Teflon Lettuce
Established Member
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2013
- Messages
- 1,750
My point about the changing of the 20's times has, all along, been that those times were changed AFTER arriva had taken the decision to close aberystwyth... after all I'm sure that they didn't change the timetable on 29th sept, decide to close the depot on 30th sept and then tell the unions on 1st oct.... that's a decision that they would have come to a long time ago... certainly before deciding to change the timesWell of course people are angry if they're losing their buses. That would be the case whoever the operator was.
I still cannot find any official reference to Arriva's Cardiff service being withdrawn rather than retimed and re-routed. However, if that really is the case, why would it preclude them from changing their mind later?
You have missed the point about whether the 701 was perceived by Arriva as a threat. I agree that it looks like Arriva were gearing up to compete and grab a bigger share of the market, by changing times and calling points to win back market share. What I was trying to get across was that if they were already preparing the shut the depot, as you suggest, they have effectively walked away from the contest already - why would they care about the 701 in that and what real benefit would they gain from its demise? I don't think either its continuation or collapse would keep anybody at Arriva HQ awake at night!
It's a little dramatic to refer to the Penrhyncoch example as "spiteful". If Arriva knew from previous experience that the route was close to profitable, they're entitled to try and run it commercially. In fact, didn't their short-lived route 5 actually run on a different route and offer some extra benefits to passengers over and above the 526? From memory it was diverted to serve Parc-y-Llyn retail park and was also extended past the town bus station to Penglais Campus. That would also give a less paranoid explanation of why it ran earlier: it was timed to match up with lectures and work shifts at the university, so would have to run 10 minutes earlier to ensure it could get people to both the town centre and up the hill to the campus for e.g. a 9am start.
I take the point about the connections at Aberaeron but if Richards Brothers sees no profit in carrying passengers north of Aberaeron for much of the day themselves, why is Arriva obliged to fill the gap in their network? In an ideal world, maybe they would be - but you can't blame them if they find the ability to retime the 40 service when they need to as more commercially valuable than picking up connecting passengers from another route.
I do sound like an Arriva apologist, but that's not really the case. What I'm trying to point out is that competition is legal and customers would be the ultimate decision-makers in any battle between the 10/20/40 and 701. Sure, it's messy and inefficient when two operators fight over one route, as evidenced by years of near-continuous bus route changes around Aberystwyth. But what alternative do you suggest in an unregulated market? A no-competition agreement or a cartel of operators dividing the network up as they see fit, perhaps? That'd be illegal and passengers would lose out as there would be no incentive to innovate, improve service or hold down fares.
as to no official notice of withdrawing service 20 I refer again to their own facebook page... july 3rd (you will have to open the comments for that date as it is archived)... I can't see how much more official it can be made than the company telling a customer that it WILL be withdrawing the service.... and certainly both ceredigion council and bus users uk were under the impression that they were withdrawing from the route... where else would they have got their information from than arriva itself?
certainly coach travel wales (now bryans coaches) have never fought over the route.... they spotted a timing that people wished to travel on that wasn't provided by arriva.... they kept the same timetable only ever increasing the number of days that it operated.
in contrast, since 701 went daily on 1st april last year arriva has changed its timetable for 10/20/40 on at least 9 occasions... on the last change before service 10 was totally withdrawn they retimed that service so that instead of running 2 hour behind the 701 from swansea on sundays it ran 10 minutes ahead of the 701.... now doesn't that sound like a familiar tactic looking at the new timetable for service 20!
as to the situation with richards bros, the idea of richards terminating in aberaeron and connecting with arriva's service seems to stem back to the earliest days of deregulation when crosville only registered the service aber- synod inn... richards won the connecting contract to cardigan....
on a wider picture regarding the recent changes not only do they seem designed to try and ruin other operator's services but also to inconvenience their own customers as much as possible by skewing the whole timetable by 15 mins.
eg buses from carmarthen have, for as long as I have lived in the area, left at between 15 and 20 past the hour... all of a sudden they now leave at 05
so anyone who finishes work at 5pm has always had a leisurely stroll to the bus stop to get their bus home... now they are faced with performing an olympic standard sprint or waiting over an hour for their bus home...
is that any way to run a bus service? I think not
Last edited: