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Post by simonk82701 on Feb 10, 2022 8:53:29 GMT
The mayor of South Yorkshire has written to bus companies, expressing concern about fayre rises and potential service cuts. Does anyone have any idea about which services could face further cuts? After all we have lost some many services due to driver shortages already. Even though they say it's temporary, I fear some will never return.
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Post by simonk82701 on Feb 16, 2022 9:58:21 GMT
Please excuse my scepticism here, but not made a profit in 10 years? Maybe true, but as one Stagecoach driver put in to me, if they can afford to repaint buses in new branding, but cannot afford a decent rise for drivers. Am I wrong to think that if the loses had been that bad, surly they would have cut back buses sooner? For example they use to run the X5 every 15 minutes I think and every 30 minutes until around 21:30 at night. I suppose most could have received a hefty subsidy. Okay they have not made a profit in 10 years, lets take that as fact, maybe they need to reconsider their priorities rather than rebranding buses!
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Post by The Captain on Feb 16, 2022 10:47:35 GMT
Please excuse my scepticism here, but not made a profit in 10 years? Maybe true, but as one Stagecoach driver put in to me, if they can afford to repaint buses in new branding, but cannot afford a decent rise for drivers. Am I wrong to think that if the loses had been that bad, surly they would have cut back buses sooner? For example they use to run the X5 every 15 minutes I think and every 30 minutes until around 21:30 at night. I suppose most could have received a hefty subsidy. Okay they have not made a profit in 10 years, lets take that as fact, maybe they need to reconsider their priorities rather than rebranding buses! FSY never had a proper paint program they engineering budget went on major units instead, the wages have always been low since the 2004 strike and turn round from a 10 million pound profit a year to losing over a million every year, it got to the point the buses looked so rough and neglected and morale was so low they had to address it with the current themes paint scheme. There's a lot more to it. |
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Post by The Captain on Feb 16, 2022 10:55:34 GMT
Probably a lot more than 10 years tbh. Never let politicians or the PTE meddle with a network, the 2015 Sheffield Bus Partnership network change has been a disaster, good busy routes like the 53 or 47/48 binned off for routes which carry nothing like what they did, or keep getting revised because they serve places people want to go but actually carry fresh air. 52s another example, trying to serve Loxley and Wisewood makes them bunch up and become unreliable in the peaks, should leave the core routes alone and keep to a schedule not implementing revisions every 4 months, its just led to confusion and frustration and a big increase in car ownership. Then there's the city centre and Pinstone St.... |
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donc
Inspector
Posts: 591 
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Post by donc on Feb 16, 2022 14:15:39 GMT
Probably a lot more than 10 years tbh. Never let politicians or the PTE meddle with a network, the 2015 Sheffield Bus Partnership network change has been a disaster, good busy routes like the 53 or 47/48 binned off for routes which carry nothing like what they did, or keep getting revised because they serve places people want to go but actually carry fresh air. 52s another example, trying to serve Loxley and Wisewood makes them bunch up and become unreliable in the peaks, should leave the core routes alone and keep to a schedule not implementing revisions every 4 months, its just led to confusion and frustration and a big increase in car ownership. Then there's the city centre and Pinstone St.... Also in Doncaster in 1993 most routes stopped on St Sepuchre Gate, then that was pedestrianised and they were moved the buses to Duke Street, in 2005 the Interchange was built in a ridiculous place meaning buses have to spend 5 or 10 minutes getting in and out of it, then all the buses were pushed to Cleveland Street and Hallgate. In 2020 Hallgate was made one way so all the buses going into town had to use Wood Street. This year Wood Street & Cleveland Street will be made one way so going into town buses will have to use Waterdale, nowhere near where anyone wants to go it's like a race to the Interchange from the Odeon traffic lights. Doncaster council have really messed up with their pedestrianisation basically there are now two ways into town, Waterdale or East Laith Gate and East Laith Gate is to congested for buses to use. |
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Post by dougie on Feb 16, 2022 20:05:05 GMT
If Covid hadn't hit travel patterns then maybe the closure of Midland Road would have made a bigger improvement to the figures
It's hard to know what more of a "profitable core" FSY can really trim a lot of services back to, based on experiences in Sheffield - there are very few routes left that weren't part of the "Overground" (I don't know how much of the 18/ 32/ 32A/ 76A/ 135 are tendered, if any, but we've seen a lot of non-Overground routes trimmed and trimmed and trimmed)
Plenty of routes are too messily combined (the longwinded way of getting from Wisewood to the City Centre on the 52 mentioned above, but the 135 has had so many more diversions that it's only ten minutes faster than the frequent 1 between High Green and the City Centre - whereas the 77/80 used to be straight along the A61 which was a lot faster than the 75/76 were back in the day)
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Post by crossscythe on Feb 17, 2022 21:12:15 GMT
Do many people actually travel from the city to Wisewood on the 52a? I guess it's a call between frequency of the 52a or the less frequent but more direct 57. I have definitely noticed the 52As to be less reliable at the original served areas such as Broomhill & Crookes.
They definitely need to open Leopold Street for traffic.
Surely the influx of new buses such as the Streetlites & ALX400s have had an effect on First's profits over the last decade. It's very admirable of First to keep running a service that isn't making a profit for so long. The X1/X10s always seem to be empty when I see them going past, and new buses for the route as well, that must eat in to the profit potential. The 69 used to be better loaded from my memory, as did the 32 (does that still exist in some form?).
Someone said on Sheffield Forum I think, that a lot of students live close to the city centre now, as opposed to being out in Ranmoor, Greystones, Ecclesall etc. I believe there are a lot of student flats around Leadmill Road. This would impact on loadings.
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Post by duncan on Feb 17, 2022 22:01:56 GMT
Do many people actually travel from the city to Wisewood on the 52a? I guess it's a call between frequency of the 52a or the less frequent but more direct 57. I have definitely noticed the 52As to be less reliable at the original served areas such as Broomhill & Crookes. They definitely need to open Leopold Street for traffic. Surely the influx of new buses such as the Streetlites & ALX400s have had an effect on First's profits over the last decade. It's very admirable of First to keep running a service that isn't making a profit for so long. The X1/X10s always seem to be empty when I see them going past, and new buses for the route as well, that must eat in to the profit potential. The 69 used to be better loaded from my memory, as did the 32 (does that still exist in some form?). Someone said on Sheffield Forum I think, that a lot of students live close to the city centre now, as opposed to being out in Ranmoor, Greystones, Ecclesall etc. I believe there are a lot of student flats around Leadmill Road. This would impact on loadings. The X1 / X10 was always going to fail between Sheffield and Rotherham. The route was already covered by the popular, frequent and established X78 that serves the areas people want to go to. The 69 used to run every 30 minutes and a good selling point was that it did not serve Meadowhall. ( not everybody wants to go there). From Rotherham to Maltby the X1/ X10 has suffered due to massive reliability issues caused by it going through Meadowhall and the routing of it away from Wellgate in Rotherham. That crazy decision has gifted a lot of passengers to Stagecoach on their 19/ 19a. The "savings" created by Shutting Midland road have all but been wiped out with massive increases in dead mileage and passenger losses due to unreliability on over long services. I have maintained for many years that it is better to use 20 buses on a route that works well than 19 buses on a route that drops trips all the time due to hold ups miles from the area being mucked up but hey what do I know. |
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Post by crossscythe on Apr 7, 2022 17:58:11 GMT
Service 52a should be singed at Hillsborough.
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