Road Repairs Programmed on Services 5 and 2X

 

Service 2X approaching Combermere Road

Back in February we reported on the diversion of services 2X and 5 away from Heathfoot Avenue in Heysham due to the state of the road, which Stagecoach claimed was so bad that it was damaging their buses. These services were re-routed to run between Heysham Towers and Combermere Road direct via Heysham Road, leaving the stops at Middleton Road, Heathfoot Avenue and Peel Avenue unserved.

At the time, Stagecoach advised passengers who were inconvenienced to complain to their local county councillor. But many people don't know who their county councillor is or how to contact them, so we did so on their behalf.

It took a while, six weeks in fact, to get a response but it came with a promise that the matter would be taken up with the Council's Cabinet Member with Transport Responsibility.

This was followed a fortnight later by the news that the repair of the road had been included in highway works to be funded by something called the "Local Deterioration Fund", which is a sum of  £3 million for "small schemes" within the Highways Maintenance budget of £38 million.  

The expenditure was subject to approval by the Council cabinet, but this was passed at the meeting on 1st April (no, really!)

The work is budgeted to cost £119,160 (see above) and with £38 million to spend - and £3 million of that on "small schemes" - it isn't clear just when the county council will get around to Heathfoot Avenue, but the Bus Users' Group has expressed the hope that it will be soon to allow the buses to get back to their normal routes.

Lakes Link from the Park & Ride

 

Lancaster's Park & Ride facility at Junction 34 of the M6 will shortly be gaining a new bus service. From 17th April Stagecoach's seasonal fast motorway express service X8, which links Chorley and Preston with Windermere, Ambleside, Grasmere and Keswick, will have an additional stop at the Caton Road Park & Ride site.

Although the stop is thought to be primarily to comply with certain rules and regulations concerning Drivers' Hours and the use of tachographs, passengers will be able to board and alight there. This year the service will operate on Saturdays and Sundays until the end of October with the northbound journey departing at 10.30 and the return from the Lakes getting back at 18.01.

On Saturdays a connection will be available from Lancaster Bus Station on the Park & Ride bus service, which is expected to resume the previous week.

Even after allowing for the change of bus this will provide a faster journey to Windermere and beyond than even the fast M6 motorway journeys on the 555 service.

There is no Park & Ride connection on Sundays but the service then is even faster than the alternative, which is the "slow" all-stops 555 via the A6 and Burton-in-Kendal.

PLEASE NOTE that as this is an express service with limited stops, English National Concessionary Bus Passes (NoW Cards) are NOT VALID although a North West Explorer ticket can be purchased from the driver by passholders at the discounted rate  of  £8.50.

Stagecoach is not publicising the service yet but you can find our version of the timetable on this link

Timetable Glitch Mars Service 33 Takeover but Passengers on the 51 Set to Benefit

 Two Lancaster district local bus services are changing hands on Monday, 29th March following the award of new contracts by Lancashire County Council.

Service 33 at Branksome

Service 33, the Morecambe - Bare Circular, will now be operated by Stagecoach. The official terminus in Morecambe will be the Festival Market, rather than Morecambe bus station.  The two stops are only 140 metres apart and under the present operator most buses started from the market anyway as that is where most passengers board. The bus station will still be served after leaving the market.

Timetable error

Other than the change of terminus the timetable remains the same as before, but passengers seeking to check that on Stagecoach's website will be surprised to find that, at the time of writing, no Saturday service is shown. The omission is repeated on Traveline, Google Transit and Bus Times.org sites.

When no print version of a timetable is available, Stagecoach's website defaults to strange, auto-generated documents, which in the case of service 33 looks like this:

There is no "Saturday" table, although the following page does tell you what is operating on Christmas Eve! Note also the departures at 1440, 1520 and 1600 that apparently operate on limited dates that are "not known".  We can tell Stagecoach (and our readers) that those  trips run only on Saturday and school holidays, when the bus and driver aren't needed for a school run, but it would be better if it was obvious from the document itself.

Much of the content of the Stagecoach website is controlled at Group level; local staff don't have full say over what appears on it, but they are believed to be working to resolve the matter and the data quality issue that lies behind it.  Let's hope they get it sorted out in time for next Monday, but if they don't there is an accurate version of the 33 timetable on the BUG website here.  Service 33 timetable

   LATEST:  A different version has now appeared on the Stagecoach website. It includes the Saturday timetable and identifies the annotated journeys as running in "English school holidays only". Unfortunately it describes the terminus as "Morrisons", which is a different stop to "Festival Market" and is on the other side of the road! Luckily, the regulars will realise this is wrong, but new and potential passengers need to be wary.

