Friday 20 March 2015

Arriva Busway Continuation

More in Luton
The busway on the trackbed of the former branch line to Dunstable opened with much hype and four routes from three operators from day one.
Its success has been a matter of some debate with low usage at the intermediate stops. Passengers seemed to prefer the traditional main road services, particularly for the Luton and District Hospital.

Then Arriva added a "new" service which wasn't.
From 2nd November 2014, half the buses on service 70 (Luton to Milton Keynes) were diverted via the busway and numbered F70.
There are detailed differences in Milton Keynes itself as shown above. The F70 terminates at Milton Keynes The Point (aka Shopping Centre) whereas service 70 buses either call at Milton Keynes The Point or, as a useful alternative, at Milton Keynes the Point.

Presumably these PDF files are created by some mindless confuser program and are never checked for drivel by Arriva staff; who have probably never travelled between Luton and Milton Keynes anyway! Its a nice ride (nicer on the slower 70!), they should try it some time; but, for goodness' sake make sure they get a bus that stops at Milton Keynes the Point not one of the other central destinations!

The April edition of Buses magazine (just published) reveals another busway service ...
... carrying the route letter "Z".

Long-standing routes 38 and 39 currently run from Luton town centre via the traditional main road to the Hospital, then veer off via Lewsey Farm estate to Houghton Regis; 39s continue to Dunstable.
It is this service that will form the core of the new busway "Z". It will travel fast out of Luton, then leave the busway at the Chaul End escape route ...
... continuing via the Hospital as before. Or will it? Ever mindful of the need for journalistic accuracy, fbb went immediately to the Arriva web site. Under "Latest", we read this headline:-

Arriva are proposing changes to bus services across Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis and they want your feedback on the plans.

Underneath it is all made clear:-

Arriva are proposing changes to bus services across Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis and they want your feedback on the plans.

Clicking on the header, we now go to a new page and read:-

Arriva are proposing changes to bus services across Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis and they want your feedback on the plans.

And underneath the new headline is further explanation:-

Arriva are proposing changes to bus services across Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis and they want your feedback on the plans.

fbb did wonder what the "Latest" was being latest about. This time, after four identical paragraphs, there is more; which is summarised in a final paragraph.

We are keen to see what people think of the changes and would invite them to go online to look through the changes, people can also visit our Travel Shop in The Mall in Luton or the Travel Choices Hub in Ashton Square, Dunstable.” For a full list of what is happening please visit www.arrivabus.co.uk/Luton-changes

The deadline for feedback is Tuesday 3rd February 2015. 

fbb is a bit late then. But let's click to see the full list of what is happening.
Yet another example of the web designers consummate skill!

But the oft maligned Traveline comes to our rescue. It reveals the new "Z" timetable and route.
Now it runs from the Interchange (aka Luton Station) via the centre, and and on to Houghton Regis with no buses extended to Dunstable. We remember that busway "A" runs to Houghton via Dunstable, of course. Arriva's blurb suggests there are "other changes" and passengers deprived of their 39 journeys from Dunstable could, presumably change from "A" to "Z" at the Dog and Duck.
And, for those who like timetable and location accuracy, the pub has been closed for some time. It was bought by local entrepreneur Kishor Patel ...
... and was due to re-open "early in 2015" under a new name. How long will it take to update NaPTAN?
New Streetlites are due for the route which will start (possibly Streetlite-less) on 12th April.

Why "Z"? fbb has no idea and Arriva doesn't say. We already have A, B, C, E and F(70), so maybe the bosses at Arriva have a vision for 20 extra services to fill the alphabetical gaps!

Maybe not.
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Apology : in preparing the planned blog for today, a further look at Taunton Park and Ride, fbb found that he was lacking some significant detail. Another nip to Taunton is needed, so publication is delayed.
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 Next rail blog : Saturday 21st March 

6 comments:

  1. Each of the CMK stops is a separate lettered stop. In particular, 70s to the station stop on the opposite side of the road to F70s arriving from Luton. Granted in the format shown it looks rubbish, but there is a logic behind it.

    Arriva's local publicity is much better than the web version. There was both a paper version of the consultation described above, as well as a follow-up version of the outcome, which showed modifications from the original proposals.

    The Chaul End Lane link is to the east of the map extract.

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  2. Guess what gramps?? This whole internet thing is going to be pretty big. I'd stop devoting your life to fighting it if I was you.

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  3. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think fbb is Web phobic just that posting wrong or confusing info on the Web is no better than no info at all and also it's so easy to fix things most of the time.

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  4. People still appreciate paper timetables, especially when the many of these websites are designed by people who don't care about or use buses.

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  5. "Each of the CMK stops is a separate lettered stop. In particular, 70s to the station stop on the opposite side of the road to F70s arriving from Luton. Granted in the format shown it looks rubbish, but there is a logic behind it."

    A very odd logic - why do we not consider a group of stops as one stop, with different platforms, like a railway station?

    The Point is basically a bus station (like the railway station), it just happens to be on-street.

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    1. The logic is necessary if you wish to produce information for an individual stop, which is the system that now exists, driven by the DfT for electronic bus service registration, Traveline and so on. It's also quite useful to put the specific stop at a busy location on a driver's running board.

      I appreciate the analogy with a railway station, but that is a controlled environment which can put signs and information up to its heart's content: on the public highway, there are both legislative constraints as well as local custom and practice to be observed, which frustrate the ability to produce something of equivalent standard.

      I for one appreciate the NextBuses site which provides stop specific info, although it doesn't work so well if you are searching through multiple stops to find a particular service (which I suppose is the equivalent to National Rail showing only info for a particular platform, not a whole station). Winners and losers....

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