Stagecoach vs Internet

Regarding my post a month ago where services 120/130 and 244 were to be updated, well, they haven't. Apparently a shortage of vehicles and drivers is to blame according to one driver. Stagecoach updated their online timetable for the 244 a month ago in preperation for the change, and have since changed it back, neither were announced on the website.

Also, there's still no information on their website regarding Christmas operations (unlike any other operator with any sort of website in South Wales).

Websites and service updates

First Cymru have recently announced some service alterations on their website

These are due to start on January 6th.

Stagecoach, as previously announced, are altering a few of their services to take place from December 1st. This is their service update page:

Note the amendment to service 120/130 is an old update, not the one to be implemented next month. So far, there's nothing to tell the public that a few services are due to change. Recently they added a 1600 service 172 from Aberdare but didn't mention a thing on their website. The current 244 timetable is showing as the one that will commence from Dec yet nothing alerting any users of the route to the fact that it is due to change. One beauty on that screenshot above is the introduction of the rail road ticket from Maerdy to Cardiff, which was added to their website the day after they introduced the ticket!

Credit to First Cymru, Cardiff Bus and Newport  Bus for always being on the ball with letting passengers know about updates to their services through their website. I can't say the same with regard Stagecoach, unfortunately.

Stagecoach service changes

From Dec 1, services 120 and 130 are to be increased from half-hourly to every 20 minutes, meaning 3 buses an hour to Caerphilly from Pontypridd and the Rhondda and an every 10 minute service between Pontypridd and the Rhondda Fach.

Also, from that date, service 244 will be changed slightly. It will leave Pontypridd at 42 past the hour and Bridgend at 10 past. It will no longer serve the Royal Glamorgan hospital.

Another about fares

Here's a simple comparison of a few random bus journeys that I have discovered the fares for. Included are operator, journey, cost of single fare, distance as driven, and cost per mile. 

First	Bridgend	McArthurGlen	£2.25	1.8	£1.25
First	Bridgend	Ynysawdre	£2.75	3.1	£0.89
Stagecoach	Aberdare	Maerdy	£3.40	5.2	£0.65
First	Bridgend	Kenfig Hill	£3.45	7.2	£0.48
Stagecoach	Tonyrefail	Bridgend	£5.00	11.5	£0.43
Edwards	Pontypridd	Talbot Green	£3.55	9	£0.39
Stagecoach	Aberdare	Bridgend	£7.00	24.9	£0.28
Stagecoach	Mountain Ash	Pontypridd	£2.10	7.8	£0.27
Stagecoach	Merthyr Tydfil	Cardiff	£4.90	25.1	£0.20
Newport Bus	Newport	Cardiff	£2.00	16.3	£0.12

First Cymru don't come out of this all that well. Their single fares appear to cost more for the distance served than other operators. In the 2011 Welsh Bus Passenger Survey their fares were considered to be the least value for money. A single from Bridgend town centre to the nearby shopping outlet costs £2.25 for a journey of less than 2 miles, which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Maybe it's no surprise that a number of services have seen reductions in frequency from Bridgend, given that passengers are expected to come up with such high fares. Recently, First Cymru have said they aim to reduce the average of their fleet to 8 years old, which by my reckoning would involve replacing around 20% of their oldest buses with brand new. Lots of work to do there then.

An interesting stat is that it costs over £2 more to get from Aberdare to Bridgend (the single is actually £7.10 but a £7 explorer does the job) than it does to get from Merthyr to Cardiff, despite it being a slightly shorter journey. Competition is clearly the key here. Take a single from Mountain Ash to Pontypridd. There are half hourly trains available at £2.40. Then take a single from Aberdare to Maerdy which costs over 2½ times per mile the cost of the Mountain Ash - Ponty ticket. Is there any competition? No, of course not. Similarly, there's no competition between Tonyrefail and Bridgend, hence the high cost of that ticket. If Stagecoach applied their miles per £ rate for the Mountain Ash - Pontypridd ticket, a single would cost £5.10. Would anyone bother? I doubt it. More worrying is that if the same route was priced at First's Bridgend - McArthurGlen ticket, a single between Mount and Ponty would be a whopping £9.75!!

There are clearly many discrepancies in ticket prices and it would appear that operators are happy to charge what they like on routes where they have no competition. Maybe it's those routes that funds the cheaper routes where there is competition.

