(05 Sep 2024, 8:05 pm)Ambassador wrote Quite enjoyed this but quite selective of its choices and ignoring the reality of many regional operations.
High spec buses, good cooperation with the council, strong management and good reliable frequency.
So basically the opposite of our lot up here. The stark difference between Go South Coast and Go North East is quite alarming
Geoff Marshall doesn't make it clear, but I'm suspecting it's a commissioned piece, given it's got the 10 Percent Club branding all over it, plus an extra helping of Ray Stenning?
It's a good video I think, but I'd said the same thing when I watched it last night. It's very much Britain's Buses with rose-tinted spectacles. If someone unassuming watched that, decided to go and try out a 21 on Durham Road, they'd be in for a real treat. The best they could hope for is an unloved Angel Streetdeck, normally with an interior left like it's been in a fight. The worst? An ex-London B9, with seats providing a comfort level of sitting on a cold stone slab. They're hardly going to run back!
An evident 'them versus us' relationship between operators and councils, probably since the QCS stuff, has inevitably held us back. Add an uninspiring set of leadership teams across operators and a backward thinking Transport Authority, then you really have got the recipe for disaster. He has his faults, but someone like Gilbert is probably what is missing, bringing all of this supposed-partnership working together.
(06 Sep 2024, 12:00 am)Andreos1 wrote Years ago, I'd done some work down in Oxfordshire, Hampshire or somewhere down south.
Did the whole trip on public transport and got some gricing in when I had a spare few hours.
Outlined it all on this forum and spoke about how everything worked like clockwork (even the rural bits) for each stage - until I got off the train at Durham and needed a 20/20a/X20 off the bus station.
The OP of this thread didn't seem to appreciate how it all fell down at the last leg. For some strange reason we never officially found out why...
But getting back to the Bib, there's some quite valid concerns about the state of local transport, but it's definitely not a new thing.
It's always been pretty sh!te, it's just there's no titivations papering over the cracks like there was previously.
It still very much does fall down. You only have to look as far as the Q3 fiasco for a modern example of that. Or even the 85/2A, both leaving the Galleries for Biddick on an evening, within 2 minutes of each other, leaving almost an hour gap until the next.
I don't think that'll change either, not until networks start being designed for customers, not for operational convenience.