Its That Time of Year Again

 It's All On Line 

Yes, happy readers, it is the Awards season for the bus industry, a season which may prove difficult for the judges as so little that is positive has been happening in the bus industry. But, starting today and continuing over the next few weeks, your blogger is privileged to be able to reveal a selelction of thee short listed contenders in the various categories.

Category Number 1

Worst New Web Site

Previous winners have included Arriva whose site has achieved a sustained level of mediocrity and user-unfriendliness over recent years. Yet again Arriva is a leading contender. Colleague Roger French gave the new Arriva site a once-over a few days ago.

Roger, normally a calm reviewer of things omnibological, became almost apoplectic at the uselessness of this new offering from a major bus operator in the UK.

Lowlights include ...

A useless journey planner. fbb tried travelling from Leicester ...

... where there was a bewildering array of departure points. fbb was hoping for St Margarets Bus Station, but he never found it. His destination was Northampton which oddly offered only one option.

But it didn't matter as "no journeys are possible". The journey planner, you see, only includes Arriva bus services, so, unless you are certain your journey can be made completely on the blue buses with the weird logo, it's a waste of time trying.

Then you could download a timetable.

Every Arriva timetable in the UK is listed starting with all the service 1s - of which there are many; followed in helpful non numeric order, by all the service 10s ...

1 from Wrexham Bus Station to Chester Railway Station

10 from Brookhouse Estate Shops to Shudehill Interchange

10 from Chester Bus Interchange to Wepre Quay Shopping Centre

10 from Church Langley Tesco Store to Harlow Town Railway Station

10 from Darlington Northgate to Darlington Prebend Row

10 from Macclesfield Bus Station to Bollington Cotton Tree

10 from Prescot Bus Station to St Helens Hall Street

10 from Woodside Boundary Way to Holywell Westfield Community College

100 from Chatham Railway Station to St Mary's Island Primary School

100 from Stevenage Bus Station to Luton Station Interchange

... then the 100s and so on. fbb could not find any way of inputting a route number so it would be a long scroll to get to say something in the 400s ...

... but all the way to the 95 to Sleights. Wow!

fbb decided to look at a service which runs from Darlington to Darlingon.

Awful! And difficult to navigate. But later fbb found a "services" page which did take him to the 95 at Sleights. There was a map there ...

... really - and the old man was invited to download a "PDF timetable" which, in Arriva's good old bad old days, would bring up something very like their printed leaflet. Not any longer; it was just as the sample above.

Roger has written a comprehensive blog and you can read all the ghastly detail (here).

As Roger suggests, it is beyond belief that ANYONE should think this new site is worth the hard disc it is programed on.

A sure-fire contender for the top prize.

But we can announce a new award.

Known as the "Seven Ps" award, it is given to a bus company that has made a really daft policy decision. On what topic, you may ask?  

The citation scroll gives the full title of the award. It is the ...

Potty

Pathetic

Promulgated

Proscribed

Printed 

Publicity

Policy

... award.

There will be plenty of contenders and just one of many seeking this accolate is a bus operation very dear to fbb's heart.

All will be revealed tomorrow as part of our usual weekend collection.

And Talking Of Arriva

It was revealed that the boys in blue had taken over the X6 Leicester Coventry route after the collapse of deCourcey Travel.

It's congrats for a snappy absorbtion (yes, it is on the new web site) ...

... and there is timetable but fbb can't remember where he found it. This reveals that some of the journey planner results are VERY suspect, e.g. the 1455 which should be a normal through journey all the way on the X6.

Another web site failing?

But congrats to the folk at Arriva for getting up and running very quickly AND for simply re-using the deCourcey timetable page with the addition of their awful logo.

Worrying News In Sheffield

The Rails model shop has posted a disturbing notice to all its customers.

Any possible explanation is not good news for somebody.

Why would Hornby not want to supply a large model shop in a big city with a vast mail order business?

Or why would said model shop not want to stock goods from the country's largest model railway supplier.

Somebody, somewhere, is surely in trouble.

But who?

 Next Weekend Variety blog : Saturday 29th August