In the halcyon days of fbb's youth, well does the fat bloke remember the great detergent debate. Did Tide (manufactured by Procter and Gamble) ...
... or Surf (later square deal-ified, Unilever) produce the cleanest, whitest wash? This debate was ultimately negated when fbb's economics teacher (Peter "Slash" Harris - no he doesn't know why?) revealed that the contents were identical chemically! Spoilsport.
But, if our noble readership were to take the Illenoo service 9A from Rennes they would terminate at a small town called Fougères. See "From Surf to Star [1]" (read again), "From Surf to Star [2]" (read again).
Fougères est une ville située à la limite de la Bretagne, du Maine et de la Normandie et tire son nom de la plante, ou de « fous » qui signifie « fossé » (en Bretagne et en Normandie, un fossé est une terrasse de terre formée des excavations faites de chaque côté de la banquette, et servant de séparation entre deux propriétés).
Fougères has a superb Castle (Château).
The first wooden fort was built by the House of Amboise in the eleventh century. It was destroyed in 1166 after it was besieged and taken by King Henry II of England. It was immediately rebuilt by Raoul II Baron de Fougères. Fougères was not involved in the Hundred Years' War until 1449 when the castle was taken by surprise by an English mercenary. In 1488 the French troops won the castle back after a siege and the castle lost its military role. Today the castle belongs to the municipality and is one of Europe's largest medieval fortresses.
Fougères has a stylish bus service.
And it's called "Surf"
Blog readers may like to experiment with appropriate trendy acronyms for UK bus operations.
Buses United of Somerset and Taunton
Portsea Island Transport Service
Birmingham's Ultimate Metro
Sheffield Partnership for Integrated Transport
Travel Widely In Teesside
Travel Widely In Teesside
All ideas are worth following up, but please don't sent the more extreme to this blog!
The population of "greater" Fougères is about 25,000, equivalent to, say, Clevedon (Someset). Surf runs 5 services Monday to Saturday between 0730 and 1930. As is usual in France, the reduced Saturday service also operates on non schooldays. There are no buses on Sundays.
Schoolday frequencies are, again as usual, irregular ...
... but a little less so on Saturdays.
There is a superb route map ...
... which can be viewed in full (here). Routes come together at Place de la République.
Fares are subsidised, of course, and cheap with a €1.05 fare valid for one hour's travel plus the usual range of day, week and monthly "seasons". For example €7.25 buys you a weekly "rover".
And, of course, the vehicles are stylish as well ...
... although fbb could do without the contravision foliage! A few facts from the Surf web site:-
250,000 journeys (not including school pupils)
10 buses
170 stops in 3 "communes" (Fougères, Lécousse, Javené)
350,000 km travelled each year
10 buses
170 stops in 3 "communes" (Fougères, Lécousse, Javené)
350,000 km travelled each year
Both Surf and Illenoo are Transdev companies and the Illenoo web site links to all the different networks in the Ille et Vilaine département ...
... all 17 of them.
Once again we are faced with the usual debate. Which is better; the French highly subsidised system with poor coverage in rural areas OR the UK hotch-potch of commercial and tendered routes, the latter at the mercy of cash-strapped local authorities, the former serving share holders first and the public second. Too difficult a choice to resolve?
Tomorrow: Sir Norman Foster comes to the aid of a mini-metro.
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3 of 9 Easter Oddities
As if cursing a fig tree wasn't odd enough ...
... Jesus didn't endear himself to the authorities when he threw the souvenir shop traders out of the temple. Their money making scams were symptomatic of the decline of true faith in favour of ritual and meaningless regulation in religion. Not a lot has changed in 2000 years!
It was almost as if Jesus were provoking some sort of final "crunch". Almost as if he were determined to die.
How odd.
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Next bus/tram blog : Tuesday 15th April
"Once again we are faced with the usual debate. Which is better; the French highly subsidised system with poor coverage in rural areas OR the UK hotch-potch of commercial and tendered routes, the latter at the mercy of cash-strapped local authorities, the former serving share holders first and the public second. Too difficult a choice to resolve?"
ReplyDeleteCommercial businesses are motivated to improve their products because they can then sell them for higher prices and thereby increase their income, and potentially, profits. May not happen in every case, but you only need to look at the developments in products such as commercial software or cars to see it in practice. The alternative of concentrating on keeping the price down means that inevitably costs will come under pressure, and, consequently, so does the quality and level of the service provided (in the case of buses). The UK approach provides a better level of service, and therefore greater mobility. The French approach provides fancy buses and cheap fares, but neither of those are of any value if the service provided is so limited that it is of no use to large numbers of people?
I don't find the choice at all difficult to resolve.
Having spent the last week in North Somerset travelling between Clevedon, Portishead and Bristol ... legitimate journeys, not 'cranking' ... the £22 First Week for the Bristol area Inner & Outer Zones plus the frequent services from early in the morning to after midnight convinces me that our system, in some areas, is the preferable option.
ReplyDeleteThe network is badly let down by the lamentable electronic Passenger Information System screens at bus stops, so no change there then.
We are going on holiday to Roscoff in Brittany next month and the public transport services are limited.
The dismal http://www.breizhgo.com/extension/bretagne/design/bretagne/flash/index.html which seems to have been a means to gain funding and has subsequently fizzled out, is worth a look. A prime example of a half-hearted effort to provide information online.
If anyone has an idle moment, take a look at http://www.viaoo29.fr/ Not too bad but there are no pdfs offering a non-date specific timetable.