The stops at Skewen, Bridgend and Culverhouse Cross aren't as pointless as you think. For the service to be classified as a local bus service , and therefore be eligible for BSOG and to be able to accept concessionary passes, it has to stop at least once every 15 miles. The stop at Skewen has to be put in because, unlike the old 701, the T1C bypasses Swansea {except on Sunday}. Having said that though, when the 701 was originally introduced by Bryan's Coaches it originally called at Culverhouse Cross but because of the serious delays it was changed to call at Leckwith instead. Also I'm surprised that the MacArthur Glen stop isn't being used as it was always a fairly popular stop on the 701.
johntrawscymru Thanks for the info - was not aware of the 15 mile rule . Culverhouse Cross is still a nightmare and the constant delays will put people off
The reason for the wait at Carmarthen is to connect with the incoming T1S from Swansea and the outgoing T1 to Lampeter. The reason why the T1C comes in so early is because by departing Cardiff at 1645 it can guaruntee making the connection.. if it were to leave Cardiff 10 or 15 minutes later the traffic would be too unpredictable and the T1C would fail to make the connection more often than not.
johntrawscymru Just very frustrating for passengers and drivers alike in Carmarthen when T1C from Cardiff arrives 18.48, T1S from Swansea at 18.52 and T1 at 18.57. T1C and T1 then depart at 19.05. In my limited experience the T1C arrives early or on time and passengers have to amuse themselves for 20 minutes in Carmarthen bus station. Perhaps the answer would be to run the service through Lampeter and Swansea, skip Skewen and Culverhouse Cross and then there would be no need to wait in Carmarthen on the way back and no need for the T1S. It might be slightly longer, but there would be more passengers and would also save money on the T1S
The T1C timetable DOES show the connection with the T5. My guess is the reason why the T5 timetable doesn't is because there was such a large print run done they haven't used up all the old stock yet! As for Traveline, it's not exactly brilliant at showing connections, request stops or on demand services...in fact when the 701 was running if you went on Traveline and asked for "Aberystwyth" to "Cardiff" it would direct you onto the 701 to Swansea and change to 100/ Greyhound/ X10 to get to Cardiff... because the 701 was listed as going to St Mary's Street on it's database!
johntrawscymru The problem is that lots of people do not know of the existence of the T1C and do not know of the T5 connection. I have taken to telling people at bus stops of existence of the T1C. The publicity has been very poor when you consider that Ken Skates when he introduced the Free travel at weekends had TV coverage on the Welsh News Channel of the double deckers going along the T3 Wrexham to Barmouth route. The onboard screens in Trawscymru buses were introduced to keep people informed. For the last year they have been either switched off or just showing the Trawscymru logo. When the T1C was introduced in April the electronic screens on the T1/T2/T5 routes should have featured information on the service including the connections with the T5 and T1S and an apology for the passengers on the T2 from Dolgellau who cannot use the T1C because the T2 arrives in Aberystwyth at 9.30am at the same time as the T1C departs for Cardiff.
Didn't you realise that's the whole point of the exercise? The WAG had been trying to kill off the 701 for yrs and it was an embarrassment to them that it was such a success... proving that THEIR dogmatic ideas for long distance services in Wales are a nonsense. When Lewis's failed it took them 6 months to put a replacement bus service on as an "experiment" and only after a lot of campaigning by Elin Jones. Needless to say, a 5 hr ride on a bog standard bus wasn't exactly popular... so WAG said "see it failed". After lots more campaigning along the lines of "what do you expect.. it needs a coach" the latest incarnation was devised... they've put a coach on but so screwed up the route and timetable that it is no longer any use to man nor beast.... give it a year and I'm sure Ken Skates will come out of the woodwork and make all the right noises about how disappointed he is that the service is a failure and needs to be withdrawn!