49er
Member
"One off" isn't quite the phrase that would spring to mind for the affected bus users. This afternoon we enjoyed almost an action replay of Monday's events - this time involving the 5. Made worse by the remaining vehicle on 5 running about 25 minutes late. At least on Monday Kinch eventually managed to post a 'cancelled' message against affected journeys. Today we had the bizarre situation of Kinchlive promising 3 journeys in the next hour - only the first of which was ever going to materialise.
I do agree things have improved greatly over the last 18 months, but there is still some way to go. At present we seem to be on a permanent knife-edge with passengers being let down far too often.
Other recent gaps in services were 17 February when 11 ran almost all day with just one vehicle, and 13 March when no buses at all ran on the 11 from mid-afternoon. The March event was made worse as - inexplicably - the two buses on 12 were allowed to run nose-to-tail over the same period : in effect delivering only 25% of the timetabled service on 11/12 combined. I am aware of these occasions as they affected journeys attempted by members of my household. I know other odd journeys have been missed, but am unable to say how bad (or good) the overall picture would be. But, judging by bus-stop conversations (there tend to be a lot of these when buses don't turn up) many users are still rather unimpressed, and look forward to the day when "one off" is indeed an apt description when the odd bus doesn't arrive.
