Time to stop the rot

This week, independent Hereford operator Yeomans have announced their intention to withdraw from a large part of the Hereford city service network they took over after First similarly retrenched around six years ago. Amidst all the chatter about Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs), Bus Back Better (BBB) and Enhanced Partnerships (EPs), perhaps this is the…

Bus Back Burning

Every day, invitations to online seminars appear in my email or elsewhere requesting my presence at events discussing Bus Back Better (BBB), Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP), Mobilitiy As A Service (MaaS), Dynamic Demand Resposive Transport (DDRT) or some other current buzzphrase (with accompanying acronym) which is going to be the magic panacea to make…

Fails all round

It is reasonable to suggest that most people who use the road network find roadworks and road closures frustrating, especially when they're not done properly. There is currently a water main being replaced in at Bromley Road in Stanton Drew, here is the detail available on One.Network. Note that none of these logged disruptions indicates…

WECA Bus Service tendering: Results and analysis

This is a companion piece to the tale of how this procurement process was carried out. All references made here refer to contracts due to commence from September 2021. As the results have now been published, there are some interesting facts to report: 100% of large operators were successful in securing work through this tendering…

WECA: Where flawed metrics replace informed decisions

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) has recently undertaking their first local bus service tendering exercise to procure replacements for expired contracted services in B&NES and South Gloucestershire. 74 lots for bus services ranging from a single return journey once a week to frequent weekday services were offered for quotation, with services to replace…

Decision Time

The West of England Combined Authority is probably the most important body in the area where transport is concerned. The "Metro Mayor" as the leader of it is therefore a very important person in the lives of public transport passengers and providers as their policies will set the tone for the direction that WECA takes.…

One way or another, we’ll make you wait.

Today (Tuesday 6th April 2021) saw the launch of another four North Somerset Council supported bus services. Service 56 (Clevedon - Walton Bay) had been supposed to start last Thursday, but belatedly made it's debut today after somebody copied and pasted the wrong bit of supporting text to Facebook. Source: North Somerset Public Transport Facebook…

Secret Squirrels

Foreword: I apologise for breaking the promise to try and divert my attention elsewhere from the start of the last post on this blog. I am trying my hardest to move on, but the source material is too rich to pass up. Bus operators are expected to begin the registration process for bus services at…

Borders and Behaviour: How Not to Procure Bus Services.

I realise a lot of my recent ramblings have centred around North Somerset and the council that governs the place, but i'll try to divert my attention elsewhere after this post. North Somerset Council have recently undertaken a tendering round which sees every one of their existing four bus contracts replaced by a different service,…

FreeBus: A lot of publicity, but not much else

The start of the 2010 decade was a tumultuous time on Bristol's public transport. Rotala Wessex were keen to make their presence felt in the city. Bristol City Council's lead on Transport, Gary Hopkins was trying to entice other major group operators in to the city by mass tendering every supported service at once (spoiler,…