Sunday service provision

Martin2012 · 25 Jun 2019

Have noticed that on bus routes that still offer Sunday service provision there seems to be a few variants in the level of service operated:

Services which seem to only operate during shopping times which stop running around 1630-1700

Services which run until the early evening (e.g. around 1800/1900) which on other days would continue running later.

Services which on the whole follow the Monday to Saturday timetable but perhaps finishing slightly earlier on Sunday.

Services which follow the same journey pattern as on Monday to Saturday.

Obviously I recognise the issue of council subsidy and whether or not the operators consider a service to be commercial must play a part but are there other factors which influence what level of service is provided on sundays?

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TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

Martin2012 said:
Have noticed that on bus routes that still offer Sunday service provision there seems to be a few variants in the level of service operated:

Services which seem to only operate during shopping times which stop running around 1630-1700

Services which run until the early evening (e.g. around 1800/1900) which on other days would continue running later.

Services which on the whole follow the Monday to Saturday timetable but perhaps finishing slightly earlier on Sunday.

Services which follow the same journey pattern as on Monday to Saturday.

Obviously I recognise the issue of council subsidy and whether or not the operators consider a service to be commercial must play a part but are there other factors which influence what level of service is provided on sundays?

Er.... not certain what you're not getting. Through the week, you have a certain amount of trade from shoppers or shop employees returning home, and this is augmented by some evening "going out" trade on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night, especially on Fri/Sat if you've not got work the next day - we are still very much a Monday to Friday work pattern. On Sundays, most shops close c.1600/1700.

Put another way.... what market are you serving on a Sunday night?

Deerfold · 25 Jun 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
Er.... not certain what you're not getting. Through the week, you have a certain amount of trade from shoppers or shop employees returning home, and this is augmented by some evening "going out" trade on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night, especially on Fri/Sat if you've not got work the next day - we are still very much a Monday to Friday work pattern. On Sundays, most shops close c.1600/1700.

Put another way.... what market are you serving on a Sunday night?

Why would there not be going out trade on a Sunday if there is on a Tuesday?

I have reasonably good local bus services, but I was surprised to find how poor they are on a Sunday evening - in other areas I've been used to Sunday evening services being the same as other evening services but I have:

M4 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2211. Sundays 1bp2h, last bus 2011.
62 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2225. Sundays 1bph, last bus 2225.
66 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2300. Sundays 1bph, last bus 2000.

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

Deerfold said:
Why would there not be going out trade on a Sunday if there is on a Tuesday?

I have reasonably good local bus services, but I was surprised to find how poor they are on a Sunday evening - in other areas I've been used to Sunday evening services being the same as other evening services but I have:

M4 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2211. Sundays 1bp2h, last bus 2011.
62 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2225. Sundays 1bph, last bus 2225.
66 - Mon Sat day 2bph, evening 1 bph last bus 2300. Sundays 1bph, last bus 2000.

Don’t think I said that.

You have more workers Mon to Fri/Sat topped up with more evening drinkers Fri/Sat.

Where’s the Sunday trade?

Deerfold · 25 Jun 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
Don’t think I said that.

You have more workers Mon to Fri/Sat topped up with more evening drinkers Fri/Sat.

Where’s the Sunday trade?

Who's travelling at 10pm on a Tuesday who isn't travelling on a Sunday? I'm more likely to be coming home late on a Sunday after a day or weekend away.

I got a taxi home from my local station on Sunday - if I didn't have a 45 minute wait for a bus home, I'd have got the bus - but having few Sunday evening buses means few people catch them, so there's no demand...

I used to go to a dance lesson on Sunday evenings. I'd have had a 50 minute wait after the hour lesson if I'd got the bus home - no wonder no-one else got the bus (I got the bus there and if I was lucky a lift home - if not it didn't take 50 minutes to walk home).

I'm sure we can't have been the only people out on a Sunday night.

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

Deerfold said:
Who's travelling at 10pm on a Tuesday who isn't travelling on a Sunday? I'm more likely to be coming home late on a Sunday after a day or weekend away.

I got a taxi home from my local station on Sunday - if I didn't have a 45 minute wait for a bus home, I'd have got the bus - but having few Sunday evening buses means few people catch them, so there's no demand...

I used to go to a dance lesson on Sunday evenings. I'd have had a 50 minute wait after the hour lesson if I'd got the bus home - no wonder no-one else got the bus (I got the bus there and if I was lucky a lift home - if not it didn't take 50 minutes to walk home).

I'm sure we can't have been the only people out on a Sunday night.

