Rate your local bus service/company!

[Bletchleyite]

The quality of the vehicles is often dreadful on the "Red Group" services but the nature of the routes, plus keeping drivers on the same routes means that they build often a good rapport with their customers. I remember catching a Z&S service once which waited for an extra 5 minutes as one of the passengers on the inbound market day journey hadn't shown up. With another company in the group I have know drivers drop disabled passengers at their front gates.

I do remember a Red Rose driver on our village service complaining that she had been working in MK for several weeks which she described as "driving round in circles".

Unfortunately I have had a very bad experience with "Red *" in MK, though it was a few years ago, of them wilfully and knowingly running early, particularly on the last service of the day, and missing out estates for a longer break. I reported this every time I saw it (not just when I was going to use the buses, just when I saw them out of place and obviously in service) and nothing was ever done about it.

Arriva/MK Metro did have a bit of an early running issue but nowhere near as bad, and their buses didn't tend to cut half the route out to get a longer break - it was more sloppy rather than wilful. The "Red *" example I'm thinking of is the 3E, which used to run from Wolverton via CMK then was meant to wind its way through Shenley Church End, Shenley Lodge and Furzton (on the current 7 route) then Emerson Valley and onto Westcroft. The number of times I caught it (or didn't catch it) going straight up Chaffron Way (or just missing Furzton out) was downright unacceptable. It was happening at least every couple of days on particular late evening runs.

There were also issues with presentation of vehicles (though this has now improved a lot) and drivers (often for example in scruffy T-shirt and jeans, and stinking of body odour).

 

[Jordan Adam]

“Only runs every 20 minutes?” I’d be over the moon with that.

It's in a city though, Admittedly at the end of my street there is a bus "every 7 minutes or better..."

 

[py_megapixel]

It's in a city though, Admittedly at the end of my street there is a bus "every 7 minutes or better..."

Well I live in a small town fairly close to a larger town (might be a small city come to think of it) and we have a bus into the larger town about every 10 minutes. So it's not just city centres, often if you live on a main road or near somewhere large you'll get a disproportionate number of buses for the size of the place. There's little point in running buses past stops and not stopping them there, unless you are advertising an express service (which the 2 operators here most definitely aren't!) - and in my experience often drivers will stop at any bus stop the bus goes past even if it's not technically supposed to stop there...

 

[Pat1105]

It's in a city though, Admittedly at the end of my street there is a bus "every 7 minutes or better..."

There are some services in Birmingham that run every 30 minutes or in some cases, hourly.

 

[Trackman]

I have 2 homes so..
TfL - well, they are rammed but the buses are Ok, but lacking ride quality sometimes compared to other buses I've been on. The drivers are really good so 7/10, plus they are good for people with disabilities again compared to other buses I've been on.
Diamond North West - It's been a complete disaster since First sold up. Lack of / missing buses and the tracking is now completely hopeless and very unhappy drivers. I was talking to a Diamond driver the other day he reckons it's worse than First (if that is possible). They still have to do split shifts too. so 1/10. OT: he was telling me that these Stagecoach premium services if the driver does not wear a tie or say thank you it's a sackable offence - and it's not a threat, they have done it.

 

[SteveHFC]

Haven't been a regular bus user for about 4 years, but when I was, I regularly used Stagecoach East and Arriva The Shires.

Stagecoach East, I was a regular user of the 99 between Luton & Milton Keynes to go to work. In the mornings it was pretty reliable, as long as there were no major issues on the M1 and the drivers, with a couple of exceptions, were very friendly, and particularly took care of the regular users. However, if things went wrong, they went very badly wrong, and some of the vehicles were pretty unreliable. That said, on a monthly season ticket it only cost me £4 per day, which I thought was very good value. When I first started using it, the timetable was impossible, it was timetabled to take 30 minutes from where I got on to Milton Keynes Station - which is only just about possible in a car on a Sunday morning. Timetable is now much better than it was.

Arriva The Shires, very rarely had any issues either using them locally in Luton, or to travel to work in Harpenden when working there, or to visit family in Watford. Bit on the expensive side, but generally, in my experience, reliable. Again, most drivers were friendly.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Can we go into negative figures because I have a dim view of d&g.

