TfGM Bus franchising

[Xenophon PCDGS]

We all know that the car offers ultimate flexibility (if you have one). This is a fundamental - what should the bus actually be for?

I am aware that a certain bus company in Greater Manchester was recently involved in a sizeable period of strike action until matters were resolved and it is at times like this when prospective travellers to work, hospital and visits to NHS clinics and doctors surgeries who have suffered from the associated disruption to their lives might well as the question you show above....what should the bus actually be for?

God help the car drivers of the future when AI has developed to the stage when cars with so much AI have begun to to take on human-type aspirations and elect certain of their number to act on their behalf and whole fleets of models began to ignore their owners and will not operate until matters such as garaging against the worst of the weather protects their bodywork and only the most reliable source of electricity for battery charging is guaranteed......

 

[Howardh]

I am aware that a certain bus company in Greater Manchester was recently involved in a sizeable period of strike action until matters were resolved and it is at times like this when prospective travellers to work, hospital and visits to NHS clinics and doctors surgeries who have suffered from the associated disruption to their lives might well as the question you show above....what should the bus actually be for?

And of course we had the situation in the early 2000's of the tanker drivers' strike when cars were brought to a virtual standstill yet as far as I know buses carried on running!

 

[johncrossley]

the Bee Network Oblast

If this is what you call a bus system where the buses are provided exclusively by private companies, what do you call the state owned and run municipal operations that exist in most big cities in the developed world?

 

[GusB]

Okay folks, we're getting off-topic. Let's stick to discussing Bee Network matters. Anything else is of no relevance to this thread and should be discussed elsewhere.

Thanks

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If this is what you call a bus system where the buses are provided exclusively by private companies, what do you call the state owned and run municipal operations that exist in most big cities in the developed world?

No, it is what I call the "power on the throne" that has full charge of handing out franchises. That is specific to the Bee Network discussions on this thread.

 

[johncrossley]

No, it is what I call the "power on the throne" that has full charge of handing out franchises. That is specific to the Bee Network discussions on this thread.

Obviously bus tendering is right-wing ideology, despite Burnham et al trying to spin this as a victory for socialism.

 

[MasterSpenny]

I wasn’t sure wether to post this here of the fleet updates thread, but is it a government rule now or are the fuel stickers just another ‘rip off’ of London buses?

https://x.com/BenGleeson5/status/1705840201338110089?s=20

Here’s
@Buses2012
arriving and leaving Manchester on the first 36 to and from Bolton.

 

[WibbleWobble]

I thought a solution would be the 576 routed via Lostock. Clearly buses can't use the bridge so that's annoying! The area might be "wealthy" but if the way forward is to get people out of their cars then a slight diversion might mean some would use the bus?

Although Middlebrook (Horwich Parkway) is equally badly served, the 574 used to terminus around that station, and neither that nor Blackrod are central to Horwich.

I think the only approach to serving the north side of the station would be to run either via Lostock Junction Lane and Regent Road, or via Beaumont Road, Glengarth Drive and Regent Road. It would probably be better with a small bus rather than diverting the big-bus 575 or 576.

What would probably be needed is a reform of the 573/574 away from its current "one route that replaces many" format, and have a route to/from Middlebrook akin to the pre-reform 574 (i.e. Bolton - Markland Hill - Middlebrook), which could nip down into Lostock as a quick detour. The thing is, the current 573/574 does something with two buses that would have previously been done with at least double:
- 505/574 which would have requires one bus for hourly, or two for half hourly
- 570 to Morris Green was one bus, but every 30 minutes (but a bit tight)
- 520 to Sutton Estate was one bus, hourly
- 515 to Ladybridge was one bus, but every 30 minutes
- Plus Morris Green once has the 12 (then the unholy mess that came later!)

 

[johncrossley]

Surprised to see so much national coverage of the Bee Network, for example on BBC One national news earlier this evening. I watched Politics North West on iPlayer and even the Conservative guest seemed pretty sure that bus deregulation didn't work in Greater Manchester, although he thought it worked in some places. The impression I got from the report was that there is broad cross-party support for franchising in that region.

 

[Donny85]

Having got home from a day of using the Bee Network in the Wigan area (with a detour to St. Helens), it doesn’t seem to be going too well on the first day, in Wigan at least.

• 8 Wigan to Leigh - arrived 10 minutes late, ticket machine not working.