As I’ve explained, we are still predominantly a Monday to Friday working culture and that influences demand. Take a typical shopping centre - it will open 1000 to 2000 Mon to Fri with an earlier finish on Saturday, but Fri/Sat gets a boost from the going out crowd.

Sunday just doesn’t have that demand and that’s just the way it is. Does that mean everyone is in watching Call The Midwife? Of course not but is there sufficient demand to run commercially or to justify a tender? Probably not

geoffk · 25 Jun 2019

Sunday service levels on buses and trains in the UK have not kept up with changes in shopping and leisure activity. Service levels are generally better in other EU countries, even those with more restrictive Sunday trading laws such as France and Germany.

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

geoffk said:
Sunday service levels on buses and trains in the UK have not kept up with changes in shopping and leisure activity. Service levels are generally better in other EU countries, even those with more restrictive Sunday trading laws such as France and Germany.

Sunday daytime service levels are generally higher now than before but, and it’s an important caveat, not equally. There are more commercial services but where they aren’t viable (more rural areas) they’ve been lost as subsidies have gone.

Andyh82 · 25 Jun 2019

In my experience you used to get an evening and Sunday frequency which was generally the same across all those periods.

In recent years, it’s likely Sunday daytimes would have been increased, evenings decreased, and Sunday evenings decreased further.

So a bus that used to run every 10 mins in the daytime and every 30 mins evenings and Sundays, would likely run every 20 mins Sunday daytime, every hour evenings and a very limited service Sunday evenings.

Martin2012 · 25 Jun 2019

A good number of services here in Bristol seem to run until around 2330 on a Sunday and some which previously had a reduced Sunday evening provision (for example services to Yate/Chipping Sodbury and Thornbury) now run until around the 2330-2340 mark as per Monday to Saturday.

Are there maybe other factors in areas such as Bristol which contribute to higher bus use in general compared to other areas?

Deerfold · 25 Jun 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
As I’ve explained, we are still predominantly a Monday to Friday working culture and that influences demand. Take a typical shopping centre - it will open 1000 to 2000 Mon to Fri with an earlier finish on Saturday, but Fri/Sat gets a boost from the going out crowd.

Sunday just doesn’t have that demand and that’s just the way it is. Does that mean everyone is in watching Call The Midwife? Of course not but is there sufficient demand to run commercially or to justify a tender? Probably not

I'm not sure where these typical shopping centres are, but pretty much everything in the towns on and near these routes is closed by 1730.

If no evening services are tried, then there's definitely going to be no demand to measure. My Sunday services are unchanged (except for changes of up to 3 minutes and the introduction and removal of one early morning service which was on its way to a contracted service) for at least 12 years (That's how long I've lived here - I suspect it's far longer). I'm not sure why one of the 3 routes does retain a late Sunday evening service. The M4 has nearly doubled its weekday frequency and added later evening services (the Sunday service used to run later than the weekday service), all commercially, in this time, but made no changes to the frequency of its infrequent Sunday service. There's been several experiments with routes, extending them, increasing frequencies - some have worked, some haven't. but no changes to Sunday times. I wonder if availability of drivers has more to do with this.

Mwanesh · 25 Jun 2019

Sunday services depend on local factors. I remember in Chesterfield some routes they tried late buses but most times you ran empty. The 43, 54 ,50 , 90 ,51 ,82 , 83 and 77 all run to about midnight . I think its one of the places where they still have a better night service.

Busaholic · 25 Jun 2019

London bus services these days are harmonised in regards to last bus times on the vast majority of routes, made much easier by one operator and one garage operating each route. It wasn't always so, of course, and even where a bus route had the same daily termini there might well be different last times on a Sunday, say, simply because a different (or extra) garage operated it on that day. and the London Transport way was that buses didn't run 'dead' over line of route or, for that matter, on most garage journeys off line of route. So, for instance, on route 1 in 1958 the last bus on Monday to Saturdays from Surrey Docks to Marylebone was at 10.19 p..m., but on Sundays was at 11.14 p.m., extended further to Cricklewood Garage, which only operated the route on that day. In the other direction, last buses were at the same times on all days of the week. To the uninitiated it appeared quite random, but of course it wasn't!

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

Deerfold said:
I'm not sure where these typical shopping centres are, but pretty much everything in the towns on and near these routes is closed by 1730.

