Behind the scenes of buses in the West.
"Jeremy Corbyn takes the bus route to victory" bellows the headline of The Guardian in response to the Labour leader's somewhat unexpected raising of the issue of the decline of bus services at Prime Minister's Questions. (I say decline, you should read this as crisis if you read any of the material shared on Facebook… Continue reading Control, Control, Control
Lets disspell a couple of myths: Community Transport is not saving bus services. Community Transport is not saving the public purse any money. On the first point: Community Transport is being used as a plaster to patch up a crack in a dam. Community Transport does nothing to promote new public transport usage to new… Continue reading False Economy
Danny Baker's Saturday morning radio show on BBC 5 Live always has a talking point which starts with "Don't talk to me about...". The older i've got, the more i've found myself thinking (if not using) it in situations. Here is an example, illustrated by a couple of maps for the Bristol Metrobus services. 2017… Continue reading Don’t talk to me about Integrated Transport
The management culture of the bus industry has been gradually changing for several years. 31 years that have passed since 1986, and the old guard of NBC managers with the experience of working in the culture of the bus industry before it was purely business led are gradually being replaced by the results of the… Continue reading “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Much of this post is based upon a press release issued to the local media on 4th December, which resulted in this article in the Weston Mercury. Text which is copied verbatim from the release will be coloured maroon and references (found at the bottom) in blue. Despite the date of publication, it was written… Continue reading The Barbie Dalek
Aside from the obvious drum beating by the hard left over the vulnerability of the private sector, the collapse of Carillion and concerns over the future of similar business Interserve raises some interesting issues over public sector procurement. The problem is that government only appears to be able to deal with big corporations (and charities)… Continue reading Failure of the Middlemen
In any other industry, the most important people to ascertain the views of would be the customer. Almost every chain restaurant these days offers you a discount or small freebie at your next visit after you've eaten with them in exchange for completing a survey afterwards. In the bus industry, some operators do such things;… Continue reading The Top Secret Consultation
One aspect of transport planning which i find unintelligible is the reluctance to attempt small solutions to a problem instead of the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut which seems most favoured by the British public sector. An example recently began construction nearby on the A39 at Marksbury (Google StreetView link / B&NES rationale). Due… Continue reading Small solutions
Bath and North East Somerset Council are currently surveying for opinions on their Transport Strategy for the Chew Valley area, which is Citistar's bread and butter. We're based there and carry a lot of passengers around there over the course of each week. If you fancy a read, the documents are here. Their proposals for… Continue reading Rip it up and start again
Modern technology has given us many benefits, such as being able to see where road issues are causing delays. The photo below shows the GoogleMaps Traffic results for the Monday afternoon traffic tailbacks due to a set of roadworks near the Banwell Road junction on the Wellsway in Bath. (Base image, copyright Google) You can… Continue reading Mis- (traffic) -management
