Big Bus Changes

[AdrianR]

i note the coming changes to the buses locally. No doubt intended to save money but the changes locally near me (westbrook etc) mean less busses, less frequent, some longer routes, some routes changed completely (17) and some buses withdrawn (29 to GSHS before 08.30am).

 

Chances are I'll use them less and certainly my son will now stop using them as there is no longer a suitable bus.

 

Is it not time to reintroduce competition to buses in and around Warrington?

 

http://www.networkwarrington.co.uk/news/big-bus-service-changes-from-2nd-june

[Eagle]

The 19 Warrington to Leigh timetable has altered slightly, the buses will no longer go down Hob Hey Lane due to safety reasons, the junction with Common Lane has been deemed unsafe.  It has been used for donkey's ages without a problem.

[artie]

Just like to know if there is a regular service to Lymm from the bus station in Warrington

[observer]

Adrian; we've had "competition"; which basically involved bus races along the more profitable routes; with the Warrington bus service left to manage the less profitable routes; so true of bus services as it is true of postal or any other service.

[asperity]

To clear up any confusion Obs, what are these "profitable" routes the mythical "competition" have taken?

[observer]

They didn't take them Asp, cos they gave up "the war". But when the war was on, the races were up and down places like Poplars Ave, where the passengers were more plentifull; thus making the exercise profitable.

[asperity]

If the exercise was profitable, they would still be running those services. As it is Network Warrington is running the vast majority of services in the town and doesn't seem to be making it profitable. There are a few Arriva, Halton and Stagecoach buses running but on routes that NW doesn't cover.

[observer]

Couldn't be profitable, when you've got buses racing each other from stop to stop. It seems stagecoach blinked first.

[inky pete]

Whoever "blinked first" we now have the situation of a single, council owned, operator with a monopoly on vitually all routes - and they still can't run a service worthy of being called that.

[asperity]

What Inky said.

[observer]

It's not exactly rocket science; but the higher the population density, the easier and more profitable to provide services, be it buses, postal or broad band; thus the private sector will shy away from sparse populated areas and won't provide a universal service. Unfortunately, with less subsidies, WBT will have to adopt the private sector approach, hence these cuts in services.

[inky pete]

Or, you adopt a business model designed to stimulate demand and increase your number of customers.

 

If a bus route only has one bus per hour then the only people who will use it are those who have the time to hang around for up to an hour at each end of their journey. Increase the frequency to four per hour or more and suddenly people will forget all about timetables and hanging around time, they'll just go to the bus stop knowing that the wait isn't going to be very long and hop on the next bus to arrive. It goes from being a question of planning journeys and making life work around the vagaries of the bus service to one of treating the buses as a "turn up and go" service which takes you from where you are to where you want to be without fuss - as a bus service should do.

 

Four buses per hour on a route will easily generate more than four times as many passengers as one per hour, so the bus company actually makes MORE money.

 

It ain't rocket science, but apparently is far beyond the capabilities or ambitions of those running Warrington's buses.

[observer]

   People don't use buses (even those with free passes); because of their love affair with their car hasn't ended.  So the increase in demand, stimulated by an increase in service levels (ignoring the lack of funds to do it), isn't really an option.  Unless cars are used to fund the bus, reducing congestion and providing cheaper fares, we'll have a problem.

[asperity]

So screw even more money out of the motorist Obs? I think that the option really is to use the money already being screwed out of the motorist to finance public transport and repair/improve the roads. I speak as a pedestian/bus user with a bus pass by the way. We are back to the argument about how government taxes the population to the max and then wastes the money in the worst possible ways.

[observer]

Wouldn't disagree with your argument that taxes from certain groups aren't used for a designated purpose, but rather just go into the general pot. In theory, road tax should be spent on our "roads", building them, improving them AND reducing congestion. Part of any congestion reduction exercise would logically involve reducing the number of private cars on our roads, in order to subsidise cheap and efficient public transport (a bus can take around 50 cars off the road).  Those left in their cars would be paying more taxes for clearer roads. 

