We(ca) choose a Dictatorship

I have written extensively in the past regarding my frustrations with all operator ticketing in WECA. All operator ticketing would give operators other than First the opportunity to provide services which are complementary the greater network rather than combative (something which barely exists in WECAvon now anyway). First's local dominance of Mobile Ticketing and the…

A Blueprint for Commercial Progress

Several pressure groups are using the current situation and funding to call for greater long term regulation to be brought in to the bus industry. Knee-jerk reactions to such an opportunity to make sweeping changes would almost certainly deliver disasterous results as such things need careful consideration to ensure they are fit for purpose. In…

Solving a failure of The Big Project

Since Metrobus m1 started, there have been a number of moans on the First Bus Bristol: Have Your Say Facebook group regarding broken links since the withdrawal of services 50 and 90 from various parts of Inns Court and Hengrove. Since the splitting of service 36 at Brislington, there is now an extra vehicle working…

Connections & Commerces

This was something i started writing back in early November having had the seed of the idea planted by Graham Ellis' post on Option247. In tidying things up at the end of the year, i decided to finish it off and merge it with another stub of a post about ticketing, but hopefully it still…

Control, Control, Control

"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…

Trouble in Metroland

There has been talk about trams or some form of light rail returning to Bristol for as long as i can remember. Times have passed by and various plans been given the red light by Bristol City Council, the DFT or some other public body, usually on the grounds of the benefits being unjustifiable when…