Bus operators are receiving financial help from government, including a £1 per kilometre "Covid Bus Service Support Grant" for running a reduced service during the Covid-19 pandemic. In return, the government expects them, amongst other things, to keep passengers informed of services available. Significant timetable changes were introduced on 23rd March, with further changes a week later and some "tidying-up" operations since. More changes can be expected as the "lockdown" conditions are gradually eased over the coming months.
Operators no longer need to give advance notice of changes to the Traffic Commissioners and local authorities. This allows them more flexibility to respond quickly to changes to the needs of key workers and other essential travellers. However, it also means that many of the established methods of communicating changes and new timetables to passengers may no longer work effectively and a study for the Department of Transport (DfT) has identified that 20% of passengers needing to travel had had difficulty in finding out details of the services they need. The DfT therefore asked the watchdog-body Transport Focus to come up with Official Guidance for bus operators on how to keep the public informed of changes. Lancaster Bus Users' Group has been checking to see how well our local operators and councils have been doing. The Guidance covers all aspects of information provision; we've checked them all out and this is what we've found:
Media and Social Media
Both our local operators use social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. Stagecoach's Facebook presence however is national rather than local and doesn't appear to be being used to convey local information. Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire used Facebook to announce new timetables in March and there have been no changes since. Stagecoach has an active Twitter account.
Websites
Despite a few minor glitches where Stagecoach had not updated some of its timetables for changes on 30 March, both our operators now have up-to-date timetable information online. Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire revamped and improved its website to correspond with the changes made in March.
Lancashire County Council's website has, unfortunately, not updated its online timetables to take account of changes since the initial round on 23rd March and is, therefore, erroneously showing services such as the 6 (Morecambe-Westgate), 41 (Morecambe-Preston) and 755 (Morecambe-Bowness) as operating despite these having been suspended.
Traveline etc.
The online timetable and journey planning services provided by Traveline, Google Transit and Bus Times all get their information electronically from bus operators and are all therefore dependent upon bus companies keeping them up to date. Both Stagecoach and Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire have been supplying up to date data and these sites are therefore all up-to-date.
Travel Centres
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| The Bus Station Travel Shop: Closed for the Duration |
There is only one "travel centre" in the District, the Travel Shop at Lancaster Bus Station, which is closed. Other places where timetable enquiries can be made in person, such as the Visitor Information Centres at Lancaster and Morecambe are also closed. The only source of person-to-person bus information therefore appears to be the bus driver, who may or may not have the information you need.
Bus Stops and Bus Stations
Bus service information at bus stops and bus stations is in the hands of Lancashire County Council and not bus operators. Timetable cases at bus stops still display the pre-23rd March times and no attempt appears to have been made to update them. We have asked the County Council what its intentions are as far as roadside information is concerned but have yet to receive a reply.
At Lancaster bus station the Wood Street side of the bus station has been closed in order to avoid the
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| At least an attempt has been made at the bus station. |
need to employ a banksman for safety purposes due to the stalled building works at the entrance. The County Council signs and displays that indicate which bus leaves from which stand are therefore wrong. Similarly, the timetable displays at each stand are currently incorrect and misleading. Local Stagecoach staff have made an attempt to advise passengers accordingly but don't appear to have been able to gain access to the interior of the cases and have therefore had to follow the rather amateurish approach of sellotaping sheets of paper over the top. The overhead electronic display, which normally informs passengers of which stand each service uses has been switched off, just when it is needed most! The BUG suspects that this is because the changes to stand numbers caused by the closure of half the bus station have not been fed into the system that rives the screen, but there may be other reasons.
It is very disappointing that at an important location such as the bus station such an ad hoc approach to providing information has had to be adopted, especially as the Travel Shop is closed and the inspectors' presence on the station reduced. We have suggested to Stagecoach and Lancashire County Council that they co-operate in improving the situation.
Real Time Information
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| Switched-off when most needed! |
The only stops locally that can display Real Time Information are at Lancaster Bus Station and Lancaster University. That at the bus station has been switched off (see above) although the underlying system is still operating and up-to-date (apart from stand numbers) and can be accessed from this website via the link on the right hand sidebar. The privately run Bus Times website can show real time information on its map pages (again there is a link from the sidebar) and continues to do so.
On Bus Information
In normal times Stagecoach and Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire have paper timetable leaflets available on the bus. Neither operator has produced any paper timetables since before 23rd March as far as we aware and given the closure of all the usual outlets there would not appear to be much point in doing so. Whilst we haven't made a special journey to check, for obvious reasons, the BUG assumes that no on-bus timetable information is currently available.
Stakeholder Networks
That's us!
Both Stagecoach and Kirkby Lonsdale have been forthcoming with information about changes to services and that has enabled the Group to ensure that the service information we provide on this website is up to date.
Our links to the operators' timetable pages are checked regularly and, unlike the operators or the county council we have been able to update our network maps (see above) to reflect the changes. Out of date information has been removed from our own display case at Lancaster Bus Station and replaced with a more general display.
So how have we all done?
Both our operators appear to be making a good effort to keep the public informed of the services available to them. We are not sure who is responsible for switching off the electronic display at the bus station and we would hope that the operators are pressing the County Council for some action on the roadside timetable displays but overall the approach has been good.
Shall we say?: Operators:Eight out of Ten (Gold Star)
Unfortunately, the County Council has not fared so well. The inclusion of out-of-date timetable information on its website is unforgivable when the operators themselves can get it right. Even more serious is the lack of action or even any apparent plan for updating the large number of roadside displays that continue to display extremely misleading information throughout the District and presumably the rest of the council's area. The 23rd March changes have been included on the website and we have seen at least one LCC notice confirming the suspension of Lancaster's Park and Ride
So let's say Council: Two out of Ten (See Teacher!).
As to the Bus Users' Group it would be inappropriate for us to mark our own work. We leave that for others to decide but please let us know if you spot anything on our website that is misleading or incorrect.
