How the term "rail replacement bus" is viewed.

[miklcct]

Perhaps this is for another thread, but I wonder where the negative perception of the bus comes from especially in the UK? Where you saw the bunch of 20-somethings, was it in in London where the bus services are under the auspices of TFL and are cheap/relatively frequent, or was it somewhere it is left to local operators who operate a service every 2 hours, and stop at 17:00 in the evening?
Or is it indirectly through culture - perhaps the scene from the Inbetweeners where he calls people waiting at a bus stop a bunch of w!nkers, or Thatcher implying that people over a certain age riding the bus failed in life.

Back on track, I've been charged an arm and a leg by TFL for incomplete journeys and now have the pleasure of waiting 10 days whilst they sort it out.

I have a very negative perception of buses in the UK.

In London, my perception is that, buses are slow as turtle.

Outside London, my perception is that, deregulated buses are unreliable, infrequent, expensive (before the £2 fare cap), circuitous, outdated (in terms of fare connection), and are basically a total rip off designed to drive away as many passengers as possible by offering a service which no one really wants to use, and charge to the sky for those who have no other options but to use the bus.

In contrast, in Hong Kong, my perception is that buses are a form of cheap and fast travel between places not directly connected by the railway, while in continental Europe, buses are the trunks of urban transport. The London Buses I have used, on average, are much slower than buses in other countries.

Sure, if your entire journey is bustituted, you might get away with that. But when it's just part of the journey – especially if it's in the middle – you'll end up paying more for the privilege of a longer, less reliable and less comfortable journey – because there won't be any advance fares available for a journey that includes a road replacement leg.

I don't think this is necessarily true. I used SWR only Advance tickets in the past on journeys which were partly bustituted. However, if the entire journey is bustituted, there won't be any advance fares because replacement buses are not reservable.

 

[Ken H]

I have a very negative perception of buses in the UK.

In London, my perception is that, buses are slow as turtle.

Outside London, my perception is that, deregulated buses are unreliable, infrequent, expensive (before the £2 fare cap), circuitous, outdated (in terms of fare connection), and are basically a total rip off designed to drive away as many passengers as possible by offering a service which no one really wants to use, and charge to the sky for those who have no other options but to use the bus.

In contrast, in Hong Kong, my perception is that buses are a form of cheap and fast travel between places not directly connected by the railway, while in continental Europe, buses are the trunks of urban transport. The London Buses I have used, on average, are much slower than buses in other countries.

How many buses have you used in Leeds, Greater Manchester, Cumbria? The bus companies are against car use except in city centres. Our low density housing makes provision difficult. Northern England is nothing like Hong Kong

 

[Howardh]

For a stretch of line that has only recently been electrified, passengers between Manchester and Bolton (and beyond??) seem to be plagued by RRB's every weekend. Fortunately we're back to normal on Saturdays at least, but for me a night out in Manchester and back on the bus is out of the question as I know the toilet will be locked on the coach, and travel time is often 45-50mins+.

When the upgrade of the Wigan - Manchester via Atherton is completed, will we ever get a reliable full evening service again??

So the pubs and clubs have missed out on one customer, which has been Bolton/Horwich's gain!!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

When the upgrade of the Wigan - Manchester via Atherton is completed, will we ever get a reliable full evening service again??

It's not via Atherton being upgraded (although I assume they're doing general maintenance at the same time), it's electrification between Wigan and Lostock Jn (via Westhoughton) going on.

They've only been running busses at half the frequency of what the trains were (1bph vs 2tph Saturdays, 0.5tph vs 1tph Sundays), which is a big annoyance.

 

[J-2739]

I don't have too much of a problem with a rail replacement in itself, I already expect the journey to double in length, my problem is with the standing there for an hour and a half and nothing showing up (and now that's even worse of a problem with the rail replacement supply [more like money] shortage).

In the past a rail replacement got me to my destination 8 minutes early, despite boarding the RRB 44 minutes late, although I probably would've still preferred the train journey.

