Hulley's of Baslow

[Trainman40083]

I was thinking the same. They've actually cut a minute off the run to Clay Cross, in my experience that could have done with a bit adding. Overall it's 15 minutes less than Hulleys timings. They were tight, and no way Morton saves more than about 10 minutes.

Hulleys did have a lot of padding between Shirland and Alfreton, but needed it.

This has the feeling of trying to squeeze too much out of two buses. I wonder if it'll get as much criticism as Hulleys did for late running when trying the same thing...

Maybe they have started the service with just two buses just to get it started. Getting the drivers and the buses to operate it at such short notice was a feat in itself.

 

[daodao]

The timetable looks to be very tight as well, traffic often backs up on the approach to Alfreton.

The new timetable for service 55 is only actually exactly hourly during the middle of the day, with layover time at the termini increased by 5 minutes before 1000 and after 1500 making the frequency every 65-70 minutes then, presumably to allow for delays.

 

[Teapot42]

The new timetable for service 55 is only actually exactly hourly during the middle of the day, with layover time at the termini increased by 5 minutes before 1000 and after 1500 making the frequency every 65-70 minutes then, presumably to allow for delays.

I think they've also missed out a section in Stone room where the bus goes around a residential area rather than down the main road. From memory a lot of that was bungalows, so likely people who can't easily walk further to the next stop.

These buses that gradually get later through the day are a pain as it's hard to know connections etc as they can change.

 

[psmith2023]

Stagecoach has got the 84 on a every 75 mins looks it's a single bus same driver all day

 

[43055]

It appears to leave Morton without a bus service, looking at the link the rest of the route seems pretty much as it was between Chesterfield -Alfreton.

The timetable looks to be very tight aswell, traffic often backs up on the approach to Alfreton.

Notts and Derby typically run with 1 driver with the same vehicle all day so there is a chance of making up delays if they do occur through driver/vehicle swaps in the day.

 

[Trainman40083]

Notts and Derby typically run with 1 driver with the same vehicle all day so there is a chance of making up delays if they do occur through driver/vehicle swaps in the day.

Looking at Bustimes today, three different buses tracked, so I'd imagine the third would changeover and one of the other buses would come back to Derby with the driver.

 

[Teapot42]

Stagecoach has got the 84 on a every 75 mins looks it's a single bus same driver all day

When will they learn with these stupid odd frequencies? Impossible to remember and in that case so infrequent that you can't just set off and wait.

 

[Llandudno]

When will they learn with these stupid odd frequencies? Impossible to remember and in that case so infrequent that you can't just set off and wait.

Hopefully it’s a temporary fix until a wider network review and rescheduling can take place?

Otherwise many journeys will carry very few passengers if the bus runs immediately behind a 90 or 170 bus?

 

[Teapot42]

Hopefully it’s a temporary fix until a wider network review and rescheduling can take place?

Otherwise many journeys will carry very few passengers if the bus runs immediately behind a 90 or 170 bus?

That's what I'm thinking, based on moving 15 minutes each hour you are going to get clashes or near clashes quite often. If they'd served Hady with a minor change to the 80 then you could do Holymoorside to the Hospital in an hour, giving an even half hourly service up Chatsworth Road.

IMO they'd have been better either doing something with the 48 to give an hourly run, or altering the 38.

 

[Hyebone]

same driver all day

Stagecoach don’t do that

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

When will they learn with these stupid odd frequencies? Impossible to remember and in that case so infrequent that you can't just set off and wait.

Stagecoach don’t do that

Perhaps it’s a reflection that the timetable is set by the council (as it is being supported by them) and an hourly clockface headway can’t be achieved in the short term as it has to be tendered as a standalone and not interworked with anything else???

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Perhaps it’s a reflection that the timetable is set by the council (as it is being supported by them) and an hourly clockface headway can’t be achieved in the short term as it has to be tendered as a standalone and not interworked with anything else???

The council tender was for an hourly service roughly 7-7 with no breaks so if they are running at a lower frequency that would be an operator alternative, possibly Stagecoach felt the running times were unachievable and have persuaded DCC of this as they probably based the tender timetable on the Hulleys service.

