Transport eight-pointer
Aug. 21st, 2008 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suzyscottdotcom1. Firstly, starting with our “friends” at Transport for London. After last year’s forged Saver tickets fiasco, they’ve found a new way around the problem. While there has been no public statement to advise of this, an internal email to the Ticket Stop network has explained that from the 7th September, TfL will be withdrawing the Saver ticket books from sale. “Customers will still be able to use any previously purchased tickets after that date until further notice…”
2. It has been suggested elsewhere that Essex County Council are to replace their set of A4 timetable books (five at 50p each, published around three times a year), with one timetable to cover the entire county for £1.00, with the first issue due in October. Interesting manoeuvre, as the series of 4 A5 books were a fair size and thickness. Will be interesting to see how thick this one is… but a very welcome development, as it will save tracking down all five each time! Confirmation from the council is currently awaited on this one.
3. In the same area, Essex County Council have recently reviewed transport provision around the Uttlesford District Council area. The new services start on 1 September, and the details are on this webpage. Interestingly, Viceroy Service 445 from Barley and Chrishall to Saffron Walden goes from a schoolday only service to up to three/four journeys per day, including a school holiday and Saturday service, between Chrishall and SW.
4. Stagecoach Huntingdon/Fens and Peterborough changes are due to happen this weekend, with five new Enviro200 single deckers currently entering service at Peterborough. Service 384 from Holbeach to Wisbech, initially shown as not changing, is now changing more substantially with extra journeys, starting/ending at Long Sutton, and renumbered 39. Additionally, two evening journeys initially shown as Service 55 will operate as Service 35 via Godmanchester, to replace the evening services on the 151.
5. While the Guided Busway works enter their final stage, Cambridgeshire County Council is going to have to make some cuts to the subsidised services budget. The cuts, are however, some of the more poorly used routes and journeys – with the 1030 from Caldecote/1300 from Cambridge Whippet 2, all four journeys on Whippet 196 from Waterbeach to Cambridge (which now has Stagecoach Cambridge 8 running for most of it’s length), and both journeys on Huntingdon & District X14 (a commuter run from Huntingdon to the Science Park, which is presumably intended for replacement by the guided bus routes). Other routes under review include the some of the evening & Sunday Stagecoach 10 between Cambridge and Burwell/Newmarket, Stagecoach/Huntingdon & District 436 (to be a 35 from next week) in the peaks from Somersham to Huntingdon, market day services 115, 116, 117 around Ely, some or more journeys on the WH Fowler service around Wisbech and Holbeach Drove, and Freedom Travel 46/47 from Ashley and Dullingham to Newmarket. The latter is reported to have only two passengers per trip, resulting in the subsidy per passenger levels currently being £23.97 – not really sustainable. See this article in the Cambridge Evening News for more.
6. Stagecoach Strathtay changes kicked off on Monday past, with the closure of two depots as a result. Forfar depot was apparently needing too much work to bring it up to scratch, so the work has been split between Dundee and Arbroath depots, with some being outstationed in Kirriemuir. The Dundee depot has closed (the site had already been sold off), with the bus station remaining in situ. The depot is now replaced by the former Ridgeway’s premises at Smeaton Road, Wester Gourdie Industrial Estate.
7. A last minute change to the Stagecoach Strathtay changes was Dundee City Council agreeing to buy back a Monday to Friday two-hourly Service 69 between Ninewells Hospital and Barnhill. This is to replace the withdrawn Service 69 (ex 69A) and 72 within Dundee, running at a reduced two-hourly service with one bus doing the lot. As a result, the bus runs direct via Dundee Road between Seagate and Broughty Ferry to link the two, and when leaving Ninewells for the east (after doing the Gowrie Park double run), the bus leaves the hospital direct via James Arrot Drive, Ninewells Drive, and the top end of Ninewells Avenue. There are also two buses from the city centre to Ninewells/Gowrie Park (one before) that run off at (Gowrie Park) Lochniver Crescent, presumably then running back to the new depot. The new 69 will operate only until DCC get their plans for a “demand responsive transport” system. I could be cynical and suggest that sounds a lot like a taxi, but I guess it is – that’s the point. Anyway, we shall wait and see – but interestingly, the four times a day Service 72 to Windsor Street (which was registered as a partial replacement for the full 72, before DCC agreed to subsidise the 69) will continue to operate – if continue is the right word, seeing as it had been replaced before it started with a service similar to before, just with another number.
8. Stagecoach Fife changes occurred in the same week, with a subsequent reallocation of buses, additionally following the receipt of more Solo’s and Enviro400 double deckers. The two former Go-Flexi short wheelbase ex-London Darts have been transferred from St Andrews to Dunfermline, replaced by the two Solo’s that originally had Wee County Boarder branding on them, for the subsidised services in Clackmannanshire. However… these two were originally new for accessible requirements at the St Andrews open golf a few years ago, running at S for a few days before the WCB tender passed to Stagecoach.