• 10 Leigh to Wigan - 1hr 30 before a bus turned up. Destination display and ticket machine not working. Credit to the driver for stopping at every stop with someone waiting to see if they wanted our bus. During the 50 minute journey to Wigan not one 10/10A passed us in the opposite direction which suggested a lot were missing.

• 320 Wigan - St. Helens - Wigan - on time both ways with no issues. Ironically my only buses of the day which weren’t part of the Bee Network, instead being Arriva Merseyside.

• 9 Wigan to Leigh - was showing running 35 minutes late on the screen in the bus station.

• 8 Leigh to Wigan - two buses failed to show up, ticket machine not working when one did.

Other observations

• New Bee Network app - buses unfortunately aren't real-time so they just disappear off has if they’ve been and gone. A travel alerts section would also be useful.

• TFGM website - the travel alerts section didn’t display any issues in the Wigan area (that I could find) all day.

This isn’t me Bee Network bashing. Today I was purely travelling for the experience of the first day and just thought I’d share the experience. I am however a bit reluctant to rely on it tomorrow like I’d planned because I need to make a train.

Hopefully things settle down in the next few days.

 

[Alexbus12]

Having got home from a day of using the Bee Network in the Wigan area (with a detour to St. Helens), it doesn’t seem to be going too well on the first day, in Wigan at least.

• 8 Wigan to Leigh - arrived 10 minutes late, ticket machine not working.

• 10 Leigh to Wigan - 1hr 30 before a bus turned up. Destination display and ticket machine not working. Credit to the driver for stopping at every stop with someone waiting to see if they wanted our bus. During the 50 minute journey to Wigan not one 10/10A passed us in the opposite direction which suggested a lot were missing.

• 320 Wigan - St. Helens - Wigan - on time both ways with no issues. Ironically my only buses of the day which weren’t part of the Bee Network, instead being Arriva Merseyside.

• 9 Wigan to Leigh - was showing running 35 minutes late on the screen in the bus station.

• 8 Leigh to Wigan - two buses failed to show up, ticket machine not working when one did.

Other observations

• New Bee Network app - buses unfortunately aren't real-time so they just disappear off has if they’ve been and gone. A travel alerts section would also be useful.

• TFGM website - the travel alerts section didn’t display any issues in the Wigan area (that I could find) all day.

This isn’t me Bee Network bashing. Today I was purely travelling for the experience of the first day and just thought I’d share the experience. I am however a bit reluctant to rely on it tomorrow like I’d planned because I need to make a train.

Hopefully things settle down in the next few days.

At least the first bus arrived on time and were clean for Burnhams photo op…

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Other observations

• New Bee Network app - buses unfortunately aren't real-time so they just disappear off has if they’ve been and gone.

I think nothing will reach the level of bustimes.org without using all of the same data

 

[MasterSpenny]

Having got home from a day of using the Bee Network in the Wigan area (with a detour to St. Helens), it doesn’t seem to be going too well on the first day, in Wigan at least.

• 8 Wigan to Leigh - arrived 10 minutes late, ticket machine not working.

• 10 Leigh to Wigan - 1hr 30 before a bus turned up. Destination display and ticket machine not working. Credit to the driver for stopping at every stop with someone waiting to see if they wanted our bus. During the 50 minute journey to Wigan not one 10/10A passed us in the opposite direction which suggested a lot were missing.

• 320 Wigan - St. Helens - Wigan - on time both ways with no issues. Ironically my only buses of the day which weren’t part of the Bee Network, instead being Arriva Merseyside.

• 9 Wigan to Leigh - was showing running 35 minutes late on the screen in the bus station.

• 8 Leigh to Wigan - two buses failed to show up, ticket machine not working when one did.

Other observations

• New Bee Network app - buses unfortunately aren't real-time so they just disappear off has if they’ve been and gone. A travel alerts section would also be useful.

• TFGM website - the travel alerts section didn’t display any issues in the Wigan area (that I could find) all day.

This isn’t me Bee Network bashing. Today I was purely travelling for the experience of the first day and just thought I’d share the experience. I am however a bit reluctant to rely on it tomorrow like I’d planned because I need to make a train.

Hopefully things settle down in the next few days.

It certainly does needs to be 10x better. I could go into great detail about why, but I would say that the amount of broken ticket machines and delays sum it all up in a nutshell.

 

[Howardh]

Having got home from a day of using the Bee Network in the Wigan area (with a detour to St. Helens), it doesn’t seem to be going too well on the first day, in Wigan at least.