 

[py_megapixel]

Can we go into negative figures because I have a dim view of d&g.

If you like... hopefully it comes along with a good rant for us all to read

 

[Bletchleyite]

Stagecoach East, I was a regular user of the 99 between Luton & Milton Keynes to go to work. In the mornings it was pretty reliable, as long as there were no major issues on the M1 and the drivers, with a couple of exceptions, were very friendly, and particularly took care of the regular users. However, if things went wrong, they went very badly wrong

As per the M1!

Generally the (VT/8)99 should have been pretty punctual as the layover at MKC was about 59 minutes. More often than not there would be two there at once.

 

[Robertj21a]

Agreed with TrentBarton, they used to hold flashy launches and countdown to new buses entering services etc. Now, we see less of that.

Many people might suggest that Trentbarton is now better than before, certainly back in the real world at last.

 

[HullRailMan]

Here in Hull we have Stagecoach and East Yorkshire.

Stagecoach are awful at best. Dirty buses and rude drivers make for a miserable experience. They have recently been doing their special trick of altering routes without communicating the changes meaning it’s pot luck where your bus will go at times. Online timetables get updated but route maps rarely do.

East Yorkshire by contrast are much better, although their fares outside of Hull are high. They seem to take much more pride in the service they provide and try to attract car users into their buses. Stagecoach is a ‘service’ you would only use if you didn’t have a choice.

Sadly, East Yorkshire only provide an infrequent service to my part of the city. As a result, I’ve ditched the bus for the car and nothing short of a miracle would get me back on a Stagecoach Hull bus.

 

[NorthOxonian]

Faresaver in Wiltshire were a firm that had dubious quality and a range of van derived minibuses (Varios mainly). They now have a creditable fleet of e200s (and Solos for smaller requirements) and some older ex London deckers and even put up their own bus stop flags with the location and services listed. Pretty good turnaround.

I thought about mentioning Faresaver - they're not really local to me but I do use them frequently. While their services aren't always the most frequent, and some (like the X31) go awfully round the houses considering they're supposed to be expresses, their service and drivers are excellent. And I'm impressed at how they have filled the gaps in the network created after First all but abandoned West Wiltshire.

 

[Andyh82]

Yorkshire Tiger - the problem here is that it seems to be a management stepping stone into proper Arriva so nobody stays in charge for more than five minutes. They also seem to have no budget, so every attempt to have a repaint programme seems to run out after a few buses, and nothing ever gets repainted or rebranded a second time meaning buses are patched up and scruffy looking. Buses run around Halifax with branding saying ‘roaring around Huddersfield’ despite having been based in Halifax years.

With the strong Ray Stenning image it should be much much better

There tends to be a lack of on road supervision meaning in Huddersfield despite being in competition with First, the drivers would sit on the back wall until the last second and therefore leave with nobody on board, First having mopped up all the passengers. As a result the operation here is now much smaller

They also seem to have no heavy maintenance budget so good buses like the Olympuses are withdrawn, replaced by older kit in Arriva livery, and sent to the internal scrap yard at Honley to depreciate. They also have had a ridiculous number of solo fires over the years.

 

[mikeg]

I'll also rate the bus services of places I used to live, as they were when I lived there:

Nottingham City Transport (2015-2016): 7/10. Reliable, if slow round the houses services, but a comprehensive if radial network. Reasnoable-ish fares, using a mostly flat fare structure on most of the routes. Exact change policy a pain until I got a smartcard.
TrentBarton: 9/10: As close to perfect as I'll ever rate a deregulated bus company, I suspect part of the reason for this though was they had to justify themselves to some extent against NCT.
Nottingham Community Transport: 5/10. Infill service with some peculiar routes, middle of the road though I did like their electric buses.
YourBus: 4/10: Nothing too bad, but didn't accept the Robin Hood smartcard, only the paper tickets and had something of a cowboy feel. In fact, I might mark them down lower due to the tachograph scandal that saw a number of drivers punished. I figure when a large number are in trouble, it's the company rather than the drivers who should get the blame.
Kinch: 6/10: Just a guess really as only used them a couple of times. Whilst under common ownership, seemed to play second fiddle to TrentBarton.


