Confusion Still Reigns Over Lune Valley Bus Times

 

"Catch it if you can!" a bus on the unpublicised service 583

Incredibly, over TWO MONTHS since new routes and timetables were introduced on services between Lancaster, Kirkby Lonsdale and Ingleton via the Lune Valley, the travelling public is still confused by the variety of information available on line over the new services.

Despite promises, no printed timetable leaflets have appeared either from the operator, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire or from Lancashire County Council, which supports the services financially.  You may think that this does not matter, as we are increasingly told that public transport information "is all online" these days. But just what is the position for someone trying to find out the time of their next bus this way?

Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire's website: does now have a "Craven Connection" timetable on its website, showing details of services 81 82 and 583 as well as the extension to Settle and Skipton by services 581 and 580. It did, however, take over a month to put it there.

Lancashire County Council's website has the 81 and 82 timetables on show, but they are a different version to that shown by the operator, with variations on Saturday mornings and schoolday afternoons;  The extensions to Settle and Skipton on the  581 timetable do not reflect changes made in April and a Sunday service is shown, which is not running this year 

There are no details of 583 (Kirkby Lonsdale to Bentham via Cowan Bridge and Ingleton) on the site and, believe it or not, service 582 between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale, which ceased in April is still shown on the site.

Service 82. Nice new bus, but when does it run?

Cumbria County Council's website

Cumbria is only marginally affected by these changes, with only a small section of route in Kirkby Lonsdale itself being within its area. The Council there is also very responsive to suggestions from the Bus Users' Group and following some prompting, the 81 and 82 timetables shown on its website agree with those posted by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire (but not with Lancashire County Council).

However, the 581 timetable does not reflect changes made in April,although at least the non-existent Sunday journeys aren't shown. Service 583 between Kirkby Lonsdale and Ingleton is also missing.

North Yorkshire County Council's website.

North Yorkshire County Council supports service 581 between Kirkby Lonsdale and Settle and also new service 583 between Kirkby Lonsdale and Bentham via Ingleton, which is a partial replacement for service 80 between Lancaster and Ingleton, withdrawn in April.

"t' 583?, Nowt to do wi' us!"

For service 581 the site has a version of the Craven Connection (Monday to Saturday only) timetable, showing only journeys that enter North Yorkshire, dated 17 May 2021, which is now out of date.  There is no mention of 583 at all on the site.  The Bus Users Group is surprised that an authority with a financial stake in the services concerned is apparently unable to publicise them via its website.

Third Party websites (Traveline, Bus Times, Google Maps etc)

The details of all these services shown on third-party websites and apps is drawn from the Traveline National Timetable Database and aligns exactly with that shown by Lancashire County Council. It is therefore incorrect for services 81 82 and 581 (including the non-existent Sunday journeys) and does not show 583. The BUG suspects that the Database has not been updated to reflect the changes made in April.

Roadside Information

 Not everyone has access to the internet and even those who may do so at home aren't necessarily able to access timetable information via their mobile devices, as anyone who has ever tried to read a timetable on a mobile phone screen will confirm.  Others, noting the variations in online information, may decide to just try their luck at the bus stop.

Bus Stops

In the areas administered by Lancashire and Cumbria County Councils, the display of roadside information is controlled by the councils rather than the bus operators.

BUG's timetable updating
team in action!

Lancashire County Council did manage to update the roadside displays in its area by Day One of the new services, but the displays contained its version of the timetable, rather than that of the bus operator. The Council has now changed the displays at Lancaster bus station (and possibly the other stops en-route) to come into line with Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire's timetable.  The stops that LCC maintains on the route of the 581 and 583 have not, however, been updated.

North Yorkshire CC has given up updating stops in the Ingleton and Bentham areas but has left the cases in situ for the Friends of Dales Bus to use.  These show the summer Sunday buses into the Yorkshire Dales from this side of the hills but also include the all year round buses to the villages concerned. The Bus Users' Group assists with this work in the Bentham area and we can confirm that, despite considerable difficulty in prising the necessary information out of officialdom, all the roadside displays on the Yorkshire section of the routes concerned were updated promptly.

