Getting the Burd? [2]

Talking About Passenger Notices?

The story so far - the recent story at least. UNO (erstwhile University of Hertfordshire's in-house transport department) does a deal to provide bus services for the University of Northampton. One of these routes, the 21, competes with Stagecoach on its route from Park Campus into town ...

... and the route is further extended, again nibbling away at Uncle Brian's domination of the town, to Rectory Farm in the east.

Stagecoach responds with service 4 ...

... running in a loop via Boughton Road and Eastern Avenue. The 21 and the 4 (bottom) both run every 15 minutes.

Stagecoach services via Kingsthorpe are shown on their excellent route map.

But from Sunday last, 19th April, it was all change. Service 4 was withdrawn and services 16 and 17 were diverted via Eastern Avenue by way of replacement.

This means that Stagecoach are running a bus every ten minutes against UNO's 15. The press were told that the 4 was withdrawn "due to low passenger numbers" which is, of course, a nonsense. If passenger numbers were low, why replace it with a more frequent service?

Which brings us neatly to the Passenger Notice problem.

fbb thinks that calling this little hut a "Police Station" ...

... is a tad on the optimistic side. Even th police themslves call it Kingsthorpe Police Box; and, of course, it isn't staffed. But here is the stop "opposite" which might better be called "outside Waitrose".

Traveline calls it Kingsthorpe Shopping Centre. Because of traffic lanes and the nearness of the right turn (by the houses on the right) ...

... buses via Cranford Road no longer use the opp (non-)Police Station, Waitrose or o/s Shopping Centre stop but call at this shelter just round the corner ...

... known as opp Cranford House.

But it seems that fbb has jumped to the wrong conclusion and may have maligned the Stagecoach notice writer. There may well be another explanation. The notice could refer to another "police station towards Kingsthorpe".

Perhaps we had better look at the bottom half of the A4 sheet?

Ready to eat humble pie (large portion with chips, mushy peas and gravy) and helped by reference back to our Northampton correspondent, fbb will try again tomorrow.

 Next bus blog : Wednesday 22nd April