Could any one tell me about the service in this picture
Seen here in Poole
www.flickr.com
I have looked at website archive and a wiki list of past yellow buses routes but can only find a 19 school bus to Lychett Matravers see
- 19: Creekmoor - Lytchett Minster School via Upton Country Park & Upton Cross Roads.
Route was taken over from Wilts and Dorset (route 719) in September 2008 and withdrawn at the of the 2011 Summer Term. This service was operated by Your Bus.
But I don't think the above photo is a school bus nor of this service as it is also not a Your bus vehicle.
Many thanks
19 was a late 2013 introduction to replace part of the 27 (Castlepoint - Poole) service which was withdrawn at the same time. Think it was a start of November change. The 19 ensured retention of a unique section of service which did carry some passengers and was worked by the vehicles off the 20 service, hence why a small Enviro 200 is in the photograph.
The April 2015 changes saw the withdrawal of the route and it's replacement with the 26A - the then MD wanted to increase the frequency of the 26 and add a 4th bus to the PVR. Overall a vehicle neutral increase but a relatively sound idea. It is also very possible the then head of network development fundamentally disagreed with the changes (as did his senior scheduler...!) I was monitoring the revenue and loadings from the ticket machine data at the time and the extension didn't work in the slightest. In 2016 the company elected to extend the route to Southbourne and install a 5th bus to the PVR as some sort of poke against Go South Coast. If the route wasn't making money with 4 PVR, how on earth would adding a 5th help it make money? I can see how it costs more to operate the service though....
In the 'second' change of 2017 (after my return, unhelpfully too late to do anything about the complete screw up that was the January 2017 network changes) the 5th bus was removed from the PVR and 26/26A reverted to 4 buses - which due to the length of route couldn't be operated reliably. Only after the arrival of David Squire did something get done with the route.
It was one of the many issues Yellow Buses had - people who just wouldn't listen and people who couldn't tell others 'no' being placed in charge of things at a critical stage of the company's development. This, along with the schedules parameters which hadn't ever altered since council ownership (again, too hard to negotiate changes and have those difficult decisions). If your competitor can operate it's buses and drivers longer than yours and you cannot how do you respond to their expansions of service, without incurring significant headcount?! Small wonder my boss left, and his replacement helped accelerate the slide into oblivion, by which time the fire was raging out of control. I shall never understand how something goes from being semi properly run to utter chaos in 13 months - but if you allow key people to depart a business and hire useless ones in their place you're then playing catch up. And the final management, whilst good, ran out of time.