When at Uni (2006-2010):

First PMT: The bus company everyone loved to moan about, 6/10. Fares higher than the competition but not too bad. Personally coming from North Yorkshire found it hard to see what people were moaning about.

D&G: 7/10, Fares were very reasonable at the time , drivers friendly except one who insisted they couldn't issue student tickets outside of term time. Which no other drivers had problems doing. On the other hand, the service was reasonable, punctual, let down slightly by old buses. There was this one driver who'd play J-pop on a ghetto blaster, albeit at quietish volumes. Quite liked him.

Scraggs: 5/10. Reasonable fares, nowt flash, service could do with being more comprehensive.

A three letter bus company whose name escapes me: R something something?: 6/10. Good drivers, slightly old vehicles, seemed to be struggling but a friendly and punctual service.

 

[Simon75]

I'll also rate the bus services of places I used to live, as they were when I lived there:

Nottingham City Transport (2015-2016): 7/10. Reliable, if slow round the houses services, but a comprehensive if radial network. Reasnoable-ish fares, using a mostly flat fare structure on most of the routes. Exact change policy a pain until I got a smartcard.
TrentBarton: 9/10: As close to perfect as I'll ever rate a deregulated bus company, I suspect part of the reason for this though was they had to justify themselves to some extent against NCT.
Nottingham Community Transport: 5/10. Infill service with some peculiar routes, middle of the road though I did like their electric buses.
YourBus: 4/10: Nothing too bad, but didn't accept the Robin Hood smartcard, only the paper tickets and had something of a cowboy feel. In fact, I might mark them down lower due to the tachograph scandal that saw a number of drivers punished. I figure when a large number are in trouble, it's the company rather than the drivers who should get the blame.
Kinch: 6/10: Just a guess really as only used them a couple of times. Whilst under common ownership, seemed to play second fiddle to TrentBarton.


When at Uni (2006-2010):

First PMT: The bus company everyone loved to moan about, 6/10. Fares higher than the competition but not too bad. Personally coming from North Yorkshire found it hard to see what people were moaning about.

D&G: 7/10, Fares were very reasonable at the time , drivers friendly except one who insisted they couldn't issue student tickets outside of term time. Which no other drivers had problems doing. On the other hand, the service was reasonable, punctual, let down slightly by old buses. There was this one driver who'd play J-pop on a ghetto blaster, albeit at quietish volumes. Quite liked him.

Scraggs: 5/10. Reasonable fares, nowt flash, service could do with being more comprehensive.

A three letter bus company whose name escapes me: R something something?: 6/10. Good drivers, slightly old vehicles, seemed to be struggling but a friendly and punctual service.

RML is the company

First Potteries
Fares.. fairly pricey ie £2.70 single over 1 mile travel, £1.90 less than 1 mile
Massive cuts within 5 years, most areas no service after 7pm, some latest 9.30
Newest buses c4 years

 

[CBlue]

Stagecoach Cambridge for me too - having moved from the West Midlands where NX do a pretty good job I'd have to give Stagecoach a 5/10. Lots of investment on the busway, and the Citi network is fairly comprehensive, but a couple of big downsides:

• Punctuality is a big problem, though not one of Stagecoach's making. Traffic in Cambridge can be pretty horrendous at times.
• The fare zones seem totally arbitrary. 20 minutes on the 3 costs £4.50 return, but 20 minutes on the 9 is £7. For places like Waterbeach and Foxton, they've priced themselves out of the market and the railway gets most of the patronage.
• The out of town routes seem to change frequently - I've lived in Cambridge for 2 years and seen 3 different iterations of the service to Royston. No wonder people don't use it!
• A small minority of the drivers are extremely unpleasant, which is a shame because some of them are brilliant at what they do.
• Investment in new buses is patchy. The ex-London 09-plated Scanias with the rock hard seats and (I believe) Euro IV engines are a poor show.

