Barnsley's Beautiful Bus Station [3]

We are looking for information about bus service 29 between Barnsley and Upton which appears on a key map displayed at Barnsley bus station as a "fequent" service.

We are aiming to check the departure stand. But first find your departure stand! There are 24 of them. Fortunately there are maps to help you, on-line ...

... and on-poster.

The consensus is that stands are numbered from A1 to A24 and an index poster guides us to A17. We might, in passing, muse over the location of stands B, C etc. but that mystery is unimportant at the moment.

But there is no Stand A17. There is a stand 17 ...

...also labelled T17(?) ...

... but none labelled A17. There is, however, a stand "A" ...

... which together with B1 and D are in the town centre with A being located here on Market Hill ...

... and not at the bus station (sorry, interchange).

OK, you would have to be really thick to not find stand A17 (or 17 or T17?), but it is all indicative of information provided by people who don't know what they are talking, programing or postering about; people who don't use the bus station and therefore don't realise what daftness they have created.

On the way to the Upton stand, fbb took a look as A1 (or 1 or T1?). This is whence the successor to the famous Jump Circular leaves, "frequent" route 66. Long-term blog readers my well remember fbb's apoplexy at the astoundingly daft design of SYPTE's departure lists, mixing together different days and, in some cases, different routes, but the 66, as they say, takes the biscuit.

Note the 0804 SCHD (schooldays) followed by the 0804 SCHH (school holidays), then there are departures at 0814. 0824, 0834 and 0844 on schooldays; but beware all ye who have cause to venture forth to jump on a bus to Jump; during the school holidays these times are WRONG. Instead, buses leave at  0814. 0824, 0834 and 0844.  And so on throughout most of the day. Insane!

Let's hope the list for route 29 is better.

Of course it isn't.

Careful perusal of this chart suggests that 29s to Upton run "frequently" every hour and this is later confirmed back at base by an fbb download.

So now we know. Buses to Penistone every half hour are "less frequent" than buses to Upton every hour. If the significance of this stunning mangling of temporal logic confuses you, dear befuddled reader, you may need to refer back to yesterdays blog (here) to attempt to regain your sanity. You will not succeed. Here, again, is the less frequent service to Penistone.

But, lets try to look for positives. The new bus station is architecturally stunning, light and airy ...

... even on a dull day. It does have a cafe, not sampled by fbb because an evening meal back in Sheffield was next on the agenda. Vehicle management seems to work OK with well organised arrival and departure procedures ...

... and plenty of room to reverse out safely.

And, of course, it does have a Subway as well as a footbridge!

Most services are run by Stagecoach, successors to Yorkshire Traction, but with some routes now in the hands of Tates (mainly tendered) and a few from Redline (ditto with a smattering of competitive work). The intrusive oddity, of course, is First's route 22 from Rotherham via Wath introduced a year or so ago in direct competition with Stagecoach. The two services stand at their stands side-by-side.

Monday to Saturday, Stagecoach runs every 15 minutes, First every 10. First does not run on Sundays and is reducing its Saturday frequency to every 12 from the end of the month. Losing heart for the fight?

Conclusion: Bus Station

Information Quantity

Information Quality ...

... yet another disaaaster!

fbb must stop using Craig Revel-Horwood as judge; it's frightening some of our more sensitive readers!

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Another Bus Station Dies

Galashiels bus station closed on Sunday last with services moved to stands (whoops, sorry, "stances") on nearby Stirling Street. The building is not impossibly old ...

... but there is good news.

A splendid new interchange will open in 2015 in advance of the new Borders Railway station. Looks impressive; but a long way for fbb to go to investigate. Mrs fbb is Scottish so a holiday in the Borders seems ideal. 

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Tomorrow, fbb is off for yet another new bus launch. 

Report due on Thursday.

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 Next Bus Blog : Wednesday 16th October