Under-19 DayRider Ticket Validity Altered in Bid to Combat Anti-Social Behaviour

 

With immediate effect, Stagecoach's popular Under-19s DayRider will not be valid after 19.00hrs on services 1/1A, 2X, 6A, 40 and 100 between Lancaster Bus Station and Morecambe/Heysham. The tickets remains valid at all times on other services as well as between the Bus Station and Lancaster University on services 1A and 100.

Managing Director, Rob Jones, told the Bus Users' Group:  

"Sadly we have been seeing large groups of youths travelling on our services in that area, causing a nuisance and have needed to have police assistance on a number of occasions.  The flexibility of our DayRider meant they could spend all evening just travelling around and causing mischief, leading to some very difficult and stressful situations for our drivers. Lancashire Police  are aware of this restriction too. 

The change, which Mr. Jones said had been made reluctantly, is for a temporary period and will be reviewed in four weeks time.

In order to ensure that young people making genuine journeys are not out-of-pocket a special Under-19 return fare, priced at £2.60 - the same as a DayRider - has been made available to purchase on the sections of route concerned and can be bought at any time of day, so that someone needing to be in Lancaster between, say, 12.00hrs and 20.00hrs can still travel for £2.60 even though the DayRider is not valid after 19.00.

The Bay Area Under-19 DayRider gives unlimited travel (with the above exception) in an area stretching from Silverdale to Galgate (Hampson Green) and Overton to Denny Beck.  The Under-19 Lancashire Day Rider, which covers a wider area at a higher fare is not affected.

Stagecoach Cease Using Sainsbury's Bus Stop

The North Road stop

 From Sunday, 3rd October Stagecoach buses will   no longer observe the southbound bus stop   outside the old Gillow's building on North Road.   The stop, which has had various names over the   last few years is currently known as "opposite   Sainsburys" and traditionally was used mainly   by   passengers alighting from buses heading to   the   city centre from the west and north.

 However, the growth of student accommodation   has led to large numbers of passengers boarding   buses there, particularly those heading for the   University in the morning peak hour. Although   few passengers pay cash, the boarding process   is   still prolonged by the need for all prepaid   tickets   to be scanned and read by the ticket   machine,   leading to delays to the buses and to   traffic that   is stuck behind the loading   bus.   Stagecoach also says that by not observing the stop, buses will be able to remain in the outside lane on North Road and therefore access the bus station more easily.

Buses operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire on services 8 (St Chads), 582 (Skipton) and L1 (Park & Ride) will continue to use the stop, which is not being removed.

Whilst the Bus Users' Group would normally be opposed in principle to the removal of a much-used bus stop we do recognize the problems caused both to car drivers and to bus passengers heading for the bus station who are being delayed by the use of this stop. Loading the University-bound passengers at the bus station, which is only 280 metres away via the pedestrian crossing on North Road and where the buses are allowed time in the schedule to load and unload, does not appear too unreasonable. Passengers who currently alight here to visit the Sainsbury's supermarket on the other side of the road will find that the bus station is a mere 60 or so metres farther away.

We will, however, keep an eye on the situation and if other difficulties become apparent we will take them up with the powers-that-be.

 

Bus Service Improvement Plan - First details emerge

 

First details have emerged of Lancashire's Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), which is required to be published by the end of October under the government's National Bus Strategy for England, "Bus Back Better".

In a letter to District Council Leaders, the County Council's Executive Director of Growth, Environment and Transport, Stephen Young, has set out the basis of the Plan.

Base Line Data

The first part of the plan will contain information on the present-day bus service in Lancashire.

It will:

• Explain the current local situation. 
• Provide information about passenger numbers, average fares, bus speeds, road congestion and other factors affecting public transport operations. 
• Detail information about local operators and how services are designed with local people in mind. 
• State how much funding does the LTA currently use to support services and what are the main barriers to bus usage and growth in the area?

 This starting point data will be used to measure the success of the future Enhanced Partnership of bus operators and the county council in delivering improvements.