Definitely all points I agree with. The ex-London Scanias have exhaust kits fitted from their London days I believe so might be Euro V? Haven't had to suffer one myself but thankfully with such bad seats they don't escape the city too often!

 

[Mac2812]

Buses of Somerset based in Taunton - crap!

 

[Pat1105]

I’ve got many local companies round by me:

Arriva - Not too bad. The vehicles are well presented and their tickets are value for money - especially the £6.30 Midlands day ticket. Drivers are ok - some good, some bad.

Banga - Have come a long way in recent times. The buses are well presented and the fleet has been drastically modernised. Excellent value for money too. The drivers are friendly and always take the time to engage with the regulars.

Diamond - Shockingly bad. Buses that are unfit for purpose and in previous operator livery. Some drivers could do with some training in ticket types and general customer service.

Let’s Go (Travel Express) - How these guys are still on the road, I do not know. They run clapped out darts, which are to be replaced by E200’s that aren’t even going to be painted into livery. Some of the drivers are ok, however they don’t have a uniform and some can appear ‘scruffy.’ The only good thing is that they are cheaper than NX at £2 single.

National Express West Midlands - The major operator. Vehicles turned out well. Drivers aren’t too bad. Value for money is good at £2.40 single or £1.50 short hop.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Yorkshire Tiger - the problem here is that it seems to be a management stepping stone into proper Arriva so nobody stays in charge for more than five minutes. They also seem to have no budget, so every attempt to have a repaint programme seems to run out after a few buses, and nothing ever gets repainted or rebranded a second time meaning buses are patched up and scruffy looking. Buses run around Halifax with branding saying ‘roaring around Huddersfield’ despite having been based in Halifax years.

With the strong Ray Stenning image it should be much much better

There tends to be a lack of on road supervision meaning in Huddersfield despite being in competition with First, the drivers would sit on the back wall until the last second and therefore leave with nobody on board, First having mopped up all the passengers. As a result the operation here is now much smaller

They also seem to have no heavy maintenance budget so good buses like the Olympuses are withdrawn, replaced by older kit in Arriva livery, and sent to the internal scrap yard at Honley to depreciate. They also have had a ridiculous number of solo fires over the years.

I'll second the sentiment that standards have slipped somewhat since the glamorous launch several years ago. On the A629/B6116 corridor (where Tiger and their predecessors have had a functional monopoly for decades) there's no real incentive for improvement, so we still get tatty buses turning up 20mins late, and Solos being allocated to busy runs on the 233 while a full-size bus carries one man and his dog on the 436. On the plus side, most drivers are friendly and the Covid situation has led to more modern vehicles with wifi occasionally popping up still in the "Flying Tiger" livery.

 

[Megafuss]

Until recently....

Arriva The Shires - 3/10. I think the recent Roger French blog post about Harlow sums up the "effort" in Hertfordshire and Essex. Colchester is a horrow show.

Stagecoach East - 5/10. Good drivers let down by those above them. Not sure the change in management has actually ended up with any tangible improvements for the customer experience. For example the X5 has been split and there have been all sorts of "goings on" with the latest Busway change. Punctuality is not great and single fares are very expensive.

 

[Deerfold]

Yorkshire Tiger - the problem here is that it seems to be a management stepping stone into proper Arriva so nobody stays in charge for more than five minutes. They also seem to have no budget, so every attempt to have a repaint programme seems to run out after a few buses, and nothing ever gets repainted or rebranded a second time meaning buses are patched up and scruffy looking. Buses run around Halifax with branding saying ‘roaring around Huddersfield’ despite having been based in Halifax years.

My experience with Tiger has mostly been from Halifax on the 22 to Claremount and 343, 561/2 to Greetland. In my experience I've about a 1 in 3 chance of getting a bus branded as Arriva (and on the 22 a higher than average chance of the bus just not turning up at all). Once life is a little more normal, I'm likely to be getting the 502 to/from Keighley fairly regularly, so fingers crossed.

I'd rate Tiger as 6/10.