So imagine if it had arrived 8 minutes late (so an improvement, but still late); you would have probably detested the experience!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

So imagine if it had arrived 8 minutes late (so an improvement, but still late); you would have probably detested the experience!

I got a very different journey than I expected but at least the minibus was decent and I got to see a different bit of Wales.

And I still did the train on the return

 

[miklcct]

How many buses have you used in Leeds, Greater Manchester, Cumbria? The bus companies are against car use except in city centres. Our low density housing makes provision difficult. Northern England is nothing like Hong Kong

No. My experience came from Bournemouth instead.

There was a period that all the expresses between the town centre and hospital were deliberately bunched together every half an hour between the two companies (2 from morebus and 1 from Yellow Buses), such that every half an hour 3 buses ran on the A338 in quick succession, which I interpreted as that the bus company wanted to put off people travelling by bus between the town centre and the hospital on these expresses. If the buses instead are spread out to run every 12-15 minutes, with suitable promotion like "10 minutes direct to town centre", they will be a very competitive option. The single fare from Lansdowne to the Hospital was £3.10 for the journey which was about 5 km in distance and 6 minutes in time, again pricing out people who want to travel by bus as well.

I can't really remember seeing bus companies in the UK promote their routes by showing how fast they are.

On busy routes, such that the m1, m2, 1a, both bus companies used single deckers regularly despite the route is clear for double deckers, resulting in frequent full buses passing through stops during busy periods. This is one of the well known ways to drive away passengers in Hong Kong, where if a bus company wanted to kill off a route, it deliberately deploy a single decker to make it full in order to drive away passengers.

 

[Mikey C]

I'd contend that one of the reasons why Rail Replacement is considered such an issue is because they tend to happen at the weekends, when more "non-regular" rail users come out to play: it's not day in, day out commuters, but leisure travellers who 'expect' the train to run to the timetable.

Photographing rail replacement recently (buses being my thing), I heard a small group of 20-somethings approach the station, set eyes on the brand spanking new, only delivered two weeks earlier, -73- plate shiny double decker, and exclaim "ohhhhh maaaaaate, we've got to get the f*****g bus". Never mind that the bus was circa two decades younger than the train, isn't fitted with a ticket machine and so new it had barely been near a school working, it was still deemed an issue because it was a bus.

If someone has paid for a train ticket, and gets a bus instead, that's a slower "inferior" form of transport, even if the bus is newer, for the type of journeys trains most make. And instead of a train from A to B, you end up (for example) with a train from A to C and a bus/coach from C to B, so with a really inconvenient interchange in the middle, or even two interchanges, if you then need to get on a train again.

For a trip I was planning to Cambridge in a few weeks, there are now buses for part of the journey for both routes from London, making the journey far slower and less convenient.

 

[Magdalia]

For a trip I was planning to Cambridge in a few weeks, there are now buses for part of the journey for both routes from London

During the construction of the new Cambridge South station it is inevitable that this will happen on some dates.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

“How the term "rail replacement bus" is viewed.”?

Brilliant- usually a free bus rally as the TOC cobbles together an eclectic mix of bus and coaches to photograph. Just wish they’d make them run to time.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Brilliant- usually a free bus rally as the TOC cobbles together an eclectic mix of bus and coaches to photograph. Just wish they’d make them run to time.

For a while a lot of Rail Replacements I saw were just one local company's double deckers but I don't see them on as many rail replacements anymore, it's much more often random coaches (or maybe I'm just getting lucky/unlucky in not seeing theirs, this definitely isn't a representative sample).
Considering they've lost work with Bee Network school contracts going to other companies I'd've thought they'd have more busses for contracts like rail replacements.

 

[A0wen]

I have a very negative perception of buses in the UK.

In London, my perception is that, buses are slow as turtle.