• 8 Wigan to Leigh - arrived 10 minutes late, ticket machine not working.

• 10 Leigh to Wigan - 1hr 30 before a bus turned up. Destination display and ticket machine not working. Credit to the driver for stopping at every stop with someone waiting to see if they wanted our bus. During the 50 minute journey to Wigan not one 10/10A passed us in the opposite direction which suggested a lot were missing.

• 320 Wigan - St. Helens - Wigan - on time both ways with no issues. Ironically my only buses of the day which weren’t part of the Bee Network, instead being Arriva Merseyside.

• 9 Wigan to Leigh - was showing running 35 minutes late on the screen in the bus station.

• 8 Leigh to Wigan - two buses failed to show up, ticket machine not working when one did.

Other observations

• New Bee Network app - buses unfortunately aren't real-time so they just disappear off has if they’ve been and gone. A travel alerts section would also be useful.

• TFGM website - the travel alerts section didn’t display any issues in the Wigan area (that I could find) all day.

This isn’t me Bee Network bashing. Today I was purely travelling for the experience of the first day and just thought I’d share the experience. I am however a bit reluctant to rely on it tomorrow like I’d planned because I need to make a train.

Hopefully things settle down in the next few days.

Until the beenetwork app is functioning properly, with live maps of the buses en-route, I'll be keeping to bustimes.org.

 

[TheSmiths82]

I tried to use the app yesterday for two none Bee Network buses. Showed my bus was due in 3 minutes so decided to chance it rather than get the tram and save 80p. Sadly it kept jumping between 3-6 minutes before disappearing off the live feed on the app. The bus never turned up and I got the tram. The data on the app seemed to work perfectly for the real tram times.

On the way home I used the app again to see if my night bus was on time, nothing was showing on the app. Thankfully bustimes.org showed my bus was four minutes away and it did turn up on time.

If the real time bus data is not working on the app they should just disable it until it works properly. False data is worse than no data.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Surprised to see so much national coverage of the Bee Network, for example on BBC One national news earlier this evening. I watched Politics North West on iPlayer and even the Conservative guest seemed pretty sure that bus deregulation didn't work in Greater Manchester, although he thought it worked in some places. The impression I got from the report was that there is broad cross-party support for franchising in that region.

I wonder if todays hiccups will be given the same network coverage tomorrow?

 

[158756]

I notice in among the changes with the start of the Bee Network the Guided Busway is going back to something like it's pre-Covid service level.

But why when the full off peak service to Atherton is being reintroduced are they not improving the peak service there? It seems strange when First retained Atherton services at peak times only that off peak is now going from nothing to every 15 minutes but peak services stay at roughly 30 minute intervals? Compared to the pre-Covid timetable they seem to have diverted half the peak time Atherton buses to Leigh.

 

[Howardh]

First working day, my bus the 573 into town is....20 mins late. If that's a regular thing at this time of day then the timetable needs rejigging. Also clicked on the 575/6 en route and every one is running late, 6, 10 and 14 mins. Probably no different than before, never used buses at this time, but interesting.

 

[andrewbowden]

First working day, my bus the 573 into town is....20 mins late. If that's a regular thing at this time of day then the timetable needs rejigging. Also clicked on the 575/6 en route and every one is running late, 6, 10 and 14 mins. Probably no different than before, never used buses at this time, but interesting.

This morning the traffic in the town I live (not on the Bee Network) in was pretty static. Nothing moving. Buses apparently delayed by about 25 minutes according to Twitter. No obvious reason for it that I could say. And certainly not normal. Just congestion.

Sometimes there's just problems that happen on a day. They don't necessarily mean there's a timetable problem. It's not necessarily a sign that anything is wrong with the operator (whoever it is). It's what happens over time that's important. If they are a regular occurrence. It's unfortunate that delays happened on the first day of the Bee Network. But sometimes these things happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's unfortunate that delays happened on the first day of the Bee Network. But sometimes these things happen.

Even if it is a flaw, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. The first Monday of a new railway timetable is usually a bit of a mess (the Sunday introduction day usually being a "soft start" but not really doing anything challenging). Things tend to settle down, or if they don't changes can be made.

"Give them chance" is the message I think I'd want to see here.

 

[Howardh]

This morning the traffic in the town I live (not on the Bee Network) in was pretty static. Nothing moving. Buses apparently delayed by about 25 minutes according to Twitter. No obvious reason for it that I could say. And certainly not normal. Just congestion.