Implementing the National Bus Strategy

The Plan will then show how the key goals of the National Bus Strategy will be implemented in Lancashire. These include

• More frequent bus services with better provision in evenings and weekends. They should be faster and more reliable, cheaper and easier to understand. There should be better integration with other modes and innovation.
• There must be significant increases in bus priority, which means protected bus lanes and bus gates. 
• Bus stations should be protected from closure and redevelopment, be improved and well maintained and there should be staff available for customer care and information.
• The local bus network should be presented as a single network with clear passenger information. There should be a strong network identity, bus stops should show accurate information, with real time where relevant, and timetable changes minimised.
• Buses should also be accessible for all, so stopping facilities need to be upgraded and be Equalities Act compliant. There will be options to bid for the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas Scheme with partners, to deliver more modern buses and decarbonisation.

It is intended that BSIP's will give passengers more of a voice so there is a requirement for a Passenger Charter, for the Enhanced Partnership, giving users rights to certain standards and mechanism for redress at a local level .

 

It is intended that BSIP's will require regular updates, as a living document, at least every 12 months.

Detailed discussions

The Bus Users' Group has also heard from Andrew Varley, the County Council's Public Transport Manager, that discussions between bus operators and the council are focussing on the following key themes:

• Multi-operator ticketing.  Making it possible for passengers to buy one ticket that will be valid on all buses for the journeys they wish to make, irrespective of operator, has been a long-time ambition of the county council and the National Bus Strategy will make this much easier to achieve.
• A standard offer for Under 19s.  Most bus operators in the county offer discounted travel to young people and children, but terms and conditions vary. Under the BSIP it is hoped that a standard product can be offered to these passengers.
• Bus Priority Schemes and removal of "pinch points" , where buses suffer delay as part of the development of a key interurban route network throughout the county.
• Evening and weekend services to be strengthened where appropriate.
• Information and publicity improvements for bus services including both traditional paper timetables and electronic and real-time information services.
• Seeing how Community Transport fits into the BSIP and whether demand-responsive transport services can fulfill a need.

Not all plain sailing?

Whilst what is being proposed aligns quite strongly with the Bus Users' Group's own Lancaster Bus Service Improvement Plan submitted to the council in May (read it here)  we would still like to see more detail, particularly on how bus stations, such as Lancaster's, can be improved and how the issue of a "common network identity" is being explored.

There may be other problems ahead.  Andrew Varley points out that implementation of the Plan will be subject to the amount of funding the Enhanced Partnership will receive from the government and that so far there has been no announcement on this or even on how it will be calculated.

Then, with bus patronage in the county still only slowly recovering from the drastic falls due to Covid-19 in the Spring of 2020 and the government's emergency Bus Service Recovery Grant due to end next April, there is a possibility that the replacement funding for the BSIP might have to be used, at least in part, to maintain the existing network rather than improve it.

Lastly, of course, is the shortage of bus drivers, which is already causing cancellations on a daily basis in Lancaster as well as throughout the country and if not solved could make it very difficult to increase frequencies or introduce new routes.

The BSIP is due to be published in October and will then form the basis of the work of Enhanced Partnership of bus operators and the county council which should see improvements delivered sometime after April 2022.

The County Council would also like to learn your views as to how services could be improved. If you would like to help please fill in this short online survey

National Express in talks over Stagecoach takeover

Long-distance coach operator, National Express, which also has significant local bus operations in the UK, has confirmed it is in talks over a possible takeover of Stagecoach. The takeover would value Stagecoach's business at £445m.  The combined group would be owned 75% by National Express and 25% by Stagecoach.

The news is being reported in detail on a number of business-focussed webpages, so rather than attempt to repeat it, here are a number of relevant links.

Financial Times: National Expess in talks to buy Stagecoach

The Guardian: National Express in talks to buy rival Stagecoach

London Evening Standard Stagecoach and National Express in merger talks

Daily Business: National Express in talks to acquire Stagecoach

All reports confirm that National Express would be the major partner in the combined group and most suggest that the motivation for the move is the fall out from the pandemic, which has seen both companies' share price halved and huge losses in passenger numbers over the last eighteen months.