Outside London, my perception is that, deregulated buses are unreliable, infrequent, expensive (before the £2 fare cap), circuitous, outdated (in terms of fare connection), and are basically a total rip off designed to drive away as many passengers as possible by offering a service which no one really wants to use, and charge to the sky for those who have no other options but to use the bus.

In contrast, in Hong Kong, my perception is that buses are a form of cheap and fast travel between places not directly connected by the railway, while in continental Europe, buses are the trunks of urban transport. The London Buses I have used, on average, are much slower than buses in other countries.



I don't think this is necessarily true. I used SWR only Advance tickets in the past on journeys which were partly bustituted. However, if the entire journey is bustituted, there won't be any advance fares because replacement buses are not reservable.

The bit in bold is your issue - perception.

In many towns and cities up and down the UK, the bus networks carry far more people than the local rail network does. In many cases frequencies are pretty good and most areas of major towns are covered. What isn't - and has never been - practical is to have direct services from everywhere to everywhere. Nor has it ever been practical to provide high frequency servcies to every village, hamlet and farm - even back in the 1960s and 1970s there were many places which only saw a bus on market day and a school service. Villages which are on main roads between towns tend to fare better, because a bus has to travel past them on its route, so the penalty of serving such villages is nil

Using Hong Kong as a comparison is ridiculous - HK is one of the most densely populated places on earth - it covers 1,063 sq miles and has a population of 7.5 million - the only place in the UK which comes even remotely close is Greater London. Get outside London and the population densitys are a fraction of HK.

 

[Acfb]

I was quite impressed with the replacement bus service between Preston and Manchester in late 2018 because that was an express service for the Scotland- MAN TPE services and was really well organised at Preston. It did pretty much run to time as well.

On the other hand a more local/stopping replacement bus service can be more off putting if it part of a longer journey with other changes.

When the line at Middlewood was washed away in June 2016 we abandoned the train journey itinerary to Edinburgh and took the car instead as it would have been far too much of a faff/too complicated going all the way from Whaley Bridge to Edinburgh especially with all our stuff having just come back from Hong Kong&Japan.

 

[Goldfish62]

On the other hand a more local/stopping replacement bus service can be more off putting if it part of a longer journey with other changes.

One of the examples I can think of is the regular Sunday closure in the Staines area. Travelling from Bracknell to Waterloo it involved train to Ascot, bus to Hounslow, train to Waterloo, doubling the length of the 30 mile journey to two hours.

I've asked SWR if they'd put in a temporary easement via Reading into Paddington but that fell on deaf ears.

 

[A0wen]

One of the examples I can think of is the regular Sunday closure in the Staines area. Travelling from Bracknell to Waterloo it involved train to Ascot, bus to Hounslow, train to Waterloo, doubling the length of the 30 mile journey to two hours.

I've asked SWR if they'd put in a temporary easement via Reading into Paddington but that fell on deaf ears.

Bit in bold - I very much doubt it doubled the length (i.e. distance) of the 30 miile journey - it may have doubled the duration.

 

[H&I]

To me, the term rail replacement bus means a chance to bash some buses! Just the other weekend, I was thundering down the M4 on a B7TL working a Piccadilly line rail replacement service. I have also put down significant mileage on many different coaches doing rail replacement work, such as Mercedes Benz Tourimos, my absolute favourite, and caught some rare buses too, such as a BCI tri-axle double-decker with Ensignbus. Some rail replacement bus drivers really thrash their buses, and just hearing those kickdowns makes my heart race. My only wish for rail replacement buses is to be able to try an ex-Hong Kong bus on rail replacement work, maybe one of the 23-plate StreetDecks with Ensignbus, and of course, run them in time and train bus drivers properly on routes so that they don’t get lost!

 

[richw]

This is the reality of a rail replacement bus.

Three + Two seating and no loo.

It’s definitely not the reality on all TOCS.
GWR for example are very clear in their paperwork that they do not accept 3+2 seating on replacement buses. Their controllers send away vehicles that don’t meet minimum requirements. As a driver I’ve seen this happen to other vehicles.