Yesterday saw the re-launch of Stagecoach in Lincolnshire's flagship InterConnect 6 service, linking Skegness with Lincoln to an hourly frequency. Introduced were a number of brand new Scania/Enviro double deckers, replacing some Volvo B7TLs with Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini buses - which were the last ones to be ordered by RoadCar before they were purchased by Stagecoach.
Full details of the vehicles are contained in the next LEYTR (which should come through your letter box within the next fortnight), including fleet, chassis and body numbers as well as the inside specification and the local vehicle movements to accommodate these new double deckers.
InterConnect 6 was the first route to comprise what is now Lincolnshire County Council's transport jewel. A network of services criss-cross one of England's most sparse counties. Most are operated by Stagecoach, though local operators Brylaine Travel & Norfolk Green operate some routes. TransLinc operate the majority of connecting demand-responsive minibus services.
They've been gone from the streets of London for over a month now and in its annual financial results, Arriva London North has shown the extra costs involved in replacing these oft-hated 'wiggly worms' from the Capital.
Arriva operates Service 29 (Wood Green-Trafalgar Square) which operated for many years with articulated buses. This route was one of the last to lose its bendy buses in favour of standard double deckers. Photo: H Pulling
Arriva London North operated four high profile routes in London with articulated Mercedes-Benz Citaros, or 'bendy buses' to the uninitiated. Routes 29, 38, 73 & 149 were all converted to rigid standard specification double decker operation in relatively short time of each other and the costs Arriva has to bare in the short term are financially significant.
In the year ended 31 December 2010 the company's annual accounts showed profits dropping like a brick to the tune of 70%. Turnover during the year rose by 1.5% to £204.9 million but operating costs were 5.7% higher (£200.6 million). Earnings before interest etc. were down 64.4% at £4.4 million, compared with the year before.
Of particular note is the increase in administration costs - 31% to £24.1 million - which can be attributed to training staff to drive the new vehicles and to recruit additional staff needed to drive the extra vehicles needed to replace the bendies. This showed an increase of 7% in the labour force: 39 more double deckers are now needed in the peak periods just for Services 38 & 149 in order to move the number of people the bendies managed. An additional 106 buses are operated by Arriva London North now, compared to before their Citaros were removed from service, equating to an increase of almost 60%.
But this is the short term. Arriva would not stomach these additional costs just at the behest of public will in London; rather the whole of London will pay for the losses suffered by the company through additional payments made by Transport for London to the company over the period of time each route contract lasts. By the end of each, Arriva London North is expected to be comfortably running each on similar financial terms to other operators and routes.
There are more buses needed to operate Service 73 (Victoria-Stoke Newington) today with double deckers than was needed pre-bendy, when the Routemaster plied its trade along the route. The costs associated with the introduction of these extra buses and drivers will be reflected 2011's accounts. Photo: David Heath
Next year's accounts won't be much improved, either, as they will show similar increases in admin and labour as the company's two remaining bendy bus routes were converted (73 & 29), necessitating a nett increase in buses to the tune of 22. Not as drastic as converting the 38 & 149, but any company that increases their operational base to this tune will expect to post decidedly average accounts at best in the short term.
I've been watching a new fly-on-the-wall documentary series on Channel 5 called Stansted - The Inside Story. The subject matter is fairly obvious any nothing new. After all, it was easyJet who pioneered this fly-on-the-wall documentary over a decade ago and had many hours of their Airline programme filmed at Stansted as well as neighbouring Luton.
But in the last episode of the season, the cameras followed a PCSO and a police constable who were patrolling the airport perimeter fence, following an alleged breach. In a later scene that featured both officers, a couple of aviation enthusiasts were approached to ask, initially, their purpose of being where they were and (after ascertaining that the couple were legitimately indulging in their hobby) then asked them to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
The husband of the couple was also asked if he had signed up to the airport's list of aviation enthusiasts. He hadn't, though was a member of one elsewhere and intended to do so. This got me thinking.