One about the Network Rider

In case you didn't know, South East Wales has it's own multi-operator ticket. It's called the Network Rider (or Network Dayrider with Cardiff Bus). Sadly, the mere fact that it doesn't have a universal name gives an indication as to its acceptance and availability.
 
In West Yorkshire, there is a MetroDay ticket, costing some £2.50 less than the South Wales equivalent. Not only is it cheaper, but it is universally accepted by all operators in the region (the asterisk merely says tickets for use on special event services). Weekly metrocards are available and, again unlike the Network Rider, monthly, quarterly and annual versions can be bought too.

Back to the Network Rider. Day tickets are accepted and issued by Edwards and Newport Bus, but not weekly tickets. Neither tickets are issued or accepted by First Cymru, Harris Coaches and Thomas of Rhondda. In other words, it's a bit of a hotchpotch of a ticket. Being a part of the scheme is entirely optional, which might explain this. 

In my opinion, it's time that the ticket was made compulsory for all operators in South Wales - those who refuse are not allowed to operate. They can sort out revenue distribution amongst themselves. It's also time that such tickets were available as monthly, quarterly etc. Sadly, the Welsh Assembly, SEWTA et al don't seem to have a joined up way of thinking about how to provide public transport effectively enough.
They should closely monitor the likes of the wymetro and see how others do it more effectively and cheaply.

How much longer for the Greyhound?

Today it was announced that First are pulling the plug on yet another Greyhound route, meaning the only one that will be left running will be the Swansea-Cardiff service. It's another withdrawal in First's bus operation, one that may not be all that surprising given First's history.

So what for the Greyhound in South Wales? Apparently it's set to continue for one solitary route. Are First missing a trick with this, though? I think they are.

Go back a couple of years and the current Greyhound service was run as the Shuttle 100 service. On rebranding, the number of services was cut slightly and halved on Sundays. The original 100 service was reasonably well used and, from the few times I've used the service over the last few years, I can't say I've noticed much difference in patronage due to the rebranding. There are a handful of cheap tickets available on line but I find that those who book online are in the significant minority.

The big question for me is why is it run as a coach service? The journey is under 45 miles long. Shorter than Stagecoach's services from Cardiff to Abergavenny, Brecon, Newtown and Hereford. Why First decide then to operate it as a coach service and detach itself from its bus operation to a large extent is a bit of a mystery. True, passengers in Swansea can buy a peak return ticket for the Greyhound on a local bus and get their local travel free, but the same doesn't apply to passengers in Bridgend. Neither areas offer free local bus travel for the cost of an off peak return. Weekly and longer season tickets are available for the Greyhound, but at £6 extra a week or £20 a month, the Greyhound makes regular travel more expensive. In fact, from Bridgend, it's more expensive than using the train.

What would I do? I'd operate it as a bus service, using quality vehicles (ie not like most of First Cymru's aged fleet). Buses would be low floor and of a similar standard to the ones they use on the X2 or preferably the ones Stagecoach use on their X4. It wouldn't be a "special route" - First day and weekly tickets could be used on it. Free bus pass holders wouldn't be charged. That would open the route up to a whole new market. Bridgend in particular suffers with a lack of direct services to Cardiff compared with the likes of Pontypridd and Merthyr, yet people in Bridgend are expected to pay an additional premium for such a service, which I find ridiculous. Such a move I reckon would make it compete with the train and would make the service a viable option for many, where it isn't at present. First won't admit as such, of course....

One about scheduling and punctuality

Punctuality is important. Passengers prefer buses turning up when they are timetabled. The Traffic Commissioner takes a dim view of poor punctuality and can fine and restrict operations because of poor punctuality. However, it sometimes appears that bus operators regard punctuality as something they are forced to keep to avoid fines etc.

How do operators measure punctuality? One major operator in South Wales has inspectors at bus stations at random times recording the time its services leave. How accurate a picture does this present? Not very, if truth be told. Take, for example, a service that arrives at a bus station 12 minutes late. It then has 10 minutes layover (the time between its scheduled arrival and next departure), picks up a couple of passengers, then leaves 3 minutes late. Buses are classed as being on time if they are up to a minute early or up to 5 minutes late, so this bus would be classed as being on time, even though it was late arriving with the potential for passengers to have missed a connection as a result. Fiddling with stats? Of course.

The problem is, though, that more buses on a route = more expenditure for the operator. PVR (Peak Vehicle Requirement) is a common phrase in the industry which gives the highest number of vehicles a route needs to operate at its busiest time.

