Bits and Pieces [5]

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fbb has heavy Church commitments for a week

so whilst he is busy with

Hermeneutics, Hospitality and Horganisation
 a series of mini-blogs will be published, entitled

       "BITS AND PIECES"     

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Gold or Gullible at Stoke?

One of the delights of modern bus marketing is the promotion of frequencies on route-branded vehicles. The phrase "up to every 10 minutes" can be somewhat misleading. fbb has been looking more closely at First's "Gold" services in Stoke. On the (very) diagrammatic route map we are offered "Daytime ...

... of the route. So for the 25 we have:-

And for the 26 it shows:-

Simple question : is this true?

Simple answer : absolutely not!

Firstly, the easy one. The 25 runs every 10 minutes Monday to Friday daytimes ONLY. On Saturdays it is every 20 minutes. Evenings and Sundays every 30 minutes. You can see the full timetable here.

The 26 runs for the full length of the route only every 20 minutes Monday to Saturday, with a slight enhancement to every 15 on Monday to Friday peak hours. The basic service 26 timetable can be viewed here. Evenings and Sundays the route runs only every hour.

So, where does the "every 10 minutes" come from? A better map than on the original blog will help:-

26A journeys run from Newcastle via Stoke, Meir and Weston Coyney to Park Hall every hour, (timetable here) and to Coalville twice an hour, (timetable here).

These extra journeys ONLY run Mondays to Fridays, giving the advertised "every 10 minutes" and then only between about 1030 and 1530.

It's not quite what the promotion would suggest.

The moral of this tale? Treat phrases like "up to every 10 minutes" with polite suspicion until you have a full printed timetable in your clammy hands.

Next blog : due Friday October 28th