If no evening services are tried, then there's definitely going to be no demand to measure. My Sunday services are unchanged (except for changes of up to 3 minutes and the introduction and removal of one early morning service which was on its way to a contracted service) for at least 12 years (That's how long I've lived here - I suspect it's far longer). I'm not sure why one of the 3 routes does retain a late Sunday evening service. The M4 has nearly doubled its weekday frequency and added later evening services (the Sunday service used to run later than the weekday service), all commercially, in this time, but made no changes to the frequency of its infrequent Sunday service. There's been several experiments with routes, extending them, increasing frequencies - some have worked, some haven't. but no changes to Sunday times. I wonder if availability of drivers has more to do with this.

Can't comment on your specific circumstances but we're talking generally. Many shops may close at 17:30 or 18:00 but you may often get stores that will be open (esp Thursday) later, especially places like White Rose Centre. Again, can't comment on why Transdev haven't massively changed your Sunday services - might be availability or something to do with pay premiums.... perhaps someone else can help on that?

However, moving across Yorkshire, I can point to some other examples of how things have waxed and waned. In most rural North Yorkshire, services were pretty poor in the early 1990s and were..

Darlington to Catterick - Sunday afternoon and evenings commercial (mainly for returning soldiers)
Richmond town services x 2 - all day Sunday tendered every hour
Middlesbrough/Redcar to Great Ayton (with placement journeys to/from Stokesley)
Whitby town services x 2 - all day Sunday tendered every hour
Middlesbrough to Whitby (via coast) - all day Sunday tendered every hour
Middlesbrough to Whitby (via moors) - one journey
Whitby to Scarborough - four journeys tendered

What's happened (simplified) since then is that council funding came along and many more Sunday services appeared with Darlington to Catterick getting a Sunday morning service. It still has that. In Whitby, the local services increased with a service to Sleights and when the subsidy was pulled, it was taken on commercially by Arriva as was one local service. Stokesley and Great Ayton have lost their bus services entirely. Meanwhile the Middlesbrough to Whitby coast route is now commercial but has lost its Sunday evening service but the moors route is now hourly as is the Scarborough route even through the winter. That's because of Sunday shoppers and, of course, leisure travellers and ENCTS.

What I'm hopefully illustrating is that in some instances, Sunday services can grow and prosper as they have had the potential to become commercial but even then, not of an evening, and it is far from consistent.

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

Martin2012 said:
A good number of services here in Bristol seem to run until around 2330 on a Sunday and some which previously had a reduced Sunday evening provision (for example services to Yate/Chipping Sodbury and Thornbury) now run until around the 2330-2340 mark as per Monday to Saturday.

Are there maybe other factors in areas such as Bristol which contribute to higher bus use in general compared to other areas?

There are some enhancements and First have been proactive in developing their markets. Then again, this is a firm that introduced 24 hour services on key corridors. However, there are plenty of examples in South Gloucestershire where services that run of an evening (M-S) don't operate on a Sunday night (e.g. 17, 19, Y4, Y5, Y6)

overthewater · 25 Jun 2019

Shift works like Amazon or Sky Call centres need buses on a Sunday, but rarely get them. We no longer live in a 9 to 5 economy, yet because of those Sunday trading law in England its like ghost towns come 5pm. I've seen place like that. I couldn't live like some English communities, where if your really lucky you get hourly bus until 5pm and that's it. What do you do if you need a bus at 11pm on Sunday night????

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
Shift works like Amazon or Sky Call centres need buses on a Sunday, but rarely get them. We no longer live in a 9 to 5 economy, yet because of those Sunday trading law in England its like ghost towns come 5pm. I've seen place like that. I couldn't live like some English communities, where if your really lucky you get hourly bus until 5pm and that's it. What do you do if you need a bus at 11pm on Sunday night????

Sorry but it’s still a predominantly Monday to Friday work week, even with distribution centres.

overthewater · 25 Jun 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
Sorry but it’s still a predominantly Monday to Friday work week, even with distribution centres.

Not from what I or my mates have seen and had to deal with. Sundays are one of the busiest days for distribution or call centres up in Scotland.

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
Not from what I or my mates have seen and had to deal with. Sundays are one of the busiest days for distribution or call centres up in Scotland.

Did you read and understand what I said?

overthewater · 25 Jun 2019

I assume you saying that the majority of these distribution centres work manly weekdays?

TheGrandWazoo · 25 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
I assume you saying that the majority of these distribution centres work manly weekdays?

For pity’s sake - I said it’s still a Monday to Friday work week in the main, even with (that means despite the existence of) distribution centres!!

FWIW, about 75% of U.K. workers work Mon to Fri daytimes.

Wirewiper · 26 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
Shift works like Amazon or Sky Call centres need buses on a Sunday, but rarely get them. We no longer live in a 9 to 5 economy, yet because of those Sunday trading law in England its like ghost towns come 5pm. I've seen place like that. I couldn't live like some English communities, where if your really lucky you get hourly bus until 5pm and that's it. What do you do if you need a bus at 11pm on Sunday night????

