please empty your brain below
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Bus routes are a bit like libraries ...once they are gone/reduced it twice as difficult (if not impossible) to bring back as it would be to fight to keep them. Trouble is most people in 'power' don't realise what these 'services' mean to the people that use them. Still...at least we all in it together.
Working Class Hero | 21.06.16 - 7:34 a.m. | #
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This demonstrates the folly of having fares pitched too low and offering free travel to certain social groups - it means the bus routes are dependant on subsidy which when cut leaves the service vulnerable.
Elsewhere in the country there'd be no question of doubting the viability of extremely well used routes like the 142 or 107 and 292 as they'd be provided completely commercially by a bus company with good value realistic fares, if not rock bottom cheap fares. £1.50 from Watford to Edgware is simply not viable.
| 21.06.16 - 8:00 a.m. | #
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Buses.
East London.
Forever.
Buses.
East London.
Forever.
Buses.
East London.
Forever.
'Mary' | 21.06.16 - 8:15 a.m. | #
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To me this shows the folly of the system. Situations like this are in need of a more flexible system, one that perhaps works on partnerships with private operators.
Some might say have a fare system once over the boundary too but I would disagree. It would make collecting fares more complex and slow down boarding times. Besides of your bus is busy, then lower fares matter less as you carry more people. Other parts of the country could learn from London and it's fare policies. Manchester's bus boarding times are painful for example. Services could easily be faster with flat fares paid quickly.
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 21.06.16 - 8:40 a.m. | #
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Typical Essex CC, they did the same to the Central LIne some 30 years ago which saw the end of the Epping Ongar line shuttle. They are answerable to their local voters and perhaps they might have to rethink about their own tendering process which obliges them to provide essential services routes to isolated communities
Drew Jarman | 21.06.16 - 10:40 a.m. | #
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First, the major commercial operator at Colchester has a day pass covering the whole area from Tollgate to Wivenhoe for just £3.50, including peak hour travel, accepts m-tickets purchased on a mobile phone, and offers a one-year bus pass to University staff and students for an astonishing £160 per year. WiFi is being phased in on new vehicles.
London could learn from fare policies and innovations in other parts of the country.
Max Roberts | 21.06.16 - 10:40 a.m. | #
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In contrast, TfL is rapidly expanding well outside London with its rail services. It already reaches out to Brentwood and Shenfield in Essex, Cheshunt in Herts and before too long it will reach Sevenoaks in Kent, and of course the Bizzie Lizzie will reach Reading in Berkshire.
And with Southern in meltdown, who knows, we may not even have to wait until 2021 for its Metro services to turn orange.
Gerry | 21.06.16 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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The 167 consultation is the "trail blazer" before we see what happens to the other routes. It is worth bearing in mind that the contracts for the 167, 549 and 397 are all out for retender at present. I expect TfL will have specified a range of options for the bidders to price and depending on those prices it will decide if it can afford to maintain current service levels into Essex or whether there have to be cuts. The 20's contract has been extended to 2019 *but* TfL may well have negotiated something with the operator to reduce the cost or trim the service. Again we won't know what's happening until March next year. I certainly don't think the 167's reduction saves anything like the grant cut by Essex CC.
It is worth noting that all taxpayers in the country currently fund TfL's revenue and investment grants so it's not quite right to say people in Essex are not funding TfL's services. Everyone is. Once we're past 2018 then there will be no revenue grant so national taxpayers are off the hook in respect of TfL bus services.
I expect a similar approach of a "trail blazer" consultation on Herts CC cross boundary routes will be used to judge reaction and then a wider programme of reductions will follow.
The big problem is that commercial operations in bordering counties are often very low quality with Essex seeing high levels of volatility on routes around Harlow, Ongar, Epping, Debden and Waltham Abbey. The prospect of "innovation" from bus companies or partnerships with TfL is therefore zero.
PC | 21.06.16 - 12:52 p.m. | #
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PC - I know the answer is 'money' but you'd think Essex CC might look at the fiasco in Harlow and wonder whether the 'low cost' approach is really awfully sensible.
Ned | 21.06.16 - 1:20 p.m. | #
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There are indeed some places outside London which have a very good bus service and/or good value for money. There are many others which do not. The unique selling point about TfL bus services is their consistent standards. (Most of the rest of the country has no night buses whatever, for instance).