Most of my experience is with Transdev Keighley/Burnley. I'd give them 8/10. They're fairly reliable, mostly friendly drivers. They do try new things for a reasonable amount of time.
The downside tends to be where they have got something wrong they are very bad at acting on feedback. They've errors and things missing on their website and app that I've told them about that they've said they'll fix, but a year later are still wrong. They're particularly poor at distinguishing school routes that are not available to the public from other services (and with Covid specials, there's a trip on the route past my house which is not available to the public, but still in the public timetable with no marking).

First Halifax get a 5/10. Old rattly buses, indifferent drivers. A very well priced group ticket, but they no longer run many late trips, making it less useful. A shame, as I used to think Yorkshire Rider were great when I grew up in Calderdale.

 

[Goldfish62]

Arriva as a whole seems bereft of direction. Odd that First still generates such negativity yet Arriva often gets a free hit (and Transdev gets all manner of grumbling from various gricers).

Agreed. I'd also class Stagecoach as getting a free hit.

First Kernow:
Drivers:excellent driving standards in difficult territory. Variable between very cheerful to miserable.
Vehicles: somewhat hampered by 30 of the newest buses being away on loan, but generally clean and presentable with low accident damage. Repaints take place at a snails pace.
Reliability: could be better. Hampered by traffic conditions and some unrealistic scheduling.
Publicity: I'd give this top marks if it weren't for the latest booklet moving to on line only.
Fares: Expensive! But can be cheaper if you know the right tickets to buy.
Social media: excellent.

Overall: 7/10

 

[northernchris]

Most of my experience is with Transdev Keighley/Burnley. I'd give them 8/10. They're fairly reliable, mostly friendly drivers. They do try new things for a reasonable amount of time.
The downside tends to be where they have got something wrong they are very bad at acting on feedback. They've errors and things missing on their website and app that I've told them about that they've said they'll fix, but a year later are still wrong. They're particularly poor at distinguishing school routes that are not available to the public from other services (and with Covid specials, there's a trip on the route past my house which is not available to the public, but still in the public timetable with no marking).

Transdev don't like receiving any constructive / negative feedback. It's a shame really as some things only require modest changes to really make a difference - I assume the journey in question which is a school bus advertised in the public timetable is the short 66 to Cross Hills in a morning? Last year when they reduced frequency on a couple of the local routes to hourly it lead to an odd situation of one road receiving 2 buses leaving town at half past the hour, then nothing for another hour. I contacted them to suggest if the recently retimed, commercially operated route ran at the opposite half hour, swapping times with the other route which was reduced, then that area of town would have a 30 minute frequency with no additional resources required. Their response was that Metro set the timetable of the unchanged route which had always departed at half past the hour and there was nothing they could do about it

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I thought about mentioning Faresaver - they're not really local to me but I do use them frequently. While their services aren't always the most frequent, and some (like the X31) go awfully round the houses considering they're supposed to be expresses, their service and drivers are excellent. And I'm impressed at how they have filled the gaps in the network created after First all but abandoned West Wiltshire.

Not sure that's quite right.

Faresaver effectively pushed out First from West Wiltshire after they began competing against them, very effectively, on routes like the X31, X34, X72 and X67. The only First retraction that Faresaver really filled was Devizes to Melksham which I think is commercial.

The other routes (like the 33/X33, Trowbridge locals, 77/87) are all tendered.

The X prefix is not really to define an express but just a faster version of a service against what they competing against. So the X67 missed out Rode; might be that some of the others missed out Batheaston when they started but I might be wrong on that.

 

[90019]

Lothian pay me, so I think I'm obliged to give them 10/10...

 

[route101]

It's in a city though, Admittedly at the end of my street there is a bus "every 7 minutes or better..."

Id love to stay near a frequent route.

 

[Bristol LHS]

Long-time lurker, this thread has tempted me to post

Home is North Yorkshire, where dealer stock solos and midis on infrequent timetables seems to be order of the day. Basically managing decline.

Work in the North East, where I’d say:

- Go North East - slumped after Peter Huntley IMO, awful overall red livery and some very naff brands summed it up over that period. Seems to be back on the up under Martin Gilbert, though I wonder if the X-lines brand is being over-applied. Probably the region’s best operator in terms of reliability and appearance.

