Pip, Pip, Pompey!

Poor Information Provision
Pathetic In Portsmouth

So it's NOT about Football (thank goodness).

fbb occasionally dons a false moustache and dark glasses; wears a broad brimmed trilby and folds up the collar of his gabardine raincoat to become a mystery shopper, a public transport spy.   In this case he takes a look at bus information at The Hard Interchange, Portsmouth, from an un-informed passenger's point of view.

fbb arrives at Portsmouth Harbour Station.   Is there ANY information about buses in the station?  Yes, there are signs ...

 

... to a bus service that doesn't operate any more!   On platform 3, a similar sign guides prospective passengers to a bus for the ferries to France and the Channel Islands which leaves from Platform 1 (sic). Might be a very long wait.

Now, who operates most of the trains from Portsmouth Harbour? And, who operates a significant number of buses from the nearby interchange?   Here is a clue:-

But there's no bus information of any kind in the Harbour station.   Hmmm!

Is there any sign on railway premises informing those arriving that there a bus station just outside?   Nope!   Not until you get outside the building; where there is a "finger post" that points to the "Bus and Coach Station"; but you might just have noticed it by the time you get to the pole.

Incidentally, one of the signs on the pole points to, ho hum, "Point" which is 1 mile away; fbb has no idea where or what that is.

Meanwhile, for Gunwharf Quays and the Spinnaker Tower, you are directed away in the wrong direction.   Some wag's been turning the signs around.   Chortle chortle.

Next call is to First Bus' travel centre.  "Do you have a Portsmouth bus timetable?" asks fbb tremulously.   "Sorry, sir, because of all the changes - and more to come - there won't be one until the end of April," replies the man.  Great; it's all changed so we're NOT telling you!

 Here is fbb's solution to the problem:- it's called a "photocopier".

 

Apparently you can use it to make "copies" of timetables to give out to the general public.  Pretty clever technology, isn't it?   Advice is given free to First's managers, no need to send a fat cheque; a thin one, by way of a donation to fbb's declining years, would be nice!

But, encouragingly (?), there are some booklets for Waterlooville and Portchester. Excellent products complete with timetables and maps but sadly ...

... completely out of date.   For example, the Saturday service on X42 ...

 ... was withdrawn back in November 2010.

So no first prize and no sur prise for First.

What about the previously hinted-at Stageoach?   Not a dickie bird! The only information available is lists of departure times at the actual stops; no route maps and absolutely no idea how long any particular journey might take. Tough bananas if you set off innocently for Brighton on service 700 in a spare moment.

That spare moment will get you to Brighton in 4 hours 17 minutes!  Or you might take one journey which only runs to Flamsham Park. Where? No idea!

Whilst at the bus station, notice the helpful signs attached to the shelters which tell you that service 700 leaves from Stand H - and Stand G.  Services 5 and 5A leave from Stand H - and Stand E. Service 16A SUN (presumably a fine weather route) leaves from Stand H and Stand D.  O.K., fbb, no longer in spy mode,  knows that they are going in different directions, but there is nothing on the signs to explain that - tough if you are waiting at the wrong shelter.

And finally your mystery shopper espied the Visitor* Infromation Centre ...

 

... with a best Information Service in the South East Award, so a huge banner proclaims.   So this is the leading source of Visitor Information in the area.

"Do you have any bus timetables?"   Reply, "No, we don't, I'm afraid."   Not even "Try the bus station."   Apoplexy!

To summarise:-
No bus information on the railway station.
No up-to-date bus information from First Bus.
No useful bus information at all from Stagecoach Bus.
No bus information at all from the award-winning Visitor (non) Information Centre.

And this is right next door to one of the major tourist attractions in the South of England.  Well, they've got a point.  Once you've arrived at "Flagship Portsmouth" and enjoyed HMS Victory, Warrior and the Mary Rose, you obviously won't want to go anywhere else - ever!!   Certainly not by bus.

* Used to be called "Tourist" Information Centres.   Presumably some tourism "high flyer" on a huge salary has decided that the word "tourist" is somewhat degrading and "visitor" is more politically correct.  Apoplexy redoubled!

Next blog : due Monday March 21st 

Service Seventy Shambles : Redux*

Dynamic Design (?), Dodgy Data
An extra-blog

Returning from a "jolly" to Winchester on Tuesday afternoon, 15th March, fbb followed his customary practice and had a quick surf to see if anything exciting had happened on the information super (not always) highway.   And the show-stopping news is that the "bloggers friend", Travel South Yorkshire [TSY], have revamped their website.

"Trust us to get you there..."   How sweet!

The new site has lovely shading round the search boxes ...

