Having read that the Welsh government was trying to get services back to normal I decided to make my first, bus related, visit into Wales since March. Being fairly local and having a Welsh wife this was an unusually long absence. What I didn't realise was that, even after the Welsh government finally agreed to fund some bus services, it had not all kicked in yet.
Swansea appear to be about 70% of what I'd expect with First having it's (recently acquired) double deck fleet out as much as possible. And (from a Bristol perspective) it felt odd having so many Darts still in service.
Cardiff continues with it's master plan to banish bus services completely with a major road closed and massive disturbance to the bus services that were using it (however a large part of it is given over to a cycle road that could have accommodated the bus services). Perhaps having the local bus operator owned by the local authority that decided to close the road meant that there where few objections! It felt like less than 50% of services were operating here.
Lots of the bus stops in Cardiff have 'next bus' boards all of which suggested looking at a website to find out what was going on. Perhaps at some point in the future it might be possible to link these electronic devices via some sort of radio/electromagmatic wave system (yet to be devised) to a central store of timetable information (perhaps stored on electronic equipment instead of paper) whereby the board can broadcast information about the bus service itself. However this might encourage people to use the buses, so it'll never catch on and I realise all of this is the kind of thing that programs like 'Tomorrow's World' refers to but never gets delivered. It's nice to see so much money spent on hardware without the commitment to actually make it useful to people.
I believe Newport is still in lock down, and perhaps I shouldn't have been there! The rail station had plenty of signs about being only for essential users, the 'Stagecoach' part of the bus station was often completely empty and the 'Newport Council' part of the bus station usually had more buses parked up than actually on service. I suspect it would have had more services on a Sunday pre lock down. One bus departed to a new housing estate called 'Fflecsi' with nobody on it, however this is apparently the only place that the Welsh Government is interested in providing services to at the moment!
With all the reduced services everywhere the most surprising part was to find that Stagecoach and Anslow, in their fight for the X24/24X traffic, have decided that it's in every bodies interest that they run a reduced timetable, however they both still leave Newport at the same time and duplicate each other on the route. At least both of the services had passengers on. I later escaped across the bridge (thankfully not being subject to any last minute quarantine changes) to a place which appears to believe in public transport more than a Labour led government. It really is odd finding somewhere that feels that public transport is less important than a far right Conservative government!
Swansea appear to be about 70% of what I'd expect with First having it's (recently acquired) double deck fleet out as much as possible. And (from a Bristol perspective) it felt odd having so many Darts still in service.
Cardiff continues with it's master plan to banish bus services completely with a major road closed and massive disturbance to the bus services that were using it (however a large part of it is given over to a cycle road that could have accommodated the bus services). Perhaps having the local bus operator owned by the local authority that decided to close the road meant that there where few objections! It felt like less than 50% of services were operating here.
Lots of the bus stops in Cardiff have 'next bus' boards all of which suggested looking at a website to find out what was going on. Perhaps at some point in the future it might be possible to link these electronic devices via some sort of radio/electromagmatic wave system (yet to be devised) to a central store of timetable information (perhaps stored on electronic equipment instead of paper) whereby the board can broadcast information about the bus service itself. However this might encourage people to use the buses, so it'll never catch on and I realise all of this is the kind of thing that programs like 'Tomorrow's World' refers to but never gets delivered. It's nice to see so much money spent on hardware without the commitment to actually make it useful to people.
I believe Newport is still in lock down, and perhaps I shouldn't have been there! The rail station had plenty of signs about being only for essential users, the 'Stagecoach' part of the bus station was often completely empty and the 'Newport Council' part of the bus station usually had more buses parked up than actually on service. I suspect it would have had more services on a Sunday pre lock down. One bus departed to a new housing estate called 'Fflecsi' with nobody on it, however this is apparently the only place that the Welsh Government is interested in providing services to at the moment!
With all the reduced services everywhere the most surprising part was to find that Stagecoach and Anslow, in their fight for the X24/24X traffic, have decided that it's in every bodies interest that they run a reduced timetable, however they both still leave Newport at the same time and duplicate each other on the route. At least both of the services had passengers on. I later escaped across the bridge (thankfully not being subject to any last minute quarantine changes) to a place which appears to believe in public transport more than a Labour led government. It really is odd finding somewhere that feels that public transport is less important than a far right Conservative government!
