219 - It Is Fine! (4)

 Who Needs Passengers?

Gone are the halcyon days when bus stations were thronged with queues of passengers from dawn to dusk; gone are the days when  bus services could automatically be profitable and, if not, the much maligned cross-subsidy would ensure that the operator ran a comprehensive network. Rightly or wrongly the concept of a bus service has been replaced with a bus business.

Nowadays (except in London) the provision of a service is entirely dependent on whether that bus route is a profitable part of the business.

Mr Tennent, our "guest" academic twitterer, is very keen to compare the 219 bus with equivalent car journeys.

The route takes about 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes end to end, for a journey doable in about 40 minutes by car.

Hmmm? At 0950 yesterday the interwebnet was recommending an apparently "long way round" route by car ...

... in preference to the direct road via Goldthorpe.

The system (for want of a better word) offers a ludicrously quick drive via High Melton, using the latter half of the 219 ...

... Until you realise that the 28 minutes only takes you to Doncaster Road, on the outskirts of the town.

But the comparison is both unreliable and silly. You would have to ber insane or a bus enthusiast (some would say they are the same thing!) to use the 219 for a journey between the two towns. Through passengers would tend to use the X19 ...

... and intermediate passengers who live close to the X19 would also take the direct route.

The diversion up to Thurnscoe takes 30 minutes on its own; to go by car from Goldthorpe to Darfield only takes 5-10 minutes! No one with their own transport is going to take this bus.

Again you would have to be potty to take the 219. The X19 takes just ten minutes (same as by car?) but it all depends on where in Darfield you want to go. Saltersbrook Road is very much a "northern by pass". 

But how many people would want to get from Goldthorpe to Darfield? Enough to run a bus route along the main road but via the estates? Unlikely!

Percentage-wise, there will be more bums on seats (not many more, admittedly) travelling from Thurnscoe and its estates to Darfield to socialise Granny or Aunt Aggie!

There again, if you lived at Goldthorpe and were visiting old pal Muriel on Upperwood Road, you would be very likely to be more than happy with a ride round on the 219. Again playing the percentages game, the chances are that you would be "mature" and not have access to a car. So it is 219 or taxi!

And the 219 is FREE!

Either way, Mr Tennent's twittered plan to chop off all the Thurnscoe appendages ...

... could easily be a commercial and PR disaster for Stagecoach. And please, Mr T, do not compare the Dearne Valley with London.

TfL do this already - main London bus routes do not go round the houses, because they know that people will walk to reach a frequent, direct bus route. This will also have the positive effect of boosting active travel thus improving fitness and mental health locally.  So better transport is not just about getting from A to B.

Outside of the central area, London has some of the most convolutes bus services in the galaxy. They can be convoluted to serve everyone possible, simply because they are NOT commercial but buoyed up by massive (and fbb means massively massive) taxpayer subsidy.

fbb is equally sure that the denizens of Merrill Road Thurnscoe would be absolutely thrilled to hear that they had to walk from a town centre stop, laden with multiple shopping bags,.  just to boost their fitness and mental health!

fbb would expect a typical well thought out Yorkshire polite response something like "Not  bloody  likely!"

My revised route could probably be completed in 50 minutes to 1 hour with contactless fares and a shorter journey time would mean frequencies could be increased with the same buses. It currently runs hourly, which is not really enough for people to use it consistently.

Again NO, Mr T. 

The current daytime round trip is just under three hours, so with layover and interworking on another route you would allow 3.5 buses to run an hourly service. Cutting the running time to an unlikely 1 hour exactly would need 2.5 buses for an hourly service which would imply FIVE buses to run a half hourly service. Doubling the service would then imply double the number of passengers PLUS replacing those that you lose by not going where they want to go.

It doesn't add up.

Neither Stagecoach nor the PTE tell us which bus journeys are operated on tender so we can only speculate. But the early(ish) morning oddities are confusing.

Despite the unhelpful time point names, the 0610 from Barnsley does not run via the Merrill Road housing area ...

.

... whilst the 0645 doesn't serve Hanover Street and it's approaches. But both go via Park Spring Road Houghton Colliery; and we already know that Houghton Colliery has been razed to the ground.

A huge warehouse has been built on the old colliery site complete with a new road network.

The office block is big enough ...

... but the warehouse itself is hugely huge!

It gets morning and evening calls on the 219.

The final oddment is one shopping journeys to and from Doncaster that diverts via Cadeby at 0959.

The return journey leaves Doncaster at 1330. Cadeby is a sweet little village with no facilities ...

... and fbb guesses that there will be few passengers each day for Donny. Most will have cars! In happier times, Cadeby had a "proper" service.

Which leaves Sprotborough and, wait for it ...

The undecipherable 219A - both to be tackled tomorrow.

Deep joy!!

 Next 219 Is Fine blog : Friday 29th April