 

[Teapot42]

The council tender was for an hourly service roughly 7-7 with no breaks so if they are running at a lower frequency that would be an operator alternative, possibly Stagecoach felt the running times were unachievable and have persuaded DCC of this as they probably based the tender timetable on the Hulleys service.

Hourly was never going to be possible, even the old 91 was every 45 minutes and you would really be pushing things to add the run to the hospital direct in the extra 15 minutes, never mind via Hady.

Even Hulleys times didn't allow the full route in an hour.

Daft thing is, I'm sure Stagecoach could interwork with the short hospital service to give something more sensible.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Hourly was never going to be possible, even the old 91 was every 45 minutes and you would really be pushing things to add the run to the hospital direct in the extra 15 minutes, never mind via Hady.

Even Hulleys times didn't allow the full route in an hour.

Daft thing is, I'm sure Stagecoach could interwork with the short hospital service to give something more sensible.

The DCC tender didn't follow the Hulleys route, omitting the station for instance, and was a little tight on the cycle on paper so not saying Stagecoach are wrong to propose longer running times (the Holymoorside timings were slightly shaved whilst the Hospital side were fairly similar allowing for the different route in Chesterfield Town Centre so probably would have ended up where Stagecoach went straight to regardless of who won).

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The council tender was for an hourly service roughly 7-7 with no breaks so if they are running at a lower frequency that would be an operator alternative, possibly Stagecoach felt the running times were unachievable and have persuaded DCC of this as they probably based the tender timetable on the Hulleys service.

Thanks for the details. People do need to remember that this is being done "at pace" even if they had been drawing up contingencies in the weeks leading up to Hulley's failure.

 

[Teapot42]

The DCC tender didn't follow the Hulleys route, omitting the station for instance, and was a little tight on the cycle on paper so not saying Stagecoach are wrong to propose longer running times (the Holymoorside timings were slightly shaved whilst the Hospital side were fairly similar allowing for the different route in Chesterfield Town Centre so probably would have ended up where Stagecoach went straight to regardless of who won).

That's my point really. Even Hulleys wouldn't offer the route hourly and they were known for cutting timetables to fine. If you run via Piccadilly then running via the station isn't that much longer as it's a quieter route.

The whole saga just highlights the question I kept asking those who were pushing for a Hulleys to be removed from the routes, and which not one person would answer: What was the alternative that wouldn't give worse service and cost more?

 

[duncombec]

The whole saga just highlights the question I kept asking those who were pushing for a Hulleys to be removed from the routes, and which not one person would answer: What was the alternative that wouldn't give worse service and cost more?

The same question could be asked of any operator, though. I loose count of the amount of times I see a comment on a news story (be that social media or a local newspaper) demanding that an operator "have their contract taken away", even when it's an entirely commercial service. If the timetable was too tight for one bus, the timetable was too tight for one bus, regardless of who operates it. It's just as hypocritical to "demand" a big operator have their services taken away but an independent can get away with anything because they're local as it is to say the independent must suffer and the big op gets away with it.

I'd hazard a guess that nobody here actually knows the content of any discussions that may have been had between Hulleys and Derbyshire CC (DCC). It appears quite normal in some areas that operators can request changes to tendered timetables for any number of reasons, including timekeeping. Did DCC just outright refuse? Did Hulleys make any such requests? Did Hulleys promise multiple times to improve over a period of many months, and DCC finally got fed up of being promised jam tomorrow? Is the DCC Public Transport Team a horde of "Stagecoach can do no wrong" Hulleys Haters? Would the residents of Holymoorside prefer a bus that comes reliably every 75 minutes or unreliably allegedly every hour, or indeed no bus at all?

The 84 took 53 minutes to complete a round trip in 2012, with 3 minutes layover at one end and 4 at the other. Given what has generally happened to traffic levels in the intervening 12 years, I'm not even remotely surprised it can no longer be completed in an hour by any operator. It's also an emergency tender: no operator is going to do a mass rewrite of vehicle diagrams overnight to interwork a service they may lose again when the full tender comes up, similarly, there is no guarantee that DCC won't make adjustments to the tendered network once these emergency tenders are converted into full-length awards.