So often, bloggers detail very negative experiences when they're legitimately enjoying a perfectly legal past-time on a railway station platform or near a bus station. Usually, jobsworth employees - and in some occasions security personnel - are those who cause the problem, with ignorance of the law and their employer's guidelines on taking photos.
Why doesn't the British Transport Police take a leaf from the aviation industry's book and enlist transport enthusiasts visiting railway stations as additional eyes and ears on the ground? They could issue an ID card to the hobbyist who could show to anyone questioning what they were doing. This could then become recognised by local authorities and PTEs for use by bus photographers in bus stations and interchanges.
It would be free to sign up to and recognised by the BTP and local authorities in ensuring additional safety in busy public places. Quite often the same group of rail enthusiasts will gather at the same end of the same platform at the same station so, ironically, know the 'lie of the land' better than anyone else - certainly more comprehensively than the BTP - and could be an invaluable asset. That's not to say a transport enthusiast wouldn't ordinarily contact the relevant authority if they saw some suspicious behaviour; I'm sure they would. This scheme would place worth on the enthusiast's hobby and also stop over-zealous officials in their tracks.
So far as I can see the only aspect of the scheme needed to be reinforced is that the holder of the pass is not entitled to any preferential treatment, nor would they be permitted in areas accessed only by railway workers/bus crews. It would need a face-to-face application process to ensure this message is put across as clearly as possible.
I suggest the title of Transport Observer being given to the scheme. How and where you'd apply would need to be ironed out and the length of time each pass lasted before it needed renewing would also need to be discussed. But I think the idea is a winner. I'd sign up for it like a shot.
As detailed in the latest LEYTR, East Yorkshire has purchased five ex-Go Ahead London Volvo B7TLs with Plaxton President bodies, for allocation to its Scarborough depot. They have been converted to open-toppers and will operate along Scarborough seafront from Easter. Courtesy of Peter Shipp, and too late to feature in the next edition, we upload the first photo of one, fresh from the EYMS paint shop. It's still displaying its London route number! 885 is to be re-registered 165 DKH.
Like many who are the right age, I equipped myself with a Young Persons Railcard (YPR) for a number of years in order to save around 34% on lots of train journeys. I always smiled at one of the lines in the then application form, promoting the YPR, which said that for the price you initially had to pay, you could make that saving on your first journey. The implication was that the discount received was superb, when really it was a rare occasion at ATOC acknowledging how bonkers some rail fares are.
However, as I approached the upper age limit I began to use mine less and less as the online advance tickets were even cheaper than the off-peak online tickets and they had no further railcard discount.
I was glad to read the other day that ATOC has revealed a whopping increase in YPR sales of 60% over the last year. During 2011, 1.2 million YPRs were sold, which is broadly worth £33.6m to the train operating companies. Each railcard holder is calculated to make a saving of around £159 per year on an assumed 40 journeys during the same period.
I'm more shocked about the latter figure - 40 train journeys each year? That's just over 3 a month which, perhaps, is broadly accurate for a student at university who visits home semi-regularly or makes a short trip somewhere local with friends while away, but YPR holders can use one until they turn 26 - many years after the typical student has left uni.
I wonder how many of those using a YPR do so when the ticket they ultimately purchase doesn't offer a further railcard discount as the ticket type is ridiculously cheap? In the age of austerity when savvy commuters and leisure travellers are shopping around online for the cheapest, inflexible train tickets, more and more will not offer any railcard discount at all. I'd urge anyone reading this who is in possession of a YPR (and has therefore paid £28 this year) who isn't likely to make the average 40 journeys by train this year, to see just how often the buy a ticket online that offers no reduction for the YPR.
As I discovered, the infrequent traveller, who probably travels enough to save more than the cost of the YPR in train tickets over the year, may not actually do so if they prefer to use advance tickets purchased direct from the train operator's website. A friend attended Aberystwyth University a few years back and, like most who studied there, bought himself a YPR yet as he returned home just three times a year - all booked months in advance to coincide with the end of term - wasted money as the tickets he purchased were all advance and offered no YPR discount at all.
