café
ABsite Transport Café ~ buses
buses
Experience
Travel by bus is
not always a pleasant experience, so it's nice to see the big bus
groups occasionally doing something right. Simplified networks and
better information have made bus travel easier, though sadly not more
reliable...
Catch me if you can
The bus is seen to suffer from an image
problem, but with a number of cities' buses full to bursting point with
car owning commuters (because they'd rather the bus driver took the
stress of driving in rather than themselves), it's debatable as to how
much that still holds true. Of course, the reality is that many of
these buses are indeed old, smelly and uncomfortable, but that's
changing too...
The ILT's Northern Regional Officer has been
working with Accrington College on an NVQ Level 3 for bus drivers
(Blazefield have their own equivalent already), and we are hoping to
offer this through WY TESA (see below)
(new bus article - spin off into new page...)
The face of yesterday
Buses have an image problem. It's about the
only thing you can say about a bus that most people will agree with.
While the vehicles are beginning to change, with venerable old and
highly polluting double deckers giving way to the likes of Wrightbus'
Eclipse range, whichever way you look at it, it's still a bus.
Workhorse or thoroughbred?
In 1998, the government White Paper "From
Workhorse to Thoroughbred"
cast the bus as a workhorse, slow, unattractive but with a particular
charm, and losing favour. It planned to transform it into a
thoroughbred - fast, sleek and attention grabbing. with hindsight it
was probably a bit far fetched in what it thought it could achieve, and
the major bus operators don't appear to have been totally behind it.
Catch me if you can
...
Any colour you like...
Like buses, but better
Transport authorities and operators have been
obsessed with making buses less like buses... London has seen new bendy
buses you can board by any door and cashless operation, and Bradford,
Crawley, Ipswich and Leeds have seen guided
buses, which partly run on
their own reserved track.
In partnership with South and West
Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executives, First has proposed a concept
called ftr, using a new articulated bus, seemingly inspired by the
Civis vehicle used in France. Civis is an articulated, optically guided
bus used in conjunction with boarding platforms, which looks and
behaves almost like a tram.
PlusBus - the bus is the train
One project aimed at making bus travel easier
is
PlusBus, which is developing
integrated transport around the country in the form of bus add ons to
rail tickets. It is championed by Giles Fearnley, Chairman of
Blazefield
Group, which owns Harrogate & District (Bus Operator of the Year
2003) and a former partner in rail group Prism, now owned by National
Express Group.
PlusBus aims to make bus travel more
accessible and in some cases cheaper for people travelling to a town or
city from elsewhere by train, enabling them to buy a combined ticket
with their bus fare already included, and providing information on the
bus network at the destination. However, it's not been working entirely
as hoped...
Often buying a PlusBus ticket is difficult -
station booking office staff often flatly deny they exist, or claim
it's easier to buy a bus ticket at the destination, and in nearly every
town or city I've tried to use PlusBus in, at least one bus driver has
told me I can't get on the bus with a train ticket. Clearly, while
information is available to the plublic at station displays, it's not
been getting through to those who sell and have to accept the tickets.
Sadly, I don't think this bodes well for PlusBus' future - it needs to
be better known and even recommended when people buy train tickets.
© A.Boodoo, 28-Aug-04,
r1.2. Please note that the contents of this site do not necessarily
reflect the views of transcience limited