Bay Rider Tickets Extended to Service 51

Service 51 at Silverdale

After a period of being run by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, service 51 Carnforth - Silverdale, reverts to Stagecoach operation. At the moment, a similarly strange auto-generated timetable is the only one available on the company's website but at least this is accurate: BUG's version is here. The big news on the 51 however, is that the Bay Dayrider and Megarider tickets are being extended beyond their current boundary at Warton to take in the entire route of the service. 

Lancashire County Council, which controls the fares on the 51, had made a £6.50 Day and £17 weekly ticket available, but these were only valid on the 51 service and couldn't be used for journeys beyond Carnforth. At £5 and £15.90 not only are the equivalent Stagecoach tickets cheaper, but they allow travel over a much wider area including Lancaster, Morecambe, Heysham, Overton, Halton and Galgate. Passengers from those areas can also use these tickets to visit Silverdale. Let's hope that Stagecoach brings its ticket validity map up to date before too long!

Whilst the BUG appreciates Lancashire's action in allowing Stagecoach tickets to be bought and used on this service (as well as on service 33) we feel that it shows again  the need for more integrated ticketing in the county, so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of network tickets irrespective of which bus company happens to run their local route.  Perhaps the new National Bus Strategy for England, with its emphasis on Partnership working will finally bring this about?

National Bus Strategy sets out major changes in how buses are organised.

 

The government has finally released its long-awaited National Bus Strategy for England, which now goes under the snappier title of "Bus Back Better". Although the bulk of it would have been written before the onset of Covid-19 it has clearly been revised to take account of the effects on the pandemic on the present position and future of the bus industry.

The media have focused on items such as the promised 4,000 new zero-emission buses and the "hundreds of miles" of new bus lanes, but whilst these are important the Strategy also announces a complete overhaul in the way England's buses (outside London) are organised and regulated.

End of the Commercial Model

The government's announcement includes the statement that: "the fragmented, fully commercialised market, which has operated outside London since 1986 will end."  This system, introduced incidentally by a previous Conservative administration, is now admitted to have the following problems:

• Services are less frequent than they should be, especially in rural areas
• Evening and Sunday buses have disappeared from many routes
• Fares are too high and tickets bought from one bus company can't be used on another company's buses, even on the same route.
• Bus companies act independently and compete with each other rather than co-operating where this would be in the public interest.
• Bus services are too complicated and information is fragmented and too difficult to come by to attract new passengers.

In fairness to bus companies many of these problems have been caused by legislation, especially the Competition Act of 1998, which made things like joint timetables and ticket acceptance legally difficult for them to implement.  The new system will, however, see an end to on-the-road competition and usher in a new era of co-operation, bringing England into line with just about everywhere else in the world!

Enter Partnerships

The government now wants to see bus operators enter into "Enhanced Partnerships" with local councils to bring about the changes it wants to see. Enhanced Partnerships were set up under the Bus Services Act 2017. Operators and councils get together to develop plans to improve bus services with each side committing to measures such as improved frequencies, better buses, bus priority schemes and better publicity.

Perhaps because they require  legally-enforceable commitments, the take-up of Partnership schemes has been low so far, but crucially the emergency funding known as Covid Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG) under which bus operators receive £1 per kilometre operated to compensate for the huge fall in ridership currently experienced, will only be paid if such Partnerships are in place. Any future government funding will also be dependent on partnership working.

What will change?

"Turn up and go: Buses so frequent you won't need a timetable!

