Vocal Voices

He now wants to give Britain's larger cities the same bus services as found in London, including an Oyster card.

Well thank you, Edward, but I would like to pass on that one - as with so many other of your ideas. Up here I can get a Metro card. It costs a fraction of an Oyster and I can use it on buses and trains in W. Yorkshire. Our buses are, in the main, modern, clean and run frequently. The last thing we need is a 'London' type service.

If he really wants to help, bus wise, he should be looking at services outside of the cities, and how more could be done to provide services from villages and small towns to the larger towns and cities.

I can travel for free after 9.30 a.m on the buses and trains in the Greater Manchester area.We recently went to Bolton on the train and have been to Manchester several times again on the train.
There would be a big outcry if the free pass was removed.

.... and how more could be done to provide services from villages and small towns to the larger towns and cities.

The only way this can be achieved is by reinstating public subsidies, I'm afraid. Commercially, such routes are simply unviable - Whittles, for example, who operate services in and around Kidderminster, has been put up for sale by parent company East Yorkshire Motor Services because it is just a huge loss-maker, especially since Worcester County Council have slashed subsidies. The result will probably be no buyers, Whittles will close, and Rotala, a low-cost operation already in Kiddy who succeeded First Bus, (a national company akin to Stagecoach and Arriva, who saw the writing on the wall and pulled out a couple of years back) will cherry-pick the best of the town routes, and rural services will no doubt go.

With at least two more years of spending cuts on the horizon, I'd expect to see further rural services withdrawn nationwide. Car is king in the countryside these days .....

the bus service? in UK is a joke

i have been trying online to find out about bus service from Bromsgrove rail station to another part of Bromsgrove

Tried Bromsgrove bus station -unmanned.
tried rail station for info -also unmanned
tried tourist info in Bromsgrove -closed down
tried tourist info in Redditch-sorry don't know much about services in Bromsgrove

give up in frustration

One good thing about Gloucester is that the bus services are excellent. I live just off of the main bus route from G to Cheltenham, it runs every ten minutes between the two and I have never waited more than ten minutes for one, apart from the time there were huge disruptive road works at the Walls roundabout A £5 daily pass gets me to Cheltenham and back and I can use either 'my' bus or any other between the two towns Becky can go anywhere in the area for £1.10 with her student pass

They can keep their Oyster

Milliband is a liability and will cost Labour votes at the next election I rather like Alan Johnson.............

victor wrote:the bus service? in UK is a joke

i have been trying online to find out about bus service from Bromsgrove rail station to another part of Bromsgrove

Tried Bromsgrove bus station -unmanned.
tried rail station for info -also unmanned
tried tourist info in Bromsgrove -closed down
tried tourist info in Redditch-sorry don't know much about services in Bromsgrove

give up in frustration

I was interested in your post, Vic, not least because I've been hatching plans for some time to visit Bromsgrove Sporting FC (which is pretty close to the town centre), using rail to Bromsgrove from Birmingham.

So just been onto the Worcestershire CC website, which used to be quite comprehensive for local transport and easy to use. Now, however, you are directed straight to a search engine, which demands you input the route (if you know it - I don't), your starting point and your destination. Bromsgrove to Bromsgrove doesn't work! Can't get any more refined than that without knowing postcodes!

So, went onto Google Maps, closed in on the station, clicked on a bus stop symbol, and got the routes as a pop-up, admittedly out of date, but a start. Realised the principle local operator is Diamond (aka Rotala, see my post above re Kiddy). Went on their website, looked at the principle route timetable between town and station, and it's basically hourly (Google Directions does indicate the combined service of all routes is at 20 minute intervals, but I don't know how reliable that is), and it goes all round the houses to get there anyway.

To be honest, I'd be quicker walking (it's about 1.5 miles).

The local buses are pretty good around here (it's just the passengers that are a bit dodgy ) We have a bus every 20 minutes that runs along the main road through the village and goes through to Walsall. Arriva have just introduced new buses onto that route - Joe says they're brilliant as the seats are heated and you can charge your phone which is something you need on the 5 minute journey to and from school They took off the bus that went straight into Birmingham though which was annoying, I think the problem with that service was that it's route was along the M6 and it was frequently stuck in traffic. The removal of that service came in the same month that London Midland withdrew one of trains per hour leaving us with an hourly service rather than one every 30 minutes. We're due to lose that for a time next year too as the track needs lowering in places for electrification of the line to take place. Once that's completed we're promised faster and more frequent trains. We'll see.

I do think the buses are expensive though. For the five minute journey down to the town centre it would cost me £2.20. We can get a local day saver ticket for £4.20 which would save 20p for the return journey but for a total of 10 minutes it's a lot to pay. The boys use the buses to and from school and thankfully the county council supply passes for 11-20 year olds and they just have to pay £1 per journey as long as it starts or ends in the county.

The local buses are pretty good around here ...

Well, that's Arriva, Jo, isn't it? Owned by the German company DB (Deutsche Bahn i.e the federal German railways).

I hope your new buses out there at Cannock are better than the new Arriva double-deckers they've introduced between Tamworth and Birmingham. which I've used on a couple of occasions around Sutton Coldfield. They are marketed as "Sapphire" and said to be the next best thing since sliced bread according to the blurb.

Well, the mock leather seats are uncomfortable for any length of journey, and the (GPS conrolled?) on-board automated "next bus stop announcements" were consistently incorrect on the first one I travelled on.

One announcement was "the next stop is Bedford Road Road"
On the second bus I went on, they'd switched them off!

Still, at least they were in proper English and not in a heavy Black Country accent like the new buses on route 1 Wolverhampton to Dudley:
"The next stup is Wulvramptun Rode, Foightin' Cocksh"

Single journeys here on Birmingham buses (NXWM) are £2.10 (short hops £1.80), and all day anywhere tickets £4.00, so not hugely different from yours.

(it's just the passengers that are a bit dodgy )

Tell Joe you only get heated seats here in Brum if someone's set fire to the bus!!

I think the problem with the Rugeley train service north of Walsall is that Staffordshire and the local Councils withdrew a lot of funding for it, hence the reduction in service, which I reckon was pretty short-sighted of them, and I hope once electrification is completed, you'll get your basic 30 minute service restored. But I'm not sure of the time-scale for your electrification - I guess they'll aim to finish working on the section from Barnt Green down to Bromsgrove first (Cross City line extension), and that isn't due for completion until Summer 2016 .....

quite agree Ostrich,that Worcs council site ref buses is a nightmare

we will use rail from Worcs to Bromsgrove and then taxi to address we want


how are you supposed to know the name of stops when you don't live in the area--and all these unmanned bus/rail REALLY help when you want info

Our buses are Stagecoach - never seen John Wayne riding shotgun though The passengers can be dodgy, like Jo said lol, but the buses on my route are Gold buses which are much nicer than the majority of them, with good padded seats, cctv, air con and heating etc. It's only my route, the number 10, and the 94 that has these buses and both those routes go between Gloucester and (much posher) Cheltenham so I reckon that's why