I look forward to seeing the Derbyshire Times interview the same people they interviewed in the absence of a service to get their opinion on the 75-minute frequency provision... ... ... I suspect I'll be waiting a long time.

 

[Travelmonkey]

Armchair experts will always have ideas on X Y Z and bemoan, I know I made a few enimies of locals when I lived in Warrington because their network ins't as bad as some other parts of the country, although they get all stony faced when you suggest they start up their own operations. ultimatley it shows how fragile it is when one opperator gets kneecapped at short notice and so much is left uncovered. I do think DCC are between a rock & a hard place with the Hulleys demise. especially the "comercial network" despite them still needing to pay out for ENCT users, that data alone should have shown the provision needed covering even in short term. Although Hulleys never had the best relationships with LAs citing them as a contributing reason of the demise of the x57 snake.

 

[AWK]

Hourly was never going to be possible, even the old 91 was every 45 minutes and you would really be pushing things to add the run to the hospital direct in the extra 15 minutes, never mind via Hady.

Even Hulleys times didn't allow the full route in an hour.

Daft thing is, I'm sure Stagecoach could interwork with the short hospital service to give something more sensible.

How could they?

Hospital shorts are essentially a 25 min round trip on a 30 min frequency. No real scope for interworking with that.

84 is on a 75 min frequency as the operator who submitted the winning tender offered that frequency as that is what they feel is achievable within the funding available which is enough for 1 bus.

They could have done a Hulleys and tried to sweat the resource to the maximum and offered an hourly service on an unachievable timetable, but they didn't. They could run a higher frequency with a 2nd vehicle and long layovers somewhere but there's not enough money, nor probably demand for that.

A 75 min frequency is the best compromise between demand and funding available.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Apr 2025 ==

That's my point really. Even Hulleys wouldn't offer the route hourly and they were known for cutting timetables to fine. If you run via Piccadilly then running via the station isn't that much longer as it's a quieter route.

The whole saga just highlights the question I kept asking those who were pushing for a Hulleys to be removed from the routes, and which not one person would answer: What was the alternative that wouldn't give worse service and cost more?

I've given you an answer several times before...

Other companies (other than Hulleys) operating the routes gives two things:

Certainty for the travelling public that - barring something very out of the ordinary - the service is going to run (it was not out of the ordinary for Hulleys to drop lots of mileage in the last 6 months)

Value for money for Derbyshire County Council and the public purse that the services they are paying for are actually being delivered.

You also don't know that the package of contracts issued to replace Hulleys cost more than the package Hulley's operated.

 

[mk1979]

On the 84 timetable debate, its quite simple really. The tender was to run the specified route within an hour. We believed that was unachievable so offered several operator devised alternatives of which the one bus 75 minute frequency option was chosen by DCC.

Given the tender was issued last week, submission deadline Friday lunch time and awarded 5pm Friday to start Monday morning there was absolutely no way any interworking could be considered.

 

[Llandudno]

On the 84 timetable debate, its quite simple really. The tender was to run the specified route within an hour. We believed that was unachievable so offered several operator devised alternatives of which the one bus 75 minute frequency option was chosen by DCC.

Given the tender was issued last week, submission deadline Friday lunch time and awarded 5pm Friday to start Monday morning there was absolutely no way any interworking could be considered.

Personally I think DCC, Stagecoach, High Peak, Andrew’s and Notts & Derby have done well to replace most of Hulley’s network at such short notice.

Hopefully when the next round of scheduling changes occur there will be some tidying up of the new routes and some interworking may improve operational efficiency which could lead to a clockface timetable on the 84 coordinated with the 170?

 

[Trainman40083]

Personally I think DCC, Stagecoach, High Peak, Andrew’s and Notts & Derby have done well to replace most of Hulley’s network at such short notice.

Hopefully when the next round of scheduling changes occur there will be some tidying up of the new routes and some interworking may improve operational efficiency which could lead to a clockface timetable on the 84 coordinated with the 170?

Indeed when you think most of the replacement services got running in a day. A miracle the operators had spare buses and drivers.

 

[Teapot42]

The timetable looks to be very tight aswell, traffic often backs up on the approach to Alfreton.