The Strategy aims to replicate the benefits that have been seen in London, where de-regulation and competition never applied. It wants to see:

• Turn up and go" services on main urban routes, on which buses will be so frequent that passengers won't need to consult a timetable
• Better frequencies on quieter and rural routes
• Improved evening and Sunday buses, perhaps by the use of Demand-Responsive services.
• More bus lanes and bus priority schemes
• Lower fares, with simple flat fares in urban areas and price caps which limit the cost of travel over a day or a week however many journeys are made.
• Multi-operator ticketing whereby tickets bought from one bus company are accepted on another company's buses in the same area.
• Bus stops should be improved to make them more attractive to potential passengers and there is an expectation that bus stations should be protected from closure and redevelopment.
• Better publicity with operators obliged to include other operators' journeys in their timetables and all passengers to have access to maps that show all bus routes in a particular area.
• Most improvements in publicity will be delivered digitally via websites and apps although it is recognised that there is still a place for "hard copy" paper-based information. (Stagecoach please note!)
• A review of accessibility regulations for buses that will look at the potential for increasing the amount of space for wheelchairs and will clarify the legal position on use of the wheelchair space by passengers.

Bus Passes

The Strategy re-states the government's commitment to the Concessionary Bus Pass, which will continue unchanged except that it might include a digital option with passes stored on holders' smartphones. Eligibility for Disabled Person's passes will be reviewed to ensure that it "ensures equality of opportunity".

When will this happen?

The timescale is tight.

Local authorities, such as Lancashire County Council will be expected to start work on preparing the Partnership schemes straight away and have to commit to the process by the end of June. 

From 1st July 2021, Covid Bus Service Support Grant will only be paid to bus companies in areas where the process of developing partnerships has started.

By October 2021 all local authorities will be expected to have produced a Bus Service Improvement Plan and the Enhanced Partnership regime will come into force from April 2022

Will it be enough?

The total budget for the National Bus Strategy is £3 billion, spread over a number of years. In 2021/2 £300 million is allocated to enhancing bus services and a further £25 million will go to councils to meet the extra costs, primarily staff costs, of developing and administering the Partnerships.

What is not known is how much of this funding is coming Lancashire's way. However, some guidance might be obtained from the fact that in 2020/21 the county council received £750,000 from the government's "Better Deal for Bus Users" £30 million fund that was also intended to improve bus services.

 If, and it's a big if, the new fund is disbursed in the same way, the county council could be in line to receive as much as £7.5 million.  This would be enough to restore the cuts made since 2016 to rural, evening and Sunday services and to at least make a start on further improvements.

Although the need for emergency funding such as CBSSG will reduce over time as patronage recovers "after Covid", any funding for further improvements will be needed for much longer and will require a long-term commitment from this and perhaps future governments if the initial investment is not to be wasted.

The Guidance on implementing Enhanced Partnerships requires the council to "involve" the public and representatives of passenger groups in the preparation of the Bus Improvement Plans.  Lancashire knows where we are and we look forward to hearing from them!

You can read the whole document here.  Bus Back Better

Buses Return to Ocean Edge

 Buses are set to return to Ocean Edge Holiday Park in Heysham after an absence of many years. The introduction of the summer timetable for Lakes services by Stagecoach on 27th March, just in time for the easing of Coronavirus restrictions on travel, will see service 755 (Heysham - Morecambe - Kendal - Bowness) extended in Heysham to provide a service to and from the Holiday Park.

Two morning departures, at 0935 and 1035, will allow visitors at the Park the opportunity of a day out in the Lakes with a return journey leaving Bowness at 1755. Two lunchtime return journeys are suitable for passengers seeking a shorter visit or perhaps a morning in Morecambe or Kendal.

The revised timetable is also suitable for local trips with new afternoon journeys allowing time in Morecambe or, by connection, Lancaster.  Day Rider and Explorer tickets will be valid and English Concessionary Bus Passes will be valid on all journeys.

In another change, the  extra weekend and school holiday morning journey from Morecambe Battery to Kendal is extended to start at Combermere Road. The journey will run up to twelve minutes earlier than now, although with extra running time being added it arrives at Kendal just three minutes earlier at 0934. However, this does improve the connection with the service 555 on to Keswick, which leaves at 0940. Unfortunately, the earlier departure means that there is no longer a connection on Sunday mornings into this bus from Lancaster at Euston Road, which was used by passengers wishing to make an earlier start to their Sundays in the Lakes than is allowed by the first through bus from Lancaster. This is especially important as the last southbound journey from the Lakes on a Sunday remains at the relatively early time of 1530 from Keswick and 1715 from Kendal.

Service 555

On the 555 itself the new timetable sees the re-introduction of the motorway journeys from Lancaster. As in previous summers these will run on all Saturdays as well as on Monday to Friday from the 28th June to the 1st October.  The summer timetable itself continues until 7th November.

