Meanwhile in South Yorkshire ...
Important Information:
Interim pass applications process
for 11-16 MegaTravel passes
and 16-18 Student passes
... the on-line system for getting School and Student reduced fare passes that has been up to shoot for nearly THREE weeks seem to be repaired.
The issues we have been experiencing with MyTSY and the pass application system have now been resolved. However, the agreement with the operators to relax the rules will remain in place until the end of September. Therefore you don’t have to show your pass to obtain the concessionary fare of 70p, but if you have one please use it.
... but chaos still applies.
Sunday 6th September
Click on the pink link and ...
... it doesn't take you to any details. But these changes are the fourth set in just over 12 months.
July 2014 - Major re-organisation
September 2014 - Significant "minor" changes
April 2015 - Further "adjustments"
September 2015 - "a fit-for-purpose" bus network
So we must presume that the previous three attempts were NOT fit-for-purpose.
Bus passengers travelling on First Potteries are bracing themselves for more changes to their journeys from this weekend. Journeys on a number of routes are being axed or amended for the new-look services which come into force tomorrow. It comes as First Potteries has closed its Newcastle depot with the loss of dozens of jobs to leave just the Adderley Green site open.
The company today defended its latest changes. A spokesman said: "The classic ingredients required to sustain a fit-for-purpose bus network are now in place and we need people to use it. For us to invest and enhance the network further, we need people to feel confident and to use the bus as their preferred choice of travel around the area.
"Over the last 12 months our customers will be aware that we have made a number of changes, mainly to timings, in order to improve punctuality and reliability."
Passenger groups today hit out at the constant timetable and route changes. Bus users' group spokesman Selwyn Brown said: "There have been many changes over the last 12 months and I'm beginning to think there have been too many. A while ago First brought in some significant changes and we were told they'd be definitive, but since then we have seen more".
This notice was still in place yesterday at fbb's nearest bus stop.
But, dear Mr Stagecoach Devon, the 52A doesn't serve that stop and never has done!
There is a missed opportunity in the third paragraph. Surely if you are going to "circumnavigate a roundabout" you should be even more grandiose in your (mis-)use of language and "circumnavigate the gyratory traffic management facility in an anti clockwise direction".
Or you could say that the service will use the normal Underfleet stops. But that would be too simple.
Sunday 27th September
First Bus introduces its new X53 Jurassic Not-along-the-Coaster with utterly useless service in both directions for locations west of Axminster.
Click on the timetable to enlarge them.
But take a look at the timetable on the First Bus web site, and wonder how anyone will ever use it. Sorry, it's so huge that fbb had to reduce it from comprehension illegibility to optical illegibility.
But please download the app.
Sunday 27th September
This is how traveline advertises the First Bus revisions between Truro and Newquay. Again you might need to click to get a larger view.
Expert omnibologists can spend a few precious minutes trying to understand the occasional service 95 journeys from Wadebridge and Truro which appear to terminate at the St Columb Major at the bottom of the table. Is that a different place from the St Columb Major in the middle of the table?
Thursday 10th December
Southern Vectis starts their Christmas Lights Tour programme. There's lovely.
Now didn't most bus companies change to the 24 hour clock in the mid 60s? Wasn't that 50 years ago?
Unfair to today's hard-working managers? Unintentionally, perhaps. There seems to be a lack of "hands on" management, replaced by an over reliance on "more efficient" computer systems and "consultants". However clever TAS may be, however good Résaultions may be at network design, nothing can replace detailed local knowledge and experience. Has the industry lost those skills?
It wouldn't have happened like this is Philip Baggaley's day. But then he knew where and when all his buses ran. He was a manager!
Read again a blog from 2012 (here).
Next bus blog : Friday 11th September
For all who loose their Lyme Regis to Seaton link
ReplyDeleteThe promised replacement Axe Valley Mini Travel 899 timetable is published today on Traveline SW. It is now in three entries.
Unfortunately the Lyme Regis to Seaton section is just Monday to Friday.
The complete debacle in South Yorkshire with the school and student passes is just the latest example of how SYPTE has total disregard for its customers. The original note on the website said it would take at least two days for the message to get through to drivers! What about the invention of the wireless? This device is regularly used to seek volunteers for overtime, removal of stacked buses at the Interchange and instructions to dump passengers and run short routes! My own experience in the past week has observed several young people being humiliated and forced to get off or pay full fare. This time of year is always difficult when passes are being reissued but to rely on untested, wrongly programmed and late delivered self-service software is typical of an organisation obsessed with satisfying the cost cutting SCR Transport Committee.
ReplyDeleteSYPTE used to be one of the most innovative PTEs in the country and now? Little more than a joke - no one likes it, no one takes it seriously, few know what it does and most consider it unfit for purpose. Can anyone remember when we saw ANY positive publicity with respect to something they plan?