Sometimes there's just problems that happen on a day. They don't necessarily mean there's a timetable problem. It's not necessarily a sign that anything is wrong with the operator (whoever it is). It's what happens over time that's important. If they are a regular occurrence. It's unfortunate that delays happened on the first day of the Bee Network. But sometimes these things happen.

I agree with that, normal congestion! What's clear from reading Beeline's twitter feed is that their tracker/real time arrivals clearly doesn't work. Users have complaied at standing at stops, "three buses went past" according to the app but none did. That's clearly in Beeline's ift to drop the app's functions until they get it right, and direct to bustimes in the meantime.

I've to catch a bus to town for the train to the airport in an hour....
EDIT that 573 that was running late is now on time, but I think they put a different bus/driver on so they set off on time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree with that, normal congestion! What's clear from reading Beeline's twitter feed is that their tracker/real time arrivals clearly doesn't work. Users have complaied at standing at stops, "three buses went past" according to the app but none did. That's clearly in Beeline's ift to drop the app's functions until they get it right, and direct to bustimes in the meantime.

I don't think TfGM can really direct people to a (very good to be fair) enthusiast-run website, but if their tracking isn't actually tracking then they should indeed turn it off until fixed.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Surprised to see so much national coverage of the Bee Network, for example on BBC One national news earlier this evening. I watched Politics North West on iPlayer and even the Conservative guest seemed pretty sure that bus deregulation didn't work in Greater Manchester, although he thought it worked in some places. The impression I got from the report was that there is broad cross-party support for franchising in that region.

Surprised that you're surprised. BBC News is based in MediaCity in Salford now and it's a fairly big shift in any case with the industry.

As for consensus from politicians, not certain what you'd expect? People will naturally be looking to be positive, and whilst I have my concerns, I too want it to succeed.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

But why when the full off peak service to Atherton is being reintroduced are they not improving the peak service there? It seems strange when First retained Atherton services at peak times only that off peak is now going from nothing to every 15 minutes but peak services stay at roughly 30 minute intervals? Compared to the pre-Covid timetable they seem to have diverted half the peak time Atherton buses to Leigh.

Probably same reason First cut the V2 back so much recently, it's just not as valuable as the V1.
Atherton has the train, Leigh doesn't.

People will naturally be looking to be positive, and whilst I have my concerns, I too want it to succeed.

I think that's the general consensus in most places, more service, better vehicles and more passenger focussed.
I look forwards to seeing how things change.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Probably same reason First cut the V2 back so much recently, it's just not as valuable as the V1.
Atherton has the train, Leigh doesn't.

It would be interesting to know if the reduced rubbishness of the railway (i.e. the end of Pacers in favour of sometimes 158s which are quite pleasant) has led to people switching from the bus to the train. It might well have done.

I suspect a big improvement to the railway, i.e. either 25kV electrification and 4tph or Metrolink, would kill that bus service off entirely.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I suspect a big improvement to the railway, i.e. either 25kV electrification and 4tph or Metrolink, would kill that bus service off entirely.

What would you then put in its place to serve all the intermediate bus stops that are conveniently situated for the residents on the bus route?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

What would you then put in its place to serve all the intermediate bus stops that are conveniently situated for the residents on the bus route?

That was my thought though few stops between Atherton and Tyldesley. However, there are several destinations to provide a link to and should also be mentioned that Atherton station is rather peripherally located.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What would you then put in its place to serve all the intermediate bus stops that are conveniently situated for the residents on the bus route?

What the Germans would - a local small-bus circular route operating frequently to take people to/from the railway station, or perhaps also to interchange with the other Vantage route for those further south in the area, rather than a premium double decker all the way in.

We'll certainly see more of this for Metrolink now both bus and Metrolink are under the same control.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

What the Germans would - a local small-bus circular route operating frequently to take people to/from the railway station, or perhaps also to interchange with the other Vantage route for those further south in the area, rather than a premium double decker all the way in.

We'll certainly see more of this for Metrolink now both bus and Metrolink are under the same control.

So like doubling the 583 service, or bringing back something more like the 682 that goes to Tyldesley instead of Leigh?

 

[Bletchleyite]

So like doubling the 583 service, or bringing back something more like the 682 that goes to Tyldesley instead of Leigh?

TBH I don't know the area well enough to know exactly what route would work best, but I do see that concept making a resurgence, given that significantly improving rail does tend to kill long distance bus routes into cities (as has happened with the Eccles trams despite them being rather slow and somewhat expensive).