St Helens Area Bus Network Changes - April 2023

[iMarkeh]

RE: St Helens Area Bus Network Changes - April 2023

(14/03/2023 16:22)Valandil Wrote:  Just to be sure I'm following, are you referring to the Arriva route 61 which they took over when Halton Transport went bust?

Yes, the Arriva Halton 61 (not the Bootle 61). Merseytravel put out the timetable to be hourly using 4 buses and it was a right mess from day 1, they then had to put another bus out on the route and rather than just retime the trips which needed the extra time (those generally between 7am and 6pm), they were extremely lazy and retimed all journeys so that now services have extortionate amount of time and end up sitting around at most timing points for at least a couple of minutes. I work out that the first 2 trips from Huyton and first 2 trips from Runcorn could take easily 10 minutes off the journey, upto even 15-20 minutes. Giving stupid times like 10 minutes from Halton Hosp to St Chads School. In the early morning, that can be done in less than 5 minutes. Plenty of sitting around at Rainhill Stoops as well. It's endless. Someone has either been extremely lazy and just said 'all buses will take x minutes between these points' or someone has been told to justify the existence of the extra bus so vastly increase the running time. Journey times which are this much longer than they have to be discourage passengers.

(14/03/2023 16:24)St Helens Rider Wrote:  Commercial operators can sometimes produce some not very useful timetables themselves. For example, services 32 & 35 from St Helens Hospital towards St Helens Town Centre run within minutes of each other and have done for years. I'm sure if researched, there are more than likely other examples.

That I do not dispute. Arriva and Stagecoach can be just as bad at times. The difference is that the commercial operators are putting their own money on the line there, not taxpayers money. They are also not calling for a publicly ran bus network where their same incompetent schedulers would be given significant additional work. Merseytravel on the other hand! Their staff are clearly too stupid to undertake their current simple task of creating schedules, yet they want more control of the bus network!