Scotland bus services act

[overthewater]

Interesting to hear the comments about LB management, there have been a lot of changes over the past few years as the previous team have retired. The current team is expansionist, looking at operations outside of the City and going back into coaching/tours. In some ways this makes sense, there can't be much more demand for services within the city so, if you wish to make more money (which I believe the shareholders would like) you have to diversify. I'd be very surprised if LB went to battle with Stagecoach or any other serious competitor, so far the expansion has been moving into areas from which other operators were retreating. Things change and not all of the changes at LB please me, but they are not there to please enthusiasts, and TBH it's good to have what amounts to a municipal operator.

There is STILL plenty of scope for more buses within the city limits just look at the traffic, and the retail park and of course Blackhall/Maybury Jcts. Were still waiting on the southern orbital bus service. LCB are after what it belidves to be easy money, and IF ( its a big IF) it wins I hope it will try to go after those car drives going into non Central Edinburgh.

Maybe when the trains appear and kill off the 22 to every 20mins down to OT, it will free up resources for else where in the city.

First are not retreated in West Lothian though are they? They've just had a massive simplification of their network, the fleet there on the Edinburgh services is mostly under 5 years old and they're investing on the Airport service 600.

Correct and the talk on here is, another network changes is due which will see more buses on the routes.

They've just halved the service frequency between Linlithgow and Edinburgh on the 38, including removal of all buses from Bridgend and the Gyle. That's quite a major cutback!

There haven't withdrawn all buses from Bridgend, Falkirk No1 bus now goes into the village while the 38 still operate at the road end. The buses were running empty during the day, Hence why OFF peak its been cut back. I will admit there needs to be an extra bus around 9am and two on saturday mid morning, PLUS making sure the two livingston depot runs actually operate...

I’d like to interject something, which would you rather travel in if you did’nt care about the whine of a ZF gearbox or the squeaks and rattles, from a point of view if you were only a passenger and not an enthuisiast or driver.

If you look at FB you will see numerous people with PIC highlight issues with the refurbs, believe some of the buses are not up to the basic Lothian standard... The First fleet is younger...

 

[Jordan Adam]

Correct and the talk on here is, another network changes is due which will see more buses on the routes.

If you look at FB you will see numerous people with PIC highlight issues with the refurbs, believe some of the buses are not up to the basic Lothian standard... The First fleet is younger...

Good to see First are fighting their ground, they have a much bigger advantage if they play their cards right. Jarvis has the skills, it's just a case of putting them in practice.

Some of the refurbs are laughable. Poor attempts at removing stickers on the windows etc. Not to mention the drivers generally speaking seem to dislike the vehicles and they're not proving all that reliable!

I am trying to make a point, if First were to ever pull out of livingston I’d highly think that passengers would prefer to travel in the lothian bus as opposed to the first one, the interior alone makes lcb refurbs feel far more inviting, simply look at east coast ops, the B8RLE and lately B5 deckers look the part and feel it too both inside and out.

Look across the whole country and you soon realise that first and stagecoach(well, in scotland anyways) are lagging with a country wide corporate livery thats just normal and doesnt feel special and one that is associated with poor reliability, late running and overpriced services.

Passengers wouldn't care who operates their service. So long as it gets them from A to B on time and the buses are clean and presentable. Most of the general public don't fall for these gimmicks. Nor do they care what colour the interior of a bus is!

The B5 deckers are pretty rancid to ride, i was on one of the 18 plates when brand new, the whole thing rattles like a bus built 20+ years ago, The materials all feel really cheap. Not to mention the deck between both levels as very flimsy. You can feel it flex as you walk along and you can see it flex from the lower deck! The general build quality on them is shockingly bad! It's a shame as the interior specification on them is pretty good.

As for the B8RLEs, if you're going to whine about colour schemes, they look dreadful, who thought that awful green and dull grey go together. Not to mention the facelifted Eclipse 3 bodywork makes them look like glorified frogs!

Lothian should stick to running buses in Edinburgh rather than wasting their money on pointless vanity projects.

 

[overthewater]

The only reason public wanted Lothian to come back was there were not happy with the time keeping ( most people demand thought buses to Edinburgh cough tram work ..) and believe First fares were too high.. Ivory that First fares are in some respect are cheaper overall. First buses are mainly clean and tidy but some of the Lothian fleet even within city is below par. Its really does look like LCB is just cowboy job...

On your point about refurbs and Stagecoach. Stagecoach did great jobs on them years ago but for what ever reason around 5 years ago this all stop, madness.

 

[Jordan Adam]

The only reason public wanted Lothian to come back was there were not happy with the time keeping ( most people demand thought buses to Edinburgh cough tram work ..) and believe First fares were too high.. Ivory that First fares are in some respect are cheaper overall. First buses are mainly clean and tidy but some of the Lothian fleet even within city is below par. Its really does look like LCB is just cowboy job...

On your point about refurbs and Stagecoach. Stagecoach did great jobs on them years ago but for what ever reason around 5 years ago this all stop, madness.

