Here is a report of First SY Bus operations performance for Jan 2007.....

The performance results for First South Yorkshire in January are:-

% Journey starts ‘on time - 89.2%
Operation Reliability - 99.1%
Output Reliability - 99.97%
Journey Reliability (SYPTE) - 98.0%

First South Yorkshire aim to operate our registered services to their published times. Unfortunately traffic and other hazards, such as road works, can cause short-term problems, and the Traffic Commissioner*, therefore, accepts that a bus may be delayed in these circumstances. However, it is accepted that there is no justification for a bus to run early.

The Traffic Commissioner has set a target whereby 95% of services should depart from the timing points within the bracket of up to 1 minute early and up to 5 minutes late.

* The Traffic Commissioners are the regulators of the bus industry and the registrars in their Traffic Areas of all local bus services. They have the powers to take action against operators who fail to run their services in accordance with the registered particulars.

^ PTE statistics for service reliability based on independent monitoring of services. This period is based on 607 observations. The results are identified as the best for any operator within South Yorkshire.

So for those taking a bus to work and one home again five days a week - at least once a week the bus will be extremely late, and once every five weeks or so it'll fail to turn up at all.

That's not what most people consider to be good service.

Yes and for the members on this board can i point out the above is TRUE. and for all those who complain their bus wasnt on time or the services arent reliable your talking ****!
So I suppose I must be imagining that twice in the past few weeks four buses in a row were missing on my service which equated to a 40 minute wait for me, and well over an hours wait for some of the people who got there before me? I must also be imagining having to get to the bus stop 5 minutes early as the bus turns up completely randomly.

When you demonstrate that you actually use all the services then I might believe First are as good as you say. You might also want to consider rephrasing your comments as they do you no favours.

I am pleased that First Sy seem to be more "open" with the public and making this information available.
The one moan I have is if a bus is late can the driver make an apology why he/she is late...... i see no reason why this is not possible when people depend on early buses that leave late. In my case and several others who use this bus route have to be at work for 0600 so this means I rely on the 0530 (85 service from City) and this turned up at 0545 last Saturday . Was it a case of the first bus he tried was faulty and had to find a replacement? did he arrive late? It does not cost much to be polite and offer a reason.

Personally I blame the bus drivers, postman, bin man, chav, councillor, politician, council tennants, workman..........oh and the mods on here :thumbsup:

Here is a report of First SY Bus operations performance for Jan 2007.....

The performance results for First South Yorkshire in January are:-

% Journey starts ‘on time - 89.2%
Operation Reliability - 99.1%
Output Reliability - 99.97%
Journey Reliability (SYPTE) - 98.0%

First South Yorkshire aim to operate our registered services to their published times. Unfortunately traffic and other hazards, such as road works, can cause short-term problems, and the Traffic Commissioner*, therefore, accepts that a bus may be delayed in these circumstances. However, it is accepted that there is no justification for a bus to run early.


The Traffic Commissioner has set a target whereby 95% of services should depart from the timing points within the bracket of up to 1 minute early and up to 5 minutes late.

* The Traffic Commissioners are the regulators of the bus industry and the registrars in their Traffic Areas of all local bus services. They have the powers to take action against operators who fail to run their services in accordance with the registered particulars.

^ PTE statistics for service reliability based on independent monitoring of services. This period is based on 607 observations. The results are identified as the best for any operator within South Yorkshire.

Is there a link to your material cut and pasted from
http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/yorkhumber/southyorkshire/news/?item=1671&show=1 just like this one

Lies, damn lies and statistics :)

However good the reliability figures are, it still doesn't give credence for such a ridiculously overpriced service.

sorry volvo but your quoting those stats like they mean something,
they appear to be taken from "607 observations." which is a bit like the surveys used in make up ads on tv.
I doubt thats even a full days worth of bus jouneys in sheffield, and the bus service is great -compared to no bus service-however for the cost it is lacking a great deal.
but if they want some decent stats then they should give the customers some observance forms and do a decent sized survey. I'm quite sure they could afford it

I am pleased that First Sy seem to be more "open" with the public and making this information available.
The one moan I have is if a bus is late can the driver make an apology why he/she is late...... i see no reason why this is not possible when people depend on early buses that leave late. In my case and several others who use this bus route have to be at work for 0600 so this means I rely on the 0530 (85 service from City) and this turned up at 0545 last Saturday . Was it a case of the first bus he tried was faulty and had to find a replacement? did he arrive late? It does not cost much to be polite and offer a reason.