... and lots of swirly "stuff"; all of which (presumably in response to a fat fee for the web designers) make it so much easier to "find and understand the information we need".  (Space for the readers' own derogatory remarks!)

 

One of the dangers of a revamp is that search engines take time to catch up, so Google gets rather more lost than it should.   You get this when you ask about "changes and disruptions":-

But back back to our story.

Our growing readership (yes, amazingly!) will, doubtless,  remember fbb's rant against  TSY's (mis) handling of a timetable change for service 70.  (read again)  In a glowing tribute to the power of blogging, fbb was able to report (read again) that TSY, just hours after the original blog appeared, had removed the erroneous timetable and binned the incorrect leaflets.

fbb is anxious to check when the new timetable (for the evening AND Sunday service 71) is available.   So, he asked the new site to find service 71 - the Sheffield area 71 ...

... and it wasn't there.   So he next had a quick gander at service 70, and ...

 

... service 71 was listed as appearing on 27th March.  Have a house point, TSY, you have sorted out your blunder with consummate (and very unusual) speed.   Three Cheers!

But look closely and you would have seen:-

There was the old, WRONG, leaflet with the old WRONG information. No Sunday service, it said, when there is an hourly Sunday service. They had put the old timetable back.   But at least the web site has lots of swirly bits; and that's far more important.

Or so it appeared until the afternoon of Wednesday 16th March.  

Sadly your energetic blogger has been trumped, finessed or otherwise hoist by his own petard - because by Wednesday evening 16th the CORRECT timetable had, at last, appeared - some six weeks after neighbouring Derbyshire published their version.  And all's well that ends well.

But perhaps not quite?   The new Sunday timetable pages correctly show the route right round the loop in Killarmarsh (from Bridge Street Via Rowan Tree Road, High Moor and Norwood back to Bridge Steet). Well done that man - someone's got it right;

BUT the Monday to Friday and Saturday schedule still finishes at Killamarsh Bridge Street (the first time) - no timings for the loopy destinations.  Underdone!

 

So, nearly right, SYT - 5 out of 10 for trying!

When Tim Berners-Lee "invented" the internet, his vision was for a simple, robust means of accessing information.  Web designers have taken over and now provide us with loads of swirly stuff, twiddly pictures and gorgeous graphics.   

Commentators complain in chorus when a web site doesn't have lots of pretty "stuff". Where once a web page was defined by a dozen lines of simple "HTML" code, we are now obliged to "enjoy" highly complex clutter which takes ages to appear on-screen and doesn't always work on all systems. It also costs megabucks, paid for by the customer, of course!

Meanwhile the actual information provided is less than satisfactory or just plain wrong because changes can only be made by some clever contractor who understands "design"!

Keep it simple, get it right and bin the twiddly bits! 

* Redux - a literary term used when a topic, a scene or a character is (surprisingly!) brought back.

P.S.  As part of fbb's "be helpful to TSY" campaign, he can reveal that the new service 293 timetable (Sheffield to Dronfield; starting Monday 9th May) is now on Derbyshire's web site.  Jump to it lads, you've got less than 2 months to be sustainable  See if you can get this one completely right.

Click on the image below to get a readable version.

And a final hint - it doesn't go the same way as the "old" 293.

Next blog : due Friday March 18th 

The Designer who Developed the Duck

 fbb's first blog to include a thrilling video clip! 

Developed the Duck?
Not God, who developed a huge variety of the feathered kind...

... but Dennis Puleston. 

He was born in Leigh on Sea, Essex, (near Saarfend) in 1905 and died in 2001 having taken American citizenship in 1935.   He was an adventurer who dined with cannibals on a world tour; an ornithologist who strived to protect Ospreys and an environmentalist who worked to persuade the US government to ban the disgraced pesticide, DDT. [That's Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichlorethane - a useful name to drop casually into the conversation at parties.]

His un-sung and serendipitous contribution to modern public transport was the vehicle that he and a small team designed for use during the Second World War.

Some s*xt* years ago, fbb remembers a family holiday on the North Norfolk Coast.   One of the entertainments at Hunstanton ...

 

... (or was it Cromer?) was the chance of a ride in an ex-US army DUKW - universally called a "Duck".  fbb remembers the excitement of this silver painted monster, belching forth black smoke and roaring like a demented leviathan as it plunged powerfully into the briny. fbb's mum, of highly nervous disposition, would not permit "daddy" to take the future fbb for a ride (it might sink!) and bought him an ice cream instead. 

DUKW?  A US Army vehicle code?   Actually, no.  Thanks to the ever-reliable Wikipedia (?), fbb can reveal that the letters were the manufacturer, General  Motors, codes for:-

D - built in 1942

U - utility i.e. amphibious

K - all wheels driven

W - two axles at the rear.