Amazon's Tilbury Depot has dedicated bus routes, that are timed around the starting and finishing times of shifts. As such services are not usually advertised to non-workers there may be more of these services than we realise.

TheGrandWazoo · 26 Jun 2019

Wirewiper said:
Amazon's Tilbury Depot has dedicated bus routes, that are timed around the starting and finishing times of shifts. As such services are not usually advertised to non-workers there may be more of these services than we realise.

There are indeed. Amazon at Rugeley for instance. Some existing bus services do serve large distribution parks like DIRFT near Rugby whilst some services are preconditions of planning (like the Pineham service in Northampton).

route101 · 26 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
Shift works like Amazon or Sky Call centres need buses on a Sunday, but rarely get them. We no longer live in a 9 to 5 economy, yet because of those Sunday trading law in England its like ghost towns come 5pm. I've seen place like that. I couldn't live like some English communities, where if your really lucky you get hourly bus until 5pm and that's it. What do you do if you need a bus at 11pm on Sunday night????

Scottish towns are the same , ghosttowns on a Sunday at 5pm

overthewater · 26 Jun 2019

That is a lot to take in. First off Im know very well of the Amazon dedicated bus routes. They were originally set up by that recruitment company that went bust, the one starting with R? awful company. The service were contracted out to National express group but subcontracting went on. Lets just say the fares were a disgrace. Things have now moved on thankful and some better services with cheaper fares have come in. HOWEVER, as it stands theses service are only used up in Scotland at busy periods, ie Late September to Xmas only.

Many people stick to the local bus network, to give Stagecoach its due there have done a good job overall, however sundays are still a sticking point. Mind you Mcgills are just crap.

Sky Call centres , bank call centres, Mobile phone Call centres all work on sundays but that seems to have gone unnoticed?

Go to Kirkcaldy Central fife Retail park, falkirk Central retail park or Livingston centre or hamilton retail park near the M74 at 5.30 on sunday it will not be a ghost town. Of course if were on about Kirkcaldy town central or Forfar, Lanark or even Bathgate most of these place are dead half the time anyways.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jun 2019

Deerfold said:
Why would there not be going out trade on a Sunday if there is on a Tuesday?

I'd figure Sunday most likely is the quietest "going out" night. A new week of work/school/college next week, and far fewer "going out after work".

Deerfold · 26 Jun 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd figure Sunday most likely is the quietest "going out" night. A new week of work/school/college next week, and far fewer "going out after work".

But people are more likely to be coming home late from a day out on a Sunday (I'm not taking about midnight but 8 or 9pm).

Perhaps it's just me.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jun 2019

Deerfold said:
But people are more likely to be coming home late from a day out on a Sunday (I'm not taking about midnight but 8 or 9pm).

Perhaps it's just me.

I suspect most families would be home by then. I tend to do that, but the traffic on the WCML going south at that sort of time tends from my observation to be mostly weekly commuters heading back to London.

TheGrandWazoo · 26 Jun 2019

overthewater said:
crap.

Sky Call centres , bank call centres, Mobile phone Call centres all work on sundays but that seems to have gone unnoticed?

Go to Kirkcaldy Central fife Retail park, falkirk Central retail park or Livingston centre or hamilton retail park near the M74 at 5.30 on sunday it will not be a ghost town. Of course if were on about Kirkcaldy town central or Forfar, Lanark or even Bathgate most of these place are dead half the time anyways.

It hasn't gone unnoticed. It's just that there's not enough custom to justify buses to these locations. When I worked in a mobile phone call centre, it was still skewed. You had a night shift (my nephew still works it) and an evening shift for services like handset replacement and fault detection. However, sales and registrations was all daytime (reflecting when the stores were open) and as for all the support functions (like HR, admin, etc), it was all Monday to Friday.

Just compare road traffic at 0800 on a Sunday on a main arterial route with 0800 on a Monday. Tells you all you need to know

TheGrandWazoo · 26 Jun 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd figure Sunday most likely is the quietest "going out" night. A new week of work/school/college next week, and far fewer "going out after work".

I'd agree with you - not drinking on a school night.

Deerfold said:
But people are more likely to be coming home late from a day out on a Sunday (I'm not taking about midnight but 8 or 9pm).

Perhaps it's just me.

It probably is, in the nicest way

I'm often driving on a country road at 0600 along with other people - there's people about but I doubt in the numbers to justify a bus service so it's probably just me (and a few other insomniacs)

Sunday service provision

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