Take a service that goes from A to B in 50 minutes, has 10 minutes layover, then takes 50 minutes to get back to A, then has another 10 minutes layover. It takes 2 hours from leaving A to leaving A again. Suppose that service operates every 15 minutes, it would need 8 buses to operate it (4 per hour for 2 hours). Then shave 5 minutes driving time each way from the route and 5 minutes from the overall layover, and instead of a bus needing 2 hours, it then only needs 1 hour 45 minutes. At every 15 minutes, that means needing only 7 buses to operate it, saving a vehicle and fuel, and the expense of a driver - in other words, lower operating costs. This in turn can make help keep fares lower (I'd like to think so in any case). The comprimise may be that some services have such tight schedules to save money that they have trouble remaining punctual and are constantly rushing around to try and keep time.

On the other side of the coin, buses that spend time waiting at stops due to early running, or at stations are not productive. Buses on the road picking up fares are productive. Passengers tend not to like waiting on vehicles that are making up time (when drivers bother that is).

Clearly scheduling is a difficult thing to get right. Giving too much time to a route equals more cost to the operator, resulting in higher fares and less profits, whereas too little time may keep fares down but results in much passenger frustration. For me, the balance should swing towards passenger satisfaction and increased punctuality, but I dare say bus operators look at the other side of the swingometer and profit is the most important thing. Thankfully, the likes of the traffic commissioner, even Wales' newly appointed bus monitors, can punish operators who run services that are not punctual enough.

Fining operators who have punctuality problems hardly addresses the issue, though. Who ultimately pays for the fines? Passengers.......

One About Fares - Availability of Information

Fares. One of the most talked and complained about aspects of bus travel. Like anything that requires money to be handed over, there'll always be an opinion as to whether something represents good value or not. There are many aspects regarding fares, so I'll make a number of posts on this and look at different angles as I see them.

For this one, I've chosen to look at the availability of fare information. Both Cardiff and Newport bus operate exact fare policies and have a very simple pricing structure. As an example, this demonstrates Cardiff Bus' all day ticket options:

Neither operator gives change on board, but fare information is easily available at most stops and can be seen on the outside of most of their vehicles. The result is that the vast majority of passengers know how much their journey will cost and will have the correct money to pay their fare, resulting in quicker loading times (than drivers having to give change).
 
The other operators in South Wales sell single and return tickets from A to B, plus a variety of all-day, weekly, monthly and longer tickets which generally allow unlimited travel on their services, dependant on ticket type and area of validity. Information for these all-day, weekly etc tickets are readily available from operators' websites, Stagecoach in particular have an excellent 'Tickets To Go' booklet, which is sometimes available on board and can be downloaded from their website, and lists all of their daily and weekly fares, together with local area maps.

However, neither of them offer any information about the costs of their single and return tickets. This is disappointing in a number of ways. Supermarket prices are available on their websites if you log into their home delivery sections. Train fares are readily available. In fact, I think I can look up the cost of most things online, bar single and return bus ticket prices (this will be looked into further in a later post).

A chance visit to Stagecoach's Oxford website makes for interesting viewing - a pdf with fare charts for all of their routes, so passengers can find out exactly what their fare will cost (as seen below).

Surely this should be the norm for all operators, and all single and return fare information should be easily obtained?

The one about sausage and chips

Two ladies get on a bus, one with a wrapped polystyrene tray of food. A short while after getting on, she takes the paper off the tray and consumes the sausage and chips. Leaving no mess behind, eventually the two ladies get off the bus.

On arrival at the next bus station, an elderly woman approaches the driver to complain about the smell from the food, saying how it upset her as she's not a particularly good traveller, and asked what the company policy was on eating food on the bus. The driver informed her that they don't allow hot food to be eaten on board and would have dealt with the situation had he been aware of it.

This wasn't enough for the woman, though. She continued to complain. However, the passenger eating the sausage and chips was sitting on his side of the vehicle and was out of view. She was sitting half way along the bus and the driver couldn't smell the food. Nobody complained to the driver at the time. He would have been completely unaware of this. Despite the driver pointing this out, the lady was adamant that something should have been done.

How is a mystery. I'm not aware of clairvoyancy skills being part of Stagecoach's recruitment procedure. Still, the elderly lady wittered on at length and is planning to write a letter of complaint. If she felt that strongly, why not approach the driver at the time, or even the lady in question? The mind boggles....