always the casualty at the time with the section between Easingwold and Helmsley only operating every 2 hours so was frequently left with a 4 hour gap in service whilst ZAP would carry on without issue, I also suspected that during a time when a lot of ZAP B7TLs were off they nicked the B10BLE's off the 31X and instead allocated them to ZAP.

Thanks for confirming, I've read stuff about issues not sure where it was but came across as almost begging for sorry. It's all disappeared now, any reference of it just doesn't exist. The fact they're begging people to run a route in a few weeks time with a £3k bonus and the absolute revolting slavering towards CT Plus begging their driver's to join doesn't shout confidence though especially when there's major cancellations on the 36 (above) already.

https://www.transdevbus.co.uk/teampennin...s-operator - CT Plus mentioned above.

I think there was also a short lived Cityzap service between Leeds and Manchester that was binned after only a few months of operation.

(24 Sep 2022, 9:14 am)wibblejunior wrote [ -> ]I think there was also a short lived Cityzap service between Leeds and Manchester that was binned after only a few months of operation.

Yes there was.  I think the buses that were on that are now on Red Express X41 (Manchester to Accrington via Ramsbottom)

First

York

Ahead of the arrival of the electric fleet for the city network in early 2024, what will effectively be the last new diesel vehicles are due - in the form of 12 Wright Streetdecks for the University contract (although not all 12 will be branded) to replace the Volvo B9TLs until the end of the current contract. These are numbered 35925-36.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/70333100@N...datetaken/ (Photo @ James' Bus Photos)

West Yorkshire

New for Leeds are Streetdecks 35901-9 (ML22 XKU-Z, XLA-C), diverted from their originally intended home of the East Scotland fleet following the sale to McGills. These are the only Highbridge Streetdecks being delivered to First this year. Unlike the last batches of Streetdecks for Leeds, these feature the First-standard pink grabpoles and rails rather than the Green used on the other Leeds examples (bar the 2016 and 2017 batches - the 2016 batch being the standard First spec with Civic 3s). While registered on 22 plates, none have yet entered service - however 35907 (ML22 XLA) made an appearance at the Bus Driver of the Year finals in Blackpool last weekend. (Photo @ Alistair)

New for Huddersfield is a batch of Streetlites - the first full-size singles for Huddersfield since the last B7RLEs were delivered in 2013 and the first new vehicles since the delivery of the shorter Streetlites in 2014. (Photo @ James' Bus Photos)

Purchased from Ensign for Halifax are 5 Volvo B9TLs form Yellow Buses - these will become 36311-5 (BL14 LTA/E/F/J/K) and are part of a large batch of B9TLs being purchased by First from Ensign to remove the remaining B7TLs from fleets across the country.

South Yorkshire

Refurbishment work is on-going on the former 'Steel Link' branded Wright Streetdecks remaining here, for use on 'Sheffield's 20' (Ecclesfield to Hemsworth via City Centre) - so far treated are 35126/7/8/35/8 with 35129 presently away.
[attachment=10251]

Work is also now started on Sheffield's Wright Streetlites - with 63001-3 so far treated.
[attachment=10252]

First

York

It would appear the Wrightbus Electric fleet are due during 2023 - as publication of the 2023 First Bus Handbook by British Bus Publishing has confirmed the fleet numbers as:
Wright Electroliner BEV 36501-36520
Wright GB Kite EV 63644-63667

Livery details are presently unknown - likely to be in the new 'York' Black/Red Olympia 2 livery as used on new Streetdecks 35935-8 (Compared to last update - York's Streetdecks are 35927-38 and not as previously mentioned).

Leeds

The new batch of 'Leeds City Electrics' are also now fleetnumber confirmed as Wright GB Kite 63569-63600 - these are reportedly destined for Bramley depot for a number of their mainly single decker operated services.