The concept of an amphibious bus ride (for tourists) has had something of  renaissance in recent years here in the UK - the most notable being "Duck Tours" on the Thames.

Needless to say, Transport for London provides properly labelled stops for the "service".

But these ex WW2 monsters still ply their somewhat quirky trade in many resorts world-wide.   Meanwhile, back in Hunstanton in 2011, fbb introduces you to "Wiley Wash Monster" - a somewhat more modern version (dating from the Vietnam War) of the 1942 creature.

Now, with a face like that, it would certainly have brought on one of fbb's mum's "funny turns".

But one thing IS certain; the vessel is much more exciting than the spectacularly unsuccessful "Amfibus" tried out in Glasgow by Stagecoach. See "the incredible shrinking ferry". (read again)

P.S. Herewith a video clip commissioned from Neil [No. 2 son] of Duck Tours plying its trade on the tranquil waters of the Thames near Victoria;

 

as the video ends, the DUKW leaves the water for Albert Embankment near Vauxhall Bridge.

P.P.S  It was Neil [No. 2 son] who cynically suggested the sobriquet "fat bus bloke" for your esteemed author.  Thanks a bunch, kid!

An extra blog : due Thursday March 17th

St Francis' Phobia?

The devil's in the detail!

A blog or two ago, fbb was enthusing about the Wilts & Dorset X5 leaflet (read again).  It was super, smashing, lovely; and an example to the rest of the industry, no less.  A more leisurely peruse, however, presents some niggles.

This is St Francis' Church, Salisbury;

building started in 1938 and it was finally consecrated in 1940.   It serves a pre-war development of the City, called Paul's Dene.  The ecclesiastical edifice stands on Castle Road, the main artery leading northbound from the city centre.

 

Why?   What dreadful and dastardly deeds are done at or near this splendid building that obliges Wilts & Dorset buses to avoid it?   There is a clue.   It is buses in the evening that flee fearfully from St Francis.

And there is another clue, albeit rather obscure.   On Sundays, all X5 buses have a time point at Stratford Road, not mentioned on Mondays to Saturdays.

The map on the X5 leaflet offers no clue as to anything untoward ...

... but careful and persistent research leads your intrepid investigator to the map of Salisbury City services - the "Reds".   Red 4 to Paul's Dene estate runs via Stratford Road and Waters Road but with no evening or Sunday service.

So we are just about there.  The "pink dotted" X5 journeys which do not stop at St Francis Church or Victoria Park are the same as the whole Sunday service, namely diverted via Stratford Road and Waters Road as a replacement for the "Red 4". [or so fbb thinks??]  But, not so fast, timetable trawling person! Buses via Stratford Road DO stop at Victoria Park ... 

 

... and the stop at the end of  Waters Road is nearly the same as St Francis' Church,

you can see the church tower from the stop, almost.

Transport Defunct shows all the relevant stop locations.  The Stratford Road (for Victoria Park) stops are by the school; whilst Castle Road (for Victoria Park) has stops in the main road - coloured pink. 

fbb wonders whether the people that designed the leaflet actually KNOW the area.   A Salisburian (?) bus passenger would unquestionably understand "these buses run via Stratford Road and Waters Road" whilst an inexperienced visitor would find a little dotted diversionary line on the X5 map a sufficient warning that something was not quite the same.

There is one further worrying mystery.

These "green" times are for connecting "Activ8" buses  (Monday to Friday ...

... and Saturday)

 

with a change at Amesbury.  But the times on the X5 leaflet do not match those on the Activ8 publicity on W&D's site (see the 0718 from Amersbury, Monday to Saturday) ...

... a minute or so awry Mondays to Fridays and completely different on Saturdays!   Whoops.   Summat's up.

So, yet again fbb asks, "Which is Correct?" and "Why make it more Complicated than it Need be?"   Answers enclosed in a wad of folding money to:- "fat bus bloke, c/o The Brian Souter Home for Befuddled Busmen, somewhere quiet in rural England."

A final fascinating fact.  The bells of St Francis Church Salisbury were originally hung in the tower of St Giles, Imber (village about 3 miles from Warminster).

 

This is the village on Salisbury Plain that was forcibly depopulated in 1943 to provide pop-pop pop-gun practice for HM's army.

The church, thankfully,  is a listed building outside the military area. There is a similar "ghost village" at Tyneham, near Lulworth Cove in Dorset.

 P.S. The X5 leaflet is still one of the best, despite the above "niggles".

Next blog : due Wednesday March 16th  

St Francis Bells

A correction.