Peter Shipp, chairman of East Yorkshire Motor Services Group, writes:
Just yesterday I read in the bus industry trade press that the DfT underspent in 2010/11 to the extent that it was required to hand back to the Treasury no less than £543million.
This was after making the savings required of the Department in the first place and the Transport Select Committee, in its report published last week, has said that this is likely to have exceeded the total reduction in the money paid to the bus industry following the Spending Review.
In other words it seems that these very damaging cuts in payments to bus operators need not have been made. I believe that bus passengers who are losing their bus services and are seeing big fare rises, or will to do so very soon, have every right to be extremely angry to find out that these could have been avoided.
The Committee notes that the DfT accepted a budget cut of £683million and then under-spent on its revised budget by over £1billion, calling into question whether the in-year cut was necessary.
I'll have to start with an apology. Anyone expecting photos of a Busway-liveried vehicle travelling along the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway will be sorely disappointed, for Wednesday 22 February 2012 was one of those rare days when it rained continuously for hours on end and photography from within a misted-up Scania/Enviro400 was, at best, demonstrated by the photo below:
However, a number of photos either end of the Busway route were captured as well as a couple of videos of high-speed trains flying through John Major's home town railway station, so not all is lost. Talking of which, this is as good a place as any from which to start:
First things first and the proximity of the bus from Huntingdon station was very straightforward, being outside, beneath the huge viaduct carrying the A14 dual carriageway.
This was to be the bus on which I made my first Busway journey, Stagecoach in Huntingdonshire 15659 (AE10 HFC)
I've travelled on the leather-seated Enviro400-bodied Scania N230UDs before. Owing to the delay in the Busway's opening, Stagecoach operated these vehicles along the route of Service 55 which was the Busway Route B's predecessor. They boast 'air chill' and the timetable denotes this with a snowflake symbol. Their specification is no different from that specified by Transport for London in the Capital. On a hot day the interior of these buses will still become very unpleasant as the system is inadequate to cope with hot days and besides which all windows can be opened, preventing the air from being regulated. The Volvo B7RLEs with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies are the ones to head for in the summer as they appear to have proper climate control fitted. More on that later.
There are three routes that use the Busway. Stagecoach operates the A & B, while Whippet operates the C (and very infrequent D). During the main bulk of the day, there are three buses an hour on both the A & B, offering a 10-minute frequency along the Busway, while the C runs every hour. Route B is the lengthiest, commencing from Huntingdon rail station and heading into the town centre before taking a circuitous route out via the Oxmoor Estate.
Huntingdon Bus Station
A decision must have been taken to route buses this way and increase the end-to-end journey time as more patronage would be carried than omitting the Oxmoor, heading direct to the next main point, St. Ives.
The heavens opened here and this was the view of the small bus station in the town centre. A hive of activity and we had to await a bay to come available, which delayed us by five minutes. Whippet's Route C commences from St. Ives (Hill Rise, thence the bus station, with peak time journeys extending to/from Somersham) and so there are four buses per hour from here to the St. Ives Park & Ride, which heralds the start of the world's longest section of guided busway (also the most controversial!).
St. Ives Bus Station doesn't seem fit for purpose. Whippet's Busway livery is virtually identical to Stagecoach's except the swoop towards the rear is replaced by the light blue dots.
Special guide rails either side of the lane ensure nothing as wide or wider than a specially-equipped Busway vehicle can enter, while a diagonal trench has been dug in the concrete base to ensure nothing narrower than a bus can enter, such as a car. Sadly, this is not effective in keeping bikes out. Stagecoach Route A commences here (though peak time journeys operate a direct route to/from Huntingdon and some to/from Somersham), so there are a total of 7 buses per hour from the St. Ives Park & Ride to Cambridge city centre.
