Poor Timetable Planning from First (Read 951 times)

[04jessops]

The 17/66 are both pretty good bus services at the moment, but when it gets to rush hour, it all changes.

It's nice that the lovely timetable planners take into account the traffic, but they only extend the journey time between Sheffield and Hillsborough by a few minutes, giving it 15 minutes to get there. When God loves us all, and there is no traffic, it does it in time, but most of the time, there is traffic on Shalesmoor and at Hillsborough, meaning the bus is usually 5 or 10 minutes late. It really annoys me that it takes so long, but what also annoys me is that the driver gets blamed for being late when he/she set off on time!

They really need to sort out the timetables...

What do you all think?

[mattw]

IMO nothing can be done about traffic!

what do you think happens to every other bus service in the country between the hours of 0800 and 0900 and 1600 and 1800?

oh i know they get held up becasue people cant be bothered to use public transport and the buses are held up by one man cars!

[Tom B]

There is a difference between unknown traffic and know traffic.

If there's a bad accident or something then nobody can really predict that.

BUT if the same thing happens every day for several months due to known traffic there is no excuse for not doing something about it. *cough* WBH *cough*. Our school bus regularly turns up around 40-50 minutes late, i.e. 20-30 minutes after registration, due to known traffic that would take "too much paperwork" to reschedule for.

[manontheinside]

But what CAN you do?

You can throw endless drivers and buses at it - but do you make anything from the exercise, is it environmentally sensible, does it actually improve things or just add extra traffic? And so on.....

Its easy in the theory of many, but in reality life is very different.

[04jessops]

Thanks for your views.

[Tom B]

But the route can be timed to be slacker - maybe just one extra bus will loosen things up enough. Most people would prefer a reliable 10 minute service to a shaky 8 minute one.

[manontheinside]

Yes, true. But the routes named above are half hourly. Do you really mean to tell me that:

a) people would rather have a safe 60-minute service over a 'shaky' 30-minute one
b) people could fit on such a 60-minute provision.

I agree with what you are saying IN THEORY, but so many things in life work in theory. In theory railways could be maintained and upgraded without disruption, Supermarkets save you money etc etc. Not so in reality.

In this case, "just throw another bus at it" is fine in theory, but how many buses and drivers would be needed for this hour or two a day? Where would you store all these extra buses which earn nothing? And who will buy new buses which will never pay themselves back.

Dare say its the same brigade who would then complain when the bus that turned up it wasn'y low floor!

Trust me, i agree wholeheartedly with your thinking, but its not that easy. You are also tackling the cause not the symptom. Hows about trying to reduce the amount of traffic, adding bus priority etc?

[moonraker79]

Nothing can be done about traffic, but would it be quicker if these services go via Walkley and then to Hillsbourgh?

[manontheinside]

Possible, but then don't you just simply move the problem. What do people do who need the bus on Leppings Lane or Penistone Road?

I think it would be a tad rose-tinted to claim that Broad Lane, Glossop Road, Hanover Way or Brook Hill was traffic free as well!

[Tom B]

Well I don't know about the routes in question, I was basing it on my experience of frequent routes.

However in the end either extra buses must be bought or extra time allowed in the timetable - the VOSA state that buses must keep to the timetable and traffic isn't a reason if it is known about (e.g. normal peak hour traffic).

[moonraker79]

I was thinking that it could go via the 31 route to Upperthorpe and then they go via the old 32 route to Hillsbourgh and then on to Fox Hill. So you avoid some traffic and you are not far from the normal route.

[buswatch]

No No rerouting via Walkley is Not A bright idea.... Its bad enough that on the 17 you have a big detour around Parson cross ( 78 replacement section) if coming from Meadowhall or if coming from city to Parson Cross you get a tour of Foxhill loop... this has added around 10/15 minutes to journey times.

Maybe a tidal flow for through traffic on Penistone road may help and remove the car drivers who ignore the current traffic contols on Langsett Road /Ripley Street Bus gate and cause the jam at wadsley lane/catch bar lane where the lights seem to only let a max of 4 cars or one bus at time!

[d71146]

manontheinside said:

But what CAN you do?

You can throw endless drivers and buses at it - but do you make anything from the exercise, is it environmentally sensible, does it actually improve things or just add extra traffic? And so on.....

Its easy in the theory of many, but in reality life is very different.

The problem with route 17 and always has been the fact that there is not enough time on the schedule to do it in the published time full stop.

[dave72122]

Don't know if the 75 as changed now (think it now runs from lane top but not sure) but a mate of mine who did the 75 said that he had to get from ecclesfield mill lane to firth park in just 7 minutes at peak times, thats through all the traffic jams, picking passengers up, and ridiculous ammounts of traffic lights etc, now like i said not sure if it was changed, but that is the old situation (2004)

All rawmarsh routes are quite good for allowing time etc, we often on the 108/9 have to wait in rawmarsh for time to go, but in peak times it all goes tits up due to traffic around retail i once qued in traffic for an hour between st anns rounderbout and broad street rounderbout (less than a mile!) so improvements still need to be made, but like what ub as said if you keep throwing buses and drivers at it, that will NOT solve the problem.