(23 Aug 2021, 4:28 am)Dan wrote How ridiculous.
Whilst not denying that there are a small number of things yet to be done, Go North East are doing way more than other operators would for these service changes. Are Stagecoach and Arriva producing paper timetable leaflets at all?!
A five-figure sum of these booklets were printed and made available on every bus in the fleet. I have mentioned previously that I know of enthusiasts taking not just one but several of these, and I have also spotted them for sale on eBay. It may be that there has also been a genuine higher demand for these than expected and perhaps Go North East ought to have ordered more, but in one breath we’re hearing a general opinion that this booklet is useless and full of corporate drivel, and in the next we’re seeing several comments that they’re difficult to get a hold of, so there’s clearly been some demand for them.
Enough posters were printed for every bus in the fleet, and every bus with a next stop announcement TFT monitor is also showing a notice. There are regular social media posts about the upcoming changes, and they have been on the website for weeks. The journey planner on the website/app and “live timetables” were updated back then, and PDFs of the timetables (which are proven to get a very low number of views on the website) are slowly being drip fed through once converted from print format to web format.
Not every timetable has been printed yet (it is peak holiday season across all industries) - those that have are distributed on buses already and are being followed up with subsequent print batches on a weekly basis. Go North East is working with Nexus to try and resurrect racks in bus stations but those discussions are still ongoing.
Not withstanding all that, there have been some pretty major last minute changes following further consultation with local authorities. Bearing in mind these changes have been known about at local authority officer level for some six months, and, contrary to comments on social media, there has been a massive amount of consultation with local authorities, politicians and other stakeholders, these changes were only being requested AFTER the registrations were submitted, Go North East is doing a pretty damn good job during trying times. It’s peak holiday season with many colleagues needing to cancel their holidays just to get this information out to customers in good time, as well as work bloody long (12-16 hour) days (and won’t get paid for these extra hours nor likely get the time back).
It takes roughly half a day to typeset a timetable, and probably another half a day to produce a map. It then takes an hour or two to proof-check the leaflet and its content (depending on how in depth you proof-check the times). Work technically can’t commence until after registrations have been submitted (although were in this instance given the sheer volume of changes), so I will let you do the maths of how many services are changing (and hence how much time this would take to do) vs the 56 days for the registration period.
In my opinion your comments are outlandish and in the main unfounded.
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Part of my message was actually relaying the comments of GNEs own drivers, but yes let's ignore that. Enthusiasts must have been taking an awful lot to have gobbled up somewhere between 10-99k. Wonder how many have been binned along with the surplus Metro newspapers that may have been burying the (why produce a booklet with no means of distributing effectively either on board or elsewhere - surely something that fit in existing leaflet holders would've been sensible).
Surprising the pdfs are unpopular - personally find the website format ones harder to navigate, especially on smaller devices.
Perfectly understandable not to have every single leaflet produced - however am yet to see any new timetables on any vehicle. Most of them are driving around with empty leaflet racks and those which have leaflets are the ice cream adverts rather than anything useful.
Re other operators, yes Stagecoach are producing printed leaflets for service changes and these have been readily available on vehicles for a while (but they also arent upending their network just now). No idea on Arriva.
(23 Aug 2021, 9:29 am)Adrian wrote Issues aside with the difficulties of finding one (although pleased you finally did!), I have to disagree about the lack of customer info. Every bus I've travelled on over the past week has had the poster up about it, which in my opinion is enough to prompt someone to find out further information. You wouldn't just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it's not happening, if you couldn't find a booklet on board. You'd either go online (if you can) or you'd give them a call, and I'd hope customer services would be more than willing to post a booklet out for those who cannot get online.
The timetables on the website also work fine, if you change the date to one in the future. This is a much better (and accessible) way of presenting a timetable.
Not for all services - which was the point of my post. Unless you check the filename you could well be planning your journey post 5 Sept based on old timetables that are still served up even after changing the date online. Ones that spring to mind as showing incorrect pdf / no pdf are 12, 38, 62..various others last time I looked