Under takeover rules, National Express has until October 19th to confirm its bid.

School Bus Solution Found

 

The now withdrawn S24 school bus

The withdrawal of school bus service S24, between Marsh and Central Lancaster High School from the start of the new school term in September was set to cause problems for significant numbers of children who would have been faced with a two mile uphill walk to school.

The children's walk to school.

Following lobbying by parents, the county council proposed a solution that would have seen the children leaving home half-an-hour earlier and using two Stagecoach local services (services 10 and 11), which would have got them to school twenty minutes before the school gates opened. The only concession to the children's wellbeing was that Stagecoach agreed to amend the bus workings so that both services were operated by the same vehicle, allowing the children to remain on board, albeit with a nine-minute wait at the bus station. 

This "solution" was hailed as a "campaigning success" by the local MP who had also been lobbying the council. Parents whose children would have to leave home half-an-hour earlier and hang about in the streets outside the school gates for twenty minutes in all weathers felt otherwise and vowed to continue the fight.

The campaign continues...

Obvious Solution

To the Bus Users' Group the real solution was always obvious. The Stagecoach services both run half-hourly and catching the following buses would allow the children to leave home at more or less the same time they do now. The only drawback was that they would arrive at the school a minute or two after the official start of the school day.  Stagecoach made it clear that they were unable to alter the bus times without a major reorganisation of schedules, whilst we were told that altering the start time of the school day or making an exception for these particular children was a non-starter as the school would never agree.

Realpolitik wins the day

However, with the start of term rapidly approaching, a last-minute meeting between the Bus Users Group, the City Councillors leading the campaign and the school authorities reached agreement that the children could use the later buses even though they would technically arrive after the start time. This arrangement will run for a trial period of the first half-term during which Stagecoach will be asked if these two journeys could also be linked and worked by the same vehicle. In the longer run efforts will be made to persuade Stagecoach to alter the timetable so as to allow the children to arrive on time.  The children can now use the service 11 bus at 08.09 from the Marsh and change to service 10 in the bus station, which leaves at 08.28 and also picks up in Common Garden Street five minutes later.  A Young Person's Day Rider ticket at £2.60 will cover the full return journey and can also be used on all Lancaster buses for the rest of the day!

In the afternoon, when the return bus is due to leave only five minutes after the end of the school day the school agreed that a staff member would wait at the bus stop to ensure the bus did not depart without the children on board.

So, after much hard work, a genuine "campaign success" has been achieved by a well-organised local campaign. The Bus Users' Group is pleased to have been able to assist and would be happy to help again in any similar circumstances that may arise in future.

Road Closures Cause Major Diversion for Dales Bus

 Two unrelated sets of road works in Wyresdale and Bowland have caused a major upheaval to a Dales Bus summer Sunday bus service.

The locations of the road closures that will affect the 881 Dales Bus

No doubt when Lancashire County Council gave permission for the works, at Marshaw Tower and in Slaidburn village centre, they would have considered the effect on local road users, but did they realise the enormity of the effect they would have on the bus service.

In Slaidburn, the road isn't completely closed, but a width restriction of 6ft 6in (1.92m) has been imposed on Church Street to allow building work on the wall of what the council erroneously refers to as the "Hark and Hounds" (sic) public house. With even a slim-line Optare Solo bus measuring 2.35m and a standard version 2.5m this is effect a road closure as far as Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire is concerned.

Even if it were possible to get through the restricted section of road, the closure at Marshaw Tower, for repairs to a retaining wall still makes it impossible to follow the registered route.

Neither are these short-term measures. The closure at Marshaw runs until 26th September, whilst the restriction at Slaidburn runs until 18th October, which is when the Dales Bus 881 is due to finish for the winter.

Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire and Dales Bus have had no option but to re-route the service. It's not a trivial diversion either. Because of the nature of the road network in the Bowland area there are no suitable routes for buses anywhere nearby.  Instead the 881 will have to run on a completely different route along the northern boundary of the Forest of Bowland AONB through Bentham and Ingleton, missing out the Trough of Bowland road, which was one of its attractions to passengers, completely.