Routes A & C operate the full length of this section of Busway, to the outskirts of Cambridge and along Milton Road into the city, while Route B turns off the Busway at the Orchard Park Estate and after passing through operates semi-fast along Histon Road and Castle Street to the city. Route A calls at New Square rather than Drummer Street bus station as it continues to Cambridge rail station and then on via the second section of Busway to Addenbrooke's Hospital and Trumpington Park & Ride; Route C also omits Drummer Street on most journeys in favour of New Square as it too extends beyond the city centre, though only to the rail station. Route B terminates at Drummer Street.
Route B's terminus is Drummer Street in Cambridge
Journey times on Route B, which is the Busway equivalent of Service 55, have actually increased following the Busway being used, by five minutes. However, the regularity with which Stagecoach in Huntingdon is able to operate the service is likely to be the main improvement. Route B is also the service that has the double-deck Scania/E400s allocated; Routes A & C have single-deck buses.
240V sockets are offered on Stagecoach's fleet of Busway vehicles. A nice touch (as well as the leather trim)
The timetable is a bit of a mess. Ray Stenning's Best Impressions may well have cornered the market with bus livery design, but they most certainly haven't done so with timetables. I can see they've tried to make things straightforward, but this hasn't happened. Whether this is the fault of Cambs CC or the operators is unclear, but there are a number of areas where confusion rules.
Where Best Impressions excels is with livery design and route maps. A very easy-to-understand diagram of the three Busway services, though variations are not shown, nor is reference made to the fact that operators' tickets are not inter-available
Firstly, the non-acceptance of tickets between Whippet (Route C) and Stagecoach (Routes A & B) is not actually spelled out at all. Both operators run their vehicles in an identical Busway livery, so unless you know where to look, the average passenger (who, let's face it, couldn't care less who's running) won't know who is running which service. The main Busway map shows a key that identifies Whippet as running Route C and Stagecoach everything else, but, again, it is not stated clearly that inter-acceptance of operators' tickets is not valid.
The last page of the Busway timetable states what all-day tickets each operator provides, but doesn't go far enough to state that key phrase: "Stagecoach tickets are NOT valid on Whippet services and vice versa". The timetable producer could cite that they have separated Whippet's and Stagecoach's timetables, which they have, yet they go and lump Stagecoach's and Whippet's Somersham services in the main Whippet Route C timetable, mixing things up completely.
It's a mess and I know I could do better in boring black and white.
Back to the Busway, though, and it is clearly a rip-roaring success. Using GPS we clocked all our buses operating at their top speeds along the fast sections. 56mph was the maximum speed we recorded. Even in the rain, patronage was very impressive at all times. The spectacle of having your own, dedicated linear route, devoid of any congestion whatsoever and being able to fly along at top speed is an incredible tool in encouraging modal shift. Small wonder, then, that the one millionth passenger was recorded last month, being reached in half the time estimated.
Leather trim as standard with Stagecoach's fleet, which are considerably older than the Busway itself
In the scheme of things, the buses being powered by a special bio fuel is low down in commuters' minds. Sure, it's perhaps higher than 30 years ago, but I often see schemes such as this as more a box-ticking exercise by local authorities. However, it is one less area with which opponents can criticise the Busway!
After spending some time in central Cambridge, the small contingent that had amassed for the day headed to Trumpington Park & Ride using one of the city's dedicated park-and-ride services. Cambridge has five orbital sites, with four linked through cross-city routes, while the one for which we were bound is the lone service that operates to the city and back.
We had one of the spare Enviro-400-bodied Dennis Trident 2s as it bore a two-tone grey livery, not one of the dedicated park-and-ride liveries. Stagecoach opted for dual doors on its park-and-ride buses in order to aid loadings when it upgraded all routes in 2007, ; hitherto they'd been using ex London dual-doored buses and not closed the centre door off upon their acquisition. This ro-ro flow of passengers must lend itself well to the city, whose buses have seen some of the fastest growth anywhere in the country over recent years.