Electronic Departure Board at Lancaster Bus Station

The board today: No sign of the 1235 to Kirkby Lonsdale.

This very useful feature of the bus station is maintained with data supplied by Stagecoach for its own services and Lancashire County Council for other operators' buses. Two months after the April changes it still shows no departures for services 81 and 82 but continues to show service 582 journeys.

Dales Bus

Buses that run infrequently and which are designed to cater for occasional, rather than regular, users are arguably most in need of promotion and up-to-date information, but Dales Bus services 830 (Preston to Richmond) and 881 (Lancaster to Malham) are missing from ALL the above-mentioned sources of information. Again, we suspect the Traveline Database has not been updated.

Fortunately the Dales Bus organisation produces excellent printed leaflets to promote them, which the Bus Users' Group helps to distribute; timetables can also be found on the Dales Bus website (and of course this website's Maps & Timetables page).

The BUG realises that local authority staff have been under tremendous pressure and increased workload this year due to the demands of the National Bus Strategy and the setting up of the Enhanced Partnerships that follow on from  it. Bus operators also have their own challenges at present. But the fact that OVER TWO MONTHS from a change to timetables on a significant transport corridor information is contradictory or simply missing is surely unacceptable.

"Bus Back Better", the government's National Bus Strategy, was supposed to make things better and to attract more passengers to the buses by making them easier to use.  It would seem to have a long way to go in this part of the world to do that.

The bus operator and county councils were approached and invited to reply prior to posting this article.

Jubilee Bank Holiday Takes Bus Operators by Surprise!

Someone at Stagecoach knew about the Jubilee then...

The public holidays granted for the celebration of the Queen's platinum jubilee on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June seem to have come as a surprise to our local bus companies, at least as far as timetable information is concerned.

We are constantly told that there is no need for old-fashioned paper timetables these days because "It's all Online". And yes, there is a lot of timetable information available over the internet and many people do use it as their first port of call for finding bus times, but anyone doing that yesterday or today (Friday) would be in for a shock. 

 As usual, a Sunday service is operating as it does on most public holidays, but what would anyone making an online enquiry for travel today find? 

 The Journey Planner on Stagecoach's website and on their app is showing times as if a normal Friday service was operating! 

Traveline, which draws its information from the same database, is unsurprisingly returning the same erroneous information. 

 Lancashire County Council's website doesn't have its own journey planner and links instead to Traveline (see above) 

 The increasingly useful site Bus Times website also relies on either bus operators or local authorities for its data, but is a little more circumspect. Like Traveline, it has been tricked by the incorrect data coming from the bus companies into showing today's times as they would be on a normal Friday, but it does at least realise that they might be wrong and has placed this notice on all its timnetable pages.

But a big shout out  to Google!  The bus stop departure information and the journey planner on Google Maps is, as far as we can see, the ONLY website showing correctly that a Sunday service is operating.  We know which JP we will be using in future!

And what of the passenger who just turns up at the bus station and looks at the information there?

Surely the electronic departure board that, unlike old fashioned paper leaflets, can be readily updated when things change, will be up-to-date and correct?  Well, judge for yourself. Here is the board at 10.45 this morning:

The only Stagecoach service shown is the 555 and that is showing normal Friday times. The other services are all operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire and NONE of them are running today. In fact, the 582 at 11.45, together with all the other 582s hasn't run since the end of March when the service was withdrawn. Conversely, two KLCH services that are running - the 81 and 82 to Kirkby Lonsdale are missing from the display.

The last time we looked at the figures, bus passengers were still at only 80% of the pre-pandemic levels and with all government emergency funding due to end in a few months time there is a desperate need for the industry to attract those missing passengers back.

Providing misleading advertising of the services on offer for two days is not the way to do it.