[asperity]

Well here's a thought Obs, why not go the whole Socialist hog and only allow the party elite to own cars? This will then force the proletariat onto public transport and solve your road congestion problem. Worked well in the USSR and China for a while

[Davy51]

I am a bus pass user & i only use my car if i need to . Even if the bus is only there for part of my journey i use my feet for the rest thus embracing a healthier lifestyle as i gulp down lungfulls of  polluted air as i go on my merry way.

[observer]

We've always had "elites" in every society throughout history Asp;  in this Country it's based on wealth and class - so nothing new there.  However, what could be a new concept, would be to start taxing them properly, so that cheap and efficient transport systems can be made available to the "proletariat"; which would have added economic and environmental benefits for all. The alternative of course, will be to do nothing, and await the inevitable mass grid lock, that would involve all modes of transport, including busses.

[Davy51]

Does the exclusion zone in London make a difference or are road users happy to pay the charge ?

[asperity]

And you think that our "elites", i.e. the political and ruling classes who are the wealthy in this country (and don't let Ed "millionaire" Miliband convince you otherwise), are going to raise their own tax levels to pay for anything for the rest of us "plebs" Obs? You are living in a dream world if you do.

[Coffee]

If you wish to reduce car use, then you need to start reopening local services, post offices, schools, doctors surgeries, force companies like tesco to charge the same in the local shops as in the big ones, prevent employers from hiring people who live more then three or four miles away and provide employment in all areas, then rebuild the towns to be more bus friendly.Then reduce the price of buses.

 

But then as fewer people have cars, how will the money be raised. £100,000 per year road tax per car?

[boris1066]

The new circular bus route is welcome, it takes things back (nearly) to a situation existing when we moved in to Old Hall 1982.

 

However , why does it not connect directly with Bank Quay mainline railway station ? So much for joined transport systems ?

 

Currently I rarely use the bus service but think it an omission for those commuting to Crewe and further South.

[inky pete]

People DO use buses wherever the cost vs. convenience trade-off is better for a bus than for a car.

 

We all know that running a car is relatively expensive, but most of the costs are FIXED costs almost regardless of how much it is actually used. If you need or want to be a car owner anyway then the actual journey costs are pretty low (certainly less fuel cost than a bus fare for a given distance!). But the main advantage of a car is on the CONVENIENCE side of the trade-off, a car will always go directly from your start point to your destination without stops and without timetable delays - and can carry a load of stuff other than people in the process.

 

So the bus companies need to concentrate on that convenience aspect, which is all about routes which go where people want to go and a service frequency which prevents them wasting too much time hanging about in the rain at bus stops. Plenty more people would use the buses in the more outlying areas of a borough like Warrington if the bus company was run like a business and concentrated on meeting or exceeding customer expectations instead of relying on public funding to run buses which are empty because the service is not convenient enough for the customer.

[observer]

In order to be profitable (in the private sector sense) public transport requires a critical mass of custom; so busses are running full all the time. Clearly a non-starter in a world where the car is still the preferred option (even with the daily grid lock); so it's a no brainer to suggest that if all the folk on the road were in busses, congestion would be radically reduced.  The next question is how to fund a state of the art public transport system?  The railways (as a privatised entity) do by charging high fares (especially for regular commuters); despite being subsidised by public money for infrastructure improvement; and even the railways suffer from capacity problems. So, IF we want systems that deal with mass movement, they need to be publically owned and thus subsidised, which is clearly what the public want according to most recent polls.  We can of course remain in denial and cling to our cars, despite the regular traffic jams; until the penny finally drops.

[inky pete]

What polls?

 

And what level of subsidy was specified in the question put to the respondents?

 

It is perfectly possible to run a bus company at a profit - WITHOUT taxpayer subsidy - by working to provide the service which potential passengers actually want.