The following maps show the extent of the diversion.

Route until 8th August:

New route from 16th August:

Fortunately, the main function of the 881, which is to provide a link between Northern Rail trains at Settle and Malham Tarn and Village is unaffected, whilst for the rest of the summer there will be new direct links between Bentham, Ingleton and Malham.  Passengers looking forward to a scenic ride through the Trough of Bowland will, however, be disappointed, whilst the sizeable settlements of Dunsop Bridge and Slaidburn will be unreachable by bus.

The new 881 timetable can be seen here:  881 New Timetable

Bus Station Departure Board Problems Solved

 After a long-running campaign, during which we had almost given up hope, the ongoing problems with the information shown on Lancaster bus station's electronic departure board have now been solved.

The issues with the display concerned not the times and service numbers, which were accurate, but the destinations shown alongside them, which were often unhelpful and sometimes downright misleading.

Unhelpful 

In the former category were the local services to places such as Vale, Ridge and Marsh. Stagecoach considers these to be "circular" services that have no outer terminal. The computer system that powers the display board is set up to display the destination of each service, so as these services have only only one terminal - the Bus Station itself - that is where it considers they are going, and that is what it showed.

In the "unhelpful" category were the departures on service 7 (bottom left)
and services 11 and 18 (top and middle right)

Some destinations shown could be considered over-helpful. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind about where exactly in Preston the service 40 buses at 09.05 (top left, above) and 10.05 (middle right) were going!

Misleading

Other entries were positively misleading.  The screen above shows two departures on service 42, both at 10.10. One from stand 4 and one from stand 6. Both are apparently going to Garstang, although only one of them to "Bridge Street".  The reality, of course, is that there is only one service 42 departure at 10.10 - and it goes to Blackpool!

Another oddity concerns the 555.  As everyone knows, the 555 goes to Keswick as it has done for many years. The display board - or rather the system that drives it  - took a different view:

Three buses on the 555 to Keswick (at 14.15, 15.15 and 16.15)
apparently went to the mysteriously named "Bus Station (Ken)"
and the 42 shown as going to Garstang at 1346 really goes to Blackpool!

We first wrote about these problems in October 2016.  Much of the difficulty in getting things put right lay in our inability to pin down exactly who was responsible for what when it came to the display. The screen itself was funded by United Utilities as part-recompense for putting half the bus station out of action during extended civil engineering works to install a storm water holding tank underneath it. It replaced a previous system switched off by the County Council to save money.

Operation of the system was then taken on by Lancaster University's IT department, again with some funding from UU. The timetable data came from Stagecoach or Lancashire County Council via the Traveline National Dataset.

Many of the problems developed after Real Time or "Live Time" information was added to the display, although this was also after the United Utilities funding had run out, which seemed to herald a period of uncertainty, at least as far as the BUG was concerned, as to where responsibility for the content of the display actual rested.

But behind the scenes, work has been going on to improve matters, co-ordinated by BUG member Jon Sear and this work has finally borne fruit. Working with Stagecoach, a way has been found to resolve the problems with the circular services, which now go to recognisable destinations, rather than to the Bus Station. The issues with the 42 and the 555 have been resolved and most destinations shown on the screen now match what is shown on the front of the bus.

A recent screenshot of the display

Work is in hand to further improve the destination shown for the 555 so that "Keswick" can be shown in full, this being delayed apparently because, unlike all the other services, it is operated by Kendal depot.

The County Council will also need to correct the info for service 8 (not shown above and not a Stagecoach service) which still goes unhelpfully to "Lancaster City Centre, Bus Station" rather than St. Chad's via Ryelands.

The screen will never be perfect. The GPS system used to identify bus locations to provide the Live Time data isn't accurate enough to detect when a bus isn't on its designated stand, so passengers will still have to keep their eyes and ears open for the all-too-frequent last minute changes, but its all a big improvement on what was there before.

A few minutes spent in the bus station will show anyone just how many passengers make use of the screen and how much they value it so the Bus Users' Group would like to say a big thank you to everyone at the University and at Stagecoach for putting it right.