I'd agree, up till 5 or so years ago they were great with refurbs, 10 2011 plate Panthers here were fully refurbished at the start of the year. But most of the midlife fleet retain the original seat fabrics and some of the Plaxton Profile coaches are in the exact condition they came from the factory both inside and out (up to 14 years ago). In addition to this the Enviro400s are plagued with water staining along the sides under the window pillars (as shown below). Many passengers have repeated complained to Stagecoach about the use of the Enviro400s on longer services, along with the appalling overall condition of them. A number of them have badly slipping gearboxes and struggle to pass 25MPH!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/busmanscotland/38612584830/

 

[Gingerbus1991]

Good to see First are fighting their ground, they have a much bigger advantage if they play their cards right. Jarvis has the skills, it's just a case of putting them in practice.

Some of the refurbs are laughable. Poor attempts at removing stickers on the windows etc. Not to mention the drivers generally speaking seem to dislike the vehicles and they're not proving all that reliable!



Passengers wouldn't care who operates their service. So long as it gets them from A to B on time and the buses are clean and presentable. Most of the general public don't fall for these gimmicks. Nor do they care what colour the interior of a bus is!

The B5 deckers are pretty rancid to ride, i was on one of the 18 plates when brand new, the whole thing rattles like a bus built 20+ years ago, The materials all feel really cheap. Not to mention the deck between both levels as very flimsy. You can feel it flex as you walk along and you can see it flex from the lower deck! The general build quality on them is shockingly bad! It's a shame as the interior specification on them is pretty good.

As for the B8RLEs, if you're going to whine about colour schemes, they look dreadful, who thought that awful green and dull grey go together. Not to mention the facelifted Eclipse 3 bodywork makes them look like glorified frogs!

Lothian should stick to running buses in Edinburgh rather than wasting their money on pointless vanity projects.

The decker boys keep moaning about them because the voith ones there used too pull away in a better/quicker fashion than the ZF Londoners, once on the move the ZFs do the job pretty well though, the 10.6m londoners have better turning circle though which bodes well for a busy city.

Wrights design is one thing that makes them stand out, akin to an old tram.

The pre-facelift is still available according to Wrights on the b8 chassis.

Delaine buses new one looks well...

 

[Jordan Adam]

View attachment 53075
The decker boys keep moaning about them because the voith ones there used too pull away in a better/quicker fashion than the ZF Londoners, once on the move the ZFs do the job pretty well though, the 10.6m londoners have better turning circle though which bodes well for a busy city.

Wrights design is one thing that makes them stand out, akin to an old tram.

The pre-facelift is still available according to Wrights on the b8 chassis.

Delaine buses new one looks well...

The Delaine examples look far superior to those at ECB, but it still doesn't hide the fact that the build quality at Wrightbus currently is dreadful and the facelifted Eclipse 3 in general is quite ugly and outdated. It's like if ADL took the old Pointer body, but new fibreglass moulds on either end and said it was a brand new bus!

 

[Gingerbus1991]

I'd agree, up till 5 or so years ago they were great with refurbs, 10 2011 plate Panthers here were fully refurbished at the start of the year. But most of the midlife fleet retain the original seat fabrics and some of the Plaxton Profile coaches are in the exact condition they came from the factory both inside and out (up to 14 years ago). In addition to this the Enviro400s are plagued with water staining along the sides under the window pillars (as shown below). Many passengers have repeated complained to Stagecoach about the use of the Enviro400s on longer services, along with the appalling overall condition of them. A number of them have badly slipping gearboxes and struggle to pass 25MPH!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/busmanscotland/38612584830/

Is the water staining not down to these have gasket window?

 

[Jordan Adam]

Is the water staining not down to these have gasket window?

It is in part, it's also down to them not being repainted in quite some time. You can see in that photo that pretty much every panel is bashed or had a temporary quick repair.

 

[Mwanesh]

I am trying to make a point, if First were to ever pull out of livingston I’d highly think that passengers would prefer to travel in the lothian bus as opposed to the first one, the interior alone makes lcb refurbs feel far more inviting, simply look at east coast ops, the B8RLE and lately B5 deckers look the part and feel it too both inside and out.

Look across the whole country and you soon realise that first and stagecoach(well, in scotland anyways) are lagging with a country wide corporate livery thats just normal and doesnt feel special and one that is associated with poor reliability, late running and overpriced services.

I think many of us got off point from the topic...

Its not a given that buses would be better if operated from local authorities though, but deregulation across scotland has ruined services as a whole and actually pushed fares up, competition doesnt always drive fares south which leads to individual companys not gaining passenger numbers, ergo revenues decrease, the result is fares being increased to compensate, it isnt always to do with the cost of diesel.

Im all for re-regulation by the scottish government, or more particularly Jeremy Corbin’s views that private firms are out for profit alone.

One thing you forget in all this is nowadays some one makes a decision that affects operators.Before 1986 you could run a bus for a lifetime not anymore.We had DDA acts who bears the brunt the operator.If you look closely the municipalities who own bus companies are not for clean air zones reason, they will have to fund new buses .Edinburgh is the capital that makes a difference.