2. It has been suggested elsewhere that Essex County Council are to replace their set of A4 timetable books (five at 50p each, published around three times a year), with one timetable to cover the entire county for £1.00, with the first issue due in October. Interesting manoeuvre, as the series of 4 A5 books were a fair size and thickness. Will be interesting to see how thick this one is… but a very welcome development, as it will save tracking down all five each time! Confirmation from the council is currently awaited on this one.
3. In the same area, Essex County Council have recently reviewed transport provision around the Uttlesford District Council area. The new services start on 1 September, and the details are on this webpage. Interestingly, Viceroy Service 445 from Barley and Chrishall to Saffron Walden goes from a schoolday only service to up to three/four journeys per day, including a school holiday and Saturday service, between Chrishall and SW.
4. Stagecoach Huntingdon/Fens and Peterborough changes are due to happen this weekend, with five new Enviro200 single deckers currently entering service at Peterborough. Service 384 from Holbeach to Wisbech, initially shown as not changing, is now changing more substantially with extra journeys, starting/ending at Long Sutton, and renumbered 39. Additionally, two evening journeys initially shown as Service 55 will operate as Service 35 via Godmanchester, to replace the evening services on the 151.
5. While the Guided Busway works enter their final stage, Cambridgeshire County Council is going to have to make some cuts to the subsidised services budget. The cuts, are however, some of the more poorly used routes and journeys – with the 1030 from Caldecote/1300 from Cambridge Whippet 2, all four journeys on Whippet 196 from Waterbeach to Cambridge (which now has Stagecoach Cambridge 8 running for most of it’s length), and both journeys on Huntingdon & District X14 (a commuter run from Huntingdon to the Science Park, which is presumably intended for replacement by the guided bus routes). Other routes under review include the some of the evening & Sunday Stagecoach 10 between Cambridge and Burwell/Newmarket, Stagecoach/Huntingdon & District 436 (to be a 35 from next week) in the peaks from Somersham to Huntingdon, market day services 115, 116, 117 around Ely, some or more journeys on the WH Fowler service around Wisbech and Holbeach Drove, and Freedom Travel 46/47 from Ashley and Dullingham to Newmarket. The latter is reported to have only two passengers per trip, resulting in the subsidy per passenger levels currently being £23.97 – not really sustainable. See this article in the Cambridge Evening News for more.
6. Stagecoach Strathtay changes kicked off on Monday past, with the closure of two depots as a result. Forfar depot was apparently needing too much work to bring it up to scratch, so the work has been split between Dundee and Arbroath depots, with some being outstationed in Kirriemuir. The Dundee depot has closed (the site had already been sold off), with the bus station remaining in situ. The depot is now replaced by the former Ridgeway’s premises at Smeaton Road, Wester Gourdie Industrial Estate.
7. A last minute change to the Stagecoach Strathtay changes was Dundee City Council agreeing to buy back a Monday to Friday two-hourly Service 69 between Ninewells Hospital and Barnhill. This is to replace the withdrawn Service 69 (ex 69A) and 72 within Dundee, running at a reduced two-hourly service with one bus doing the lot. As a result, the bus runs direct via Dundee Road between Seagate and Broughty Ferry to link the two, and when leaving Ninewells for the east (after doing the Gowrie Park double run), the bus leaves the hospital direct via James Arrot Drive, Ninewells Drive, and the top end of Ninewells Avenue. There are also two buses from the city centre to Ninewells/Gowrie Park (one before) that run off at (Gowrie Park) Lochniver Crescent, presumably then running back to the new depot. The new 69 will operate only until DCC get their plans for a “demand responsive transport” system. I could be cynical and suggest that sounds a lot like a taxi, but I guess it is – that’s the point. Anyway, we shall wait and see – but interestingly, the four times a day Service 72 to Windsor Street (which was registered as a partial replacement for the full 72, before DCC agreed to subsidise the 69) will continue to operate – if continue is the right word, seeing as it had been replaced before it started with a service similar to before, just with another number.
8. Stagecoach Fife changes occurred in the same week, with a subsequent reallocation of buses, additionally following the receipt of more Solo’s and Enviro400 double deckers. The two former Go-Flexi short wheelbase ex-London Darts have been transferred from St Andrews to Dunfermline, replaced by the two Solo’s that originally had Wee County Boarder branding on them, for the subsidised services in Clackmannanshire. However… these two were originally new for accessible requirements at the St Andrews open golf a few years ago, running at S for a few days before the WCB tender passed to Stagecoach.