Malcolm | 21.06.16 - 1:38 p.m. | #
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You note the number of TfL routes that cross over into Surrey and are subsidized by SCC. (216, 465, 411, K3)
The adjacent areas of Surrey have almost no unsubsidised routes so it doesn't look as if there is any evidence that commercial operation is possible.
Mike D (in Surrey) | 21.06.16 - 2:23 p.m. | #
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It's been interesting to see, out here in Oxfordshire, what has happened after county council subsidies have progressively been withdrawn from routes. (The final subsidies are ending next month - and some very rural routes are completely getting the chop)
Fortunately we have (outside Oxford City) two main operators, both high quality, both subsidiaries of national companies (Go-Ahead & Stagecoach). For some routes, when losing subsidiees, they have attempted to make formerly part-subsidised services more attractive and commercially viable, by making them *more* frequent, or with longer operating hours. It's still too early to see how viable this approach might be in the long term,but in some cases it appears to work. Attempts have been made to interlink routes, to provide new through journeys as well. Surprisingly, some areas, even villages, have got a better service since subsidies ended.
(In other cases, shorter operating hours, eg for local town services, or ending Saturday or Sunday services has occurred, and other villages have entirely lost what bus services they had).
Oxfordshire is pretty exceptional, though - I think it has the highest levels of bus usage among the shire counties, and even has cross-country night buses running till 1am Monday-Thursday nights, or till 4am on Friday and Saturday nights. Certainly the starting point in Essex is a lot lower.
Dominic H | 21.06.16 - 4:34 p.m. | #
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@ Ned - I doubt ECC care very much about Harlow. It's been chaotic for years and the instability has meant it's far too high risk for a better quality competitor to come in and give Arriva a run for their money. It's almost impossible to put money into new services when the main competition is "dustbins on wheels" driven by low paid, demotivated staff. You could always be undercut so why would you bother spending hard earned money to try to build a commercially attractive service? I'm amazed Arriva / TGM / whatever they're called this week have hung on to be honest. I suspect Harlow probably was "good bus territory" at some point but decades of neglect and fiddling has meant people drive so buses are probably a lost cause for most locals. You really need something like Ensign's operation in Thurrock to be replicated in Harlow and I expect you could probably rebuild things but it would be a long slog and you'd need stability and no bargain basement competitors to do it.
@ Dom H - I'd argue Oxford's unique nature in terms of the student population, cultural offer, retail offer and tourist potential is what can help sustain better quality buses than many other places. As you say both major operators are also reasonably innovative (up to a point) which means they are more likely to want to keep things going than leave them to rot.
PC | 21.06.16 - 5:55 p.m. | #
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Whats forgotten in all this is the boundary changes, at one time Country Buses had natural destinations in Croydon, Sutton, Enfield, Kingston, Bexleyheath, Bromley - once all these went into London these were lost.
They then had to try to maintain a service operating in the Green Belt, not too surprisingly services started to fail, if all of London had been deregulated, then the political funding borders would have gone, and a more natural bus network could have been created.
Oddly the Overground is bringing TfL back into its old London Transport/Country Bus areas, financially it will cost too much to have a Transport for the Home Counties, to restore an integrated bus network that way.
| 21.06.16 - 6:42 p.m. | #
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What colour is the sky in your world ?
Plenty of Surrey and TfL outboundary buses with destinations in Kingston.
(as mentioned above, (216, 465, 411, K3))
Of course, Surrey County Council still has its HQ in Kingston so it's not a far away place of which they know nothing.
Mike D (in Surrey) | 22.06.16 - 4:38 p.m. | #
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I think this is marvellous. Londoners getting the same level of bus service that their hero Nicholas Ridley imposed on the rest of us 30 years ago.
Chris P | 22.06.16 - 10:50 p.m. | #
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@Max Roberts
The day ticket was £3.50 probably 4 years ago. In 2014, as far as I remember it was already £3.70.
I've actually lived in Colchester for over 4 years, and I can say that the bus services in the town have been an absolute nightmare--never on time, very slow, infrequent, inconvenient, stuck in congestion etc. I'm all the way for the TfL model.
John | 23.06.16 - 4:47 a.m. | #
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The 167 is being cut back to Loughton in March 2017. The number of vehicles needed to run the service will be cut from 9 to 7, and there's your savings.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.10.16 - 9:19 a.m. | #
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More of this kind of thing:
TfL are proposing to cut back the 298 within Potters Bar after Herts council reduced funding.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/298/consult_view
diamond geezer | Homepage | 07.11.16 - 6:33 p.m. | #
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