The traffic congestion south along Trumpington Road was truly awful - worse than London. Annoyingly, the bus lane appeared to be causing much of it as 50% of the route has been given up to buses, but, as a result, the queue was back so far that our bus had to sit stationary for ages before we then creeped slowly forward and able to make use of the bus lane. We arrived at Trumpington P&R to see a Stagecoach Route A bus depart, so made use of the terminal building before the next arrived 20 minutes later.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the Volvo B7RLE with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban made my Busway experience. Coach seats with leather trim and full, operational climate control made for a genuinely upper-end experience. The route from Trumpington passes under a couple of low bridges, hence the use of single deckers on Route A, and the Busway starts pretty much immediately. A single-track section of Busway starts the route off, up to the first stop at Foster Road and then it becomes two-way, following the route of the former railway line to the railway station, although a spur has been built over the existing railway line to Addenbrooke's Hospital, where an anti-clockwise circuit is negotiated in both ways.
They are the jewel in the Busway crown for Stagecoach, in my opinion: the Volvo B7RLE. Stagecoach does not purchase such a quality chassis for their bus fleet anymore.
We were fully loaded by here and had a standing load into the city centre. As many alighted in the city centre as boarded (Route A stops at both Parkside and New Square) and then we headed non-stop north east along Milton Road. Only Whippet Route C makes a stop here, at a mid-way stop located at Union Lane/Arbury Road. The left turn at the Science Park onto the Busway was a very innocuous affair. Yet more were loaded and we departed the Regional College stop bursting at the seams.
Unlike other Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies, the ten Stagecoach purchased for the Busway only seat 41 (other seat up to 44)
To cater for demand during the evening peak, Stagecoach provides additional journeys on Route A, starting from Drummer Street and operating as normal to St. Ives P&R, then into the town centre before heading direct to Huntingdon. A number of standard departure timed Route As also extend to Somersham, though this is unhelpfully not shown in the Route A timetable! You have to look to Whippet's Route C timetable to see them.
Actual climate control. Note also that the windows do not open. The only problem here is if the system fails. These vehicles are worthy of a snowflake symbol in the timetable, but not their dual-deck sisters!
We were around 10 minutes late as we reached St. Ives Park & Ride, where our Route A bus terminated. The beauty of the Busway is that you can't be overtaken by a following bus, so we knew our Route B that should have been 10 minutes behind us, wouldn't have somehow snuck past. Sure enough, we waited only a couple of minutes before a Scania/Enviro400 arrived and took us the remainder of the way to Huntingdon station.
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is effectively on the doorstep of the LEYTR area. It is very accessible by train from Peterborough, taking just 16 minutes to the northern terminus at Huntingdon. Why it had taken me so long to sample the route is a mystery. I actually felt guilty! I won't be leaving it another six months before I return. As we all knew what we were doing, we didn't have any issues with the buses or the timetable today, but many others will have. This needs addressing.
I'd always assumed the main problem with overcrowding would be between St. Ives and Cambridge, but judging by the traffic hell along Trumpington Road in the evening peak, the non-stop parallel service offered by Route A (admittedly with the Addenbrooke's diversion) was the most overcrowded. Little can be done, however, other than increasing the number of journeys as double deckers cannot run here owing to the low bridges.
And talking of single deckers, I can't emphasise enough what a truly executive experience Stagecoach's Volvo B7RLEs offered, with their Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies, fully equipped with climate control. There must be a reason why this cannot be offered on the Enviro400; hopefully the sticking point isn't cost grounds, because the leather seating in the summer will become a sticking point of its own - quite literally.
Last week I made my first visit to the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway... in the pouring rain. I shall upload photos over the weekend. The blog has not gone into hibernation mode.
Until then, this is worth a look. Southern has uploaded a time-lapse video showing one of their Electrostars being refurbished in around three minutes!