While I've not used it in person, from the tracking it is looking like they are struggling to keep to the timetable. Pretty much every journey today is losing time, and one Chesterfield-bound service skipped Tibshelf entirely to try and make up some lost time.

Does anyone know how long these emergency tenders are for, as it's looking like they'll need revising before long if the intention is to actually improve on what Hulleys offered on the route.

 

[duncombec]

Pretty much every journey today is losing time, and one Chesterfield-bound service skipped Tibshelf entirely to try and make up some lost time.

Whilst not being in a place to dispute your overall statement, I'm not sure you've reflected today's occurrences quite accurately:

The 0855 to Alfreton (due Tibshelf 0933) tracks as reversing at Hardstoft, at which pint it was only 3 minutes late, and running straight to Stonebroom: https://bustimes.org/services/55-chesterfield-alfreton-2/vehicles#journeys/710712186

The 0955 to Alfreton (due Tibshelf 1033) runs directly: https://bustimes.org/services/55-chesterfield-alfreton-2/vehicles#journeys/710750121

The 0955 to Chesterfield (due Tibshelf 1012) also runs directly: https://bustimes.org/services/55-chesterfield-alfreton-2/vehicles#journeys/710753600

All other journeys serve the full route. Is it possible that there was an incident or accident between Hardstoft and Tibshelf which meant buses couldn't go that way even if they were on time?

All of yesterday's journeys operated the full route, even when delayed - and perhaps curiously, one journey seemed to suffer off-peak delays in Chesterfield which affected a number of subsequent journeys, that the other buses on the route didn't seem to occur. If anything, a number of journeys made up time (although obviously it can't be ascertained how easy that was).

 

[Trainman40083]

While I've not used it in person, from the tracking it is looking like they are struggling to keep to the timetable. Pretty much every journey today is losing time, and one Chesterfield-bound service skipped Tibshelf entirely to try and make up some lost time.

Does anyone know how long these emergency tenders are for, as it's looking like they'll need revising before long if the intention is to actually improve on what Hulleys offered on the route.

When you say "emergency tenders", surely the route 55 is still commercial.

 

[Teapot42]

When you say "emergency tenders", surely the route 55 is still commercial.

That's a good question. I read it as being supported by the council, is that tendered, or commercial with a deminimus payment to cover bits that N&D don't consider commercial? Or BSIP funded?

The impression I got was that it wasn't purely commercial and that some money was provided to make it viable for N&D, but the actual structure I'm not clear on, nor whether there was a time limit after which it would be reviewed.

 

[Trainman40083]

That's a good question. I read it as being supported by the council, is that tendered, or commercial with a deminimus payment to cover bits that N&D don't consider commercial? Or BSIP funded?

The impression I got was that it wasn't purely commercial and that some money was provided to make it viable for N&D, but the actual structure I'm not clear on, nor whether there was a time limit after which it would be reviewed.

Most likely is it is commercial with payment to cover bits of it . Interesting that Notts and Derby only got the okay on Wednesday, were route learning on Thursday and started on Friday.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

from here: https://alfreton.spiritof.uk/new-operator-found-for-the-no-55-bus-service/

The timetable and route will remain largely the same as the previous Hulleys 55 service, with minor adjustments.

The route will still serve key locations such as Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Wingerworth, Clay Cross, and Pilsley.

The operator will run the majority of the service on a commercial basis. However, the county council will provide additional funding to cover extra areas along the route.

Chris Henning, Derbyshire County Council’s Executive Director for Place, said:

“I am pleased that a new operator has been found to run the 55.

“We know that this service is important to all who use it to get to the shops, doctors and for work and college. We’re sure that Notts and Derby will be able to offer a reliable and punctual service.

“We thank residents and communities for their patience whilst we worked with operators to reinstate this service and we’re pleased we can now share this good news.”

 

[Teapot42]

from here: https://alfreton.spiritof.uk/new-operator-found-for-the-no-55-bus-service/

Well, the first two points are inaccurate so I wonder how correct the third is?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Well, the first two points are inaccurate so I wonder how correct the third is?

The word “largely” is doing some heavy lifting. The route has obviously been shortened, as I suggested it would be, but the core has retained. Similarly, the times have changed but the headway has been maintained.

So suspect that the service is mainly commercial but that DCC support certain elements