- Stagecoach Busways - very limited evidence of imagination (e.g. the X24), but mostly bog-standard buses running a bog-standard service, really retreating to core routes in Sunderland and Shields. Wouldn’t be surprise to see the South Shields depot close in the not to near future. Newcastle is clearly where the money is. Sunderland should be good territory in theory (urban, students, car ownership still lowish) but the city centre is no draw, which limits the appeal of Stagecoach’s network, the X24 excepted.

- Arriva North East - the old ‘United’ bit improved in the 2010s, but the ‘Northumbria’ end is a shadow of the original Northumbria Motor Services. Reliability and presentation in both bits somewhat suspect, new livery doesn’t help.

 

[507021]

I work for my local bus company, so my opinion might be a bit biased!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Long-time lurker, this thread has tempted me to post

Home is North Yorkshire, where dealer stock solos and midis on infrequent timetables seems to be order of the day. Basically managing decline.

Work in the North East, where I’d say:

- Go North East - slumped after Peter Huntley IMO, awful overall red livery and some very naff brands summed it up over that period. Seems to be back on the up under Martin Gilbert, though I wonder if the X-lines brand is being over-applied. Probably the region’s best operator in terms of reliability and appearance.

- Stagecoach Busways - very limited evidence of imagination (e.g. the X24), but mostly bog-standard buses running a bog-standard service, really retreating to core routes in Sunderland and Shields. Wouldn’t be surprise to see the South Shields depot close in the not to near future. Newcastle is clearly where the money is. Sunderland should be good territory in theory (urban, students, car ownership still lowish) but the city centre is no draw, which limits the appeal of Stagecoach’s network, the X24 excepted.

- Arriva North East - the old ‘United’ bit improved in the 2010s, but the ‘Northumbria’ end is a shadow of the original Northumbria Motor Services. Reliability and presentation in both bits somewhat suspect, new livery doesn’t help.

That's a pretty fair assessment of the North East operators.

In North Yorkshire, there are relatively few commercial operations outside of Scarborough, Whitby, Selby and Harrogate plus a few cross border incursions (e.g. into Skipton from Lancs/West Yorks). So many of the operations are tendered at the lowest price (and to reduce costs, NYCC and community minibuses are also used extensively).

Kevin Carr was old school Northern and hence the return to the all red and reduction of branded services. Gilbert is much more marketing savvy. To be fair to Kevin Carr, he did put some things into place like the Riverside depot to replace Gateshead and Winlaton, and also the work behind the Consett depot that will benefit the operating costs etc. I've not been on GNE during the Gilbert era so would be interested to see. In the Huntley era, I'd say that the criticism was similar to Transdev.... people complaining that the reality didn't match the hype despite the fact that the reality was better than other operators!!

Stagecoach NE has the Newcastle powerhouse but Sunderland is quite depressed, as is Shields. They may look to vacate Chichester but wonder if they'll retain some sort of low cost alternative in much the same way that they still have Hartlepool almost as a satellite of Stockton. Again, not been on the Busways op for a while though Transit is functional without being exceptional in any way.

Arriva NE has really retrenched in the last 20 years. Partly because they have vacated areas such as North Northumberland, Richmondshire and Hambleton parts of North Yorkshire and much of SW Durham, whilst Huntley outmanoeuvred them on Tyne Valley and East Durham. So you see three distinct areas.... Northumberland (NMS) is still better than most of the NE firm but I've not been up for a while. In Durham (United), the operations are sort of ok in Durham depot but Darlington is a bit flaky. Stockton and Redcar (Tees) is far rougher!! Overall, it's very average and getting worse.

In fact, you can still see vehicles in old Arriva colours (not the interurban) although in a hybrid fashion

RARE | "Frequenta" 2A | Arriva North East (1407 - NK09 BPV) | Darlington

Explore robjamlinfoot's 413 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[John B]

Buses of Somerset based in Taunton - crap!

Without giving

Buses of Somerset based in Taunton - crap!

No details why, so that makes your statement very immature.