The old church bells from Imber, removed in 1950, were destined for the church of St Francis, Salisbury but in the end were rejected as it was considered the tower was unsafe. In 1968 the 18th century bell was incorporated in the new ring of ten bells at Edington Priory. The remaining four bells were scrapped. The six bells installed in the tower at Imber came from a number of sources and were hung on 30th August 2010.

Neil Skelton

Imber Bells' Project Manager.

(North) Home Town : Northampton [2]

The Benefits of Privatisation, NOT? PART TWO

We left our tale, a day or so ago (read again), with Northampton Corporation Transport [NCT] in the hands of First Group, and United Counties taken over by Stagecoach.   First had inherited a network of approx 20 town services, following roughly historic main road routes to the borough boundary with some extensions into new housing, particularly in the developing "Eastern District".

United Counties, however, provided the majority of the "Eastern District" routes and suburban services to Hardingstone & Wootton to the south and to New Duston on the western side of town.   So what has happened to the pride of Northampton; the boring but reliable erstwhile crimson buses?  First now run 7 (yes, only seven!) town services; a group of 4 to the north (the green and purple lines)...

...  and two to the south west (blue and orange).

In these two broad areas Stagecoach is absent, more or less completely, although First is "under attack" on the Kings Heath (purple) route from the faster Meridian Bus service 31.

The southern district of the town's expansion is (apart from Shelfleys, orange, above) entirely in the hands of Super-Souter as is the complex of services to New Duston in the west.    So what has happened to the east of the Town Centre, particularly the aforementioned Eastern District.   Herewith First's contribution:-

Just one solitary route to the east of the town!    Sadly the superbly named Buttocks Booth suffers from political correctness and false sensibilities and is here called "Lumbertubs Public House".  NCT once ran 8 daily services via the Kettering and Wellingborough Road corridors; now First can only manage just the loneliest one.  The guardians of that crimson crest...

 ... might well spin in their grave at what "big business" has done to their former daimler dominated domain.  "Castello Fortior Concordia" is the town's motto which is roughly translated as Concord, or Togetherness, is stronger than a Castle.   Not much togetherness for bus travellers.  Look at the all conquering Stagecoach:-

All the coloured lines, with the exception of the 17 (dark blue) are based on NCT's original network.   OK, some (5, 7 and 16) have been extended into former United Counties "territory" but the once proud municipal network has all been swallowed by Stagecoach.

But, we hear you cry, "does it matter WHO runs the buses as long as the service is good?"   The answer, putting sentimentality aside, in the negative - it really doesn't matter.   [Unless you happen to be a First Group shareholder!]

But what DOES matter is how easy it is to obtain information about such a fragmented network. And there are yet more companies providing evening and Sunday services plus a swathe of routes to the University Campus.

Northamptonshire County Council provides an on-line set of timetables for the whole area, urban and rural.

This extract, which appears to show the same route (it's No. 1) with a Sunday service (top) and without a Sunday service (below) suggests all is not well with the list.  As an aside, service 1 runs every 10 minutes Monday to Saturday daytime, so "hourly or better" is a poor descriptive effort.  So not very useful at all unless you know the network - which requires a good map.

Now, once upon a time (and quite a recent time) Northampton County and Northampton Borough produced an excellent and comprehensive timetable book - easy to use and complete with a very good map indeed.

The map (index extract as above) is still available on-line but the web site says nothing about purchasing a hard copy, so presumably you can't. Timetable Books have long-since joined the crew of the Mary Celeste - gorn completely; swallowed up by the Bermuda Triangle of loathsome leafletitis.

So, it would appear once again, that to access this fragmented and geographically illogical group of services, you need the usual determined effort to search out and collect (or download) leaflets by the dozen, ditto a huge PDF map and clutch  these passionately to your bosom before setting out on any bus journey.

How much easier was it to consult a Northampton Corporation Transport pocket timetable book, complete with simple map.   It is what Auntie Anne and little fair-haired pre-fbb did for their exploratory excursions. They seemed to manage very well indeed - and without the benefits (?) of the interweb. 

P.S. An oft repeated fbb treat was to go by bus to Dallington Green, walk through to the Kings Heath estate and then indulge in a delectable Sherbert Dip  from the ever-open newsagents; before returning (for the chips, of course!) - what delights disappear with old age?

P.P.S. As Dallington Green was part of a "pretty" former village replete with golden Northamptonshire stone cottages, it was equipped with special luxury varnished wood bus stop signs with corporation crest and gold lettering.  (Just about visible on the photo below) Bet they're not there anymore.

P.P.P.S.  fbb's title for this article may need some explanation.   North Home Town would have been written in Middle English as "Norrþ Ham Tun" - i.e. Northampton.  The "funny letter" is called "thorn" and is pronounced like our modern "th" - amazing what you can learn from a blog.


Next blog : due Monday March 14th