The Bus Users' Group is pleased to see that Stagecoach continues to seek opportunities to develop new traffic and that the company has the confidence to operate a full service in the Lakes - and elsewhere - this summer. 

The new times can be read or downloaded from the following links

555 Lancaster - Keswick 

755 Ocean Edge - Bowness 

A full copy of the 2021 Lakes by Bus brochure is available here.

Buses Back to Normal from Monday

 

With the re-opening of schools throughout England on Monday, 8th March Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancs. will resume normal service on all routes with timetables reverting to those in force prior to 11th January.

City services 4 (University - Railway Station),  7 (Vale), 10 (Ridge) and 11 (Marsh) will return to a half-hourly service.  Services 40 and 41 (Preston) will each run hourly and service 100 returns to a 15-minute headway.

Services 6 and 755, which were suspended, also return to normal.

Special services to schools such as Lancaster Boys' and Girls' Grammar and Ripley St. Thomas will re-start and those all-day services that include journeys that provide for home-to-school travel will operate to a "Schooldays" timetable during term time.

However, as Lancaster University is still limiting face-to-face tuition services 1/1A and 4 will continue to operate to a "University Holidays" timetable until further notice.

All current timetables are available on our Maps & Timetables page.

Sometimes it just takes a little nudge...

 Following the third national Coronavirus lockdown in January, bus services were once again adjusted to take account of reduced demand for travel. Stagecoach moved to "School and University Holidays" times on 11th January and two weeks later implemented far-reaching revisions with many Lancaster local services halved in frequency and some services being suspended altogether.

For the first lockdown - and the service cuts that followed - Lancashire County Council, which is responsible for bus stop displays throughout the county,  chose not to post the new times in its bus stop display cases, even those at Lancaster Bus Station, saying that this facility was "suspended" due to the pandemic. Updating of the cases resumed in July when a large number of new services started operating under contract to the council.

Back in March, 2020 Stagecoach responded by posting temporary timetable displays at the Bus Station, but all they could make available were low-quality internal timetables that .were not designed to be read by the public, who are now more used to departure lists of buses rather than full timetables. To make matters worse, the flimsy paper documents were suck to the outside of the display cases with sticky tape, all of which made it very hard for the public to find out when their bus might depart.

Passengers struggled to read the temporary displays

Enquiries by the Bus Users' Group established that there had been no communication between Stagecoach and the County Council as to how information might best be provided to passengers.

Same Again

Council-supported services were not affected by the service cuts and, just as in March 2020, the county council did not update its publicity displays following the two rounds of service changes in January, meaning that they continued to advertise many journeys that were no longer operating.

Initially Stagecoach reintroduced its low-quality printed timetables on the outside of the display cases in the bus station, although the stands used by city's busiest services, the 1/1A, 2X and 100 that link Heysham, Morecambe, Lancaster and the University, did not receive temporary displays and continued to show incorrect times.

Softly, Softly...

The Bus Users' Group prides itself on its good working relationships with bus operators and councils and also firmly believes that the best way to get a job done is to go directly to the people who actually do it.

So rather than make a song-and-dance about the lack of imagination and co-operation between the parties responsible for keeping the public informed, we had a quiet word with the staff actually in the bus station and asked that 

a) could all the affected stands have temporary timetables please;

b) could they perhaps find something a little easier for people to read and understand and

c) might it not be a bad idea to put the displays inside the cases!

It seems we were pushing at an open door. The only reason new displays for  the 1/1A, 100 etc hadn't been produced was that in the format used for other services the resulting displays were too big for the cases. Our approach had prompted those responsible to come up with a revised format, which was more like that used by the County Council and which easily fitted the cases. 

The only reason the temporary displays were on the outside of the cases was that no one at Stagecoach had the necessary bespoke Allen key to open them, but after we offered to lend them ours, a suitable key was found.

Easier to read displays produced at the bus station and placed inside the cases!

In an ideal world it shouldn't be up to the passengers to suggest that up to date information should be provided at bus stops, but we are grateful to the Stagecoach team at the bus station for responding so promptly and effectively to our "suggestion", which has been replicated at Common Garden Street

Now all we have to is find a way to get the rest of the District's stops done, although we do understand that the County Council is likely to re-start its operation on or around 12th April, when many movement restrictions are due to be removed and, hopefully, more people start travelling.