Why aren't peak hour only bus routes and increased peak frequencies common in the UK?

[nw1]

As with most things in life, there isn't one single, simple answer, but from some old timetables, it must have been reasonably common for peak / spreadover buses to be able to do a works journey (or maybe even 2), a peak journey for '9 to 5' workers, then a school journey (and a similar afternoon combination although not always in the same order.)

Mind you wouldn't the 9-to-5 commuter and school journey have always clashed in the morning? A commuter journey would probably want to arrive in the city between around 0830 and 0900 - the same period the school journey would want to arrive at school. Or did many schools used to start after 9? Mine (in the 80s) always started at 0845, in the height of the commuter peak.

Many of the workplaces that warranted works buses aren't there any more, schools seem to have drifted to earlier starting hours so school pupils end up travelling round the same time as the '9 to 5' workers (and there are not so many of them now), and many school journeys are now that much longer in distance and time for a handful of reasons, so can take up the whole morning peak for one bus.

A bus that can carry 2 or 3 good loads twice a day, and has the works traffic maybe 48 weeks of the year (allowing for works holidays), is more viable than one that only gets one full load twice a day and then for 38 weeks of the year (allowing for school holidays.)

Works journeys certainly seem to be extinct though I remember noticing a lot of them on old Southampton city timetables from the late 70s and early 80s.

 

[WM Bus]

Birmingham has the FD Birmingham to Fort Dunlop peak hour only works service open to the public at peak times.
Also has extra X13's to Hams Hall and a 67A Birmingham to Amazon Peddimore and 71A diverting in at shift times.
The tendered X15 Birmingham to Sutton via Walmley and New Hall and 10 Birmingham to Quinton are peak only to.

Rugby seems to have a works service trips on the 1/2 that divert to serve Cosford Lane/Valley Drive.

 

[RT4038]

That's one reason. The other reason is that you simply don't want to have YOUR staff delayed or even excluded from getting on at the expense of someone else.

Before anyone suggests that they might be able to share costs etc, remember that these businesses (like Amazon or Vodafone) are multi-billion turnover enterprises. Saving a few hundred quid a day is just not important to them.

Also that each company can swap and change and cancel trips to cater for their staff shifts, and not have to consider anybody else's.

And don't talk about your staff using mainstream public buses, they are just too unreliable.

Rugby seems to have a works service trips on the 1/2 that divert to serve Cosford Lane/Valley Drive.

This is just a peak hour diversion from the main route - no extra vehicles/trips are run and the frequency is widened as a result.

 

[WM Bus]

This is just a peak hour diversion from the main route - no extra vehicles/trips are run and the frequency is widened as a result.

Yes but it probably makes more sense not having extra vehicles for an odd couple of trips a day. By diverting the normal service to serve in this case to an industrial estate for workers, Or in other cases a school for the students.

 

[Deerfold]

In Nottingham in the nineties, Nottingham City transport had around 30 works services to the Boots site from all over the Greater Nottingham area at the various shift times (not all routes served all shifts). Now they run the 49/A/X around every 20 minutes from the City centre with some duplicates at shift start/end times. I once caught two of them as they were well timed for me to do a cross-city journey changing at Boots instead of the City Centre. I hadn't realised there were security gates, but we went straight through them with no checks. I got off the bus, the driver rolled the blind round and I re-boarded the same bus.

Barton used to run half a dozen services, mostly variants of normal routes that served Beeston bus station but which then continued to the Boots site instead of going to Nottingham city centre. They usually had an extra digit in front of the usual route number.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Yes but it probably makes more sense not having extra vehicles for an odd couple of trips a day. By diverting the normal service to serve in this case to an industrial estate for workers, Or in other cases a school for the students.

I think that's the point that @RT4038 is making