Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics
Samuel Longhorne Clemens indicated that the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield said those words above.
We know the people better as Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli! In fact nobody really knows who first suggested the statistics are a less than reliable way of expressing anything close to the truth.
So we go to Leeds ...
For many a long year, the bus route joining the two, that is from Leeds ...
... to Bradford, in Corporation Transport days has been route 72!
The route was maintained in the early PTE era ...
Then First bought the PTE and Barbie arrived.
The really stunning event, however, was the appearance ...
... and the relatively rapid departure of the "Streetcars".
Apart from weird buses ...
Technology arrived ...
... but back in September 2024 (and missed by fbb) something really special happened!
There has been some stunning publicity, although fbb does not know whether printed material was available. The on-line page includes maps of each city. Leeds ....jpg)
... c/w super trendy "neon" image, and Bradford ...
This new 24 hour 7 days a week service must be something really, really good. There is at least one bus decked out in matching attire.
.jpg)
... ditto.
Only the night service isn't that good!
Wow! Steps back in amazement! Stunning! First Bus offers a really whizzo bus every hour from just after midnight to 0400, then there is an hour's gap and the "normal" service starts at 0500, later on Sundays.
But it would appear that the worthy denizens of Leeds'n'Bradford have taken to these improvements on the 72 big time!
Here is a headline press article.
Beware statistics!
Beware incompetent journalistic headlines!
Beware over hyped hype!
Beware what happened to the hyperlink!
Beware the danger of facts getting in the way of a good story!
fbb simply did not believe that the 72 had generated a 138% growth in passengers since September.
And it hadn't!
Here is he detail behind the non-event press story!
First Bus has seen a 138 per cent increase in customers travelling between midnight and 05:00am on the first 24-hour service in West Yorkshire.
The round-the-clock operation on the 72 Leeds-Bradford service was introduced last September, and figures for the first three months to the end of the 2024 show that passenger numbers had grown from just over 2,000 in the first four weeks to more than 4,800 in December.
Kayleigh Ingham, Commercial Director of First North & West Yorkshire, said: “We’re delighted with the growth we have seen on this service, which is clearly appealing to the people of Leeds and Bradford.
“Customer numbers have steadily increased month-by-month and we see this trend continuing in 2025.”
Of course raw percentages could have been deceiving. If 10 people travelled in the month, a 138% increase would man that 13.8 extra people were now travelling.
First does give us some crude figures.
2000 in four weeks? There are FIVE return journeys journeys seven days a week (ignoring the extras on Sunday morning) for four weeks.
That's 5 x 2 x 7 x 4 = 280
journeys carrying 2000 pax.
2000 / 280 = 7.14 passengers per
48 minute trip.
An increase of 138% means that roughly 9.66 extra passengers per trip were carried in December, a total of 16.8 passengers per single journey on a 70 seat double decker. December is, of course, a busy month for nocturnal shenanigans so the figures may not be so "good" in January and Februrary.
Deserving of hype. Or is the hype ...
... tripe?
More Alphabetical Biblical
Next First Glasgow blog : Wed 5 Mar
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