Its been mentioned on here before that if the driver was to offer an apology to every single passenger, not only would the passenger not believe the reason behind the lateness but also offering the apology would make the bus even later.

Intake this morning it was actually quicker for the bus to NOT use the bus lane as it was full of cars, same for bottom of Granville road.
So blame the law enforcements officers,councillors and car drivers for this.
Or indeed ask them for your apology.

sorry volvo but your quoting those stats like they mean something,
they appear to be taken from "607 observations." which is a bit like the surveys used in make up ads on tv.
I doubt thats even a full days worth of bus jouneys in sheffield, and the bus service is great -compared to no bus service-however for the cost it is lacking a great deal.
but if they want some decent stats then they should give the customers some observance forms and do a decent sized survey. I'm quite sure they could afford it

You could fill out the form whilst waiting in the traffic jams in the bus lanes, or Bus gates behind all the cars, and not forgetting the lights at Glossop road where you can sit for up to 5 mins whilst up to 4 Supertrams glide past and your lights are still on red.

Yes and for the members on this board can i point out the above is TRUE. and for all those who complain their bus wasnt on time or the services arent reliable your talking ****!

only 1 in 10 buses are late and that will be due to rush hour traffic or other delays eg car breakdowns and not actually the buses error.

So well done first and hopefully these figures may make the pricks on this forum keep quiet in future when complaining about bus services!

So why did the 57 from stocksbridge to town at 1930 hours on saturday never turn up.
You saying all them people left stradded are lying and taking the ****!

I think not.

I don't have confidence in the sample size, at all.

I shall be bringing that up, at a meeting next week, of a bus-users group I am a member of.

I wonder if it's a bit like the railways, that anything under 20 mins/ half an hour late isn't classed as "late" for the statistics....?

So why did the 57 from stocksbridge to town at 1930 hours on saturday never turn up.
You saying all them people left stradded are lying and taking the ****!

I think not.

Never???? funny that because it always runs when I drive it

Its been mentioned on here before that if the driver was to offer an apology to every single passenger, not only would the passenger not believe the reason behind the lateness but also offering the apology would make the bus even later.

Intake this morning it was actually quicker for the bus to NOT use the bus lane as it was full of cars, same for bottom of Granville road.
So blame the law enforcements officers,councillors and car drivers for this.
Or indeed ask them for your apology.


Too right,and why should the driver apologise for something thats not his fault

So why did the 57 from stocksbridge to town at 1930 hours on saturday never turn up.
You saying all them people left stradded are lying and taking the ****!

I think not.

I was going to ask if the 57/58 weren't included in those statistics as they seem to go missing on a regular basis!

I was going to ask if the 57/58 weren't included in those statistics as they seem to go missing on a regular basis!

Given that it's based on a sample size of 607, they could pretty easily have only surveyed buses that they knew were going to be almost always on time.

well that you have just said is wrong!

99% reliability - sounds good if you ask me - have you ever thought the 1% may count for road closures or bad weather ect yet again out of the bus operators control.

No from them facts it does not say one bus every week will be extreamly late. Like i say more buses around 9:00ish run late which more than likley counts for that 10% of late buses and yet again due to the ammount of cars on the road.

START using buses - more will run - and more will run on time

though if you ask me we have a great bus service.

Data is only as good as who collated the data. I get the 69 from Rotherham to Sheffield.

It is often late sometimes does not turn up at all I know traffic can be bad but when you see two heading past the bus stop into Rotherham (and I'm 5 mins away from Rotherham). Then they dissappear. (It cannot be traffic).

I have spoken to a few people as well and the (what my mate calls the chav express) X78 has dissappeared on a number of occasions before now.

Yes I agree it is a good bus service but there are problems and these need to be addressed as well.:|

well that you have just said is wrong!

99% reliability - sounds good if you ask me - have you ever thought the 1% may count for road closures or bad weather ect yet again out of the bus operators control.

No from them facts it does not say one bus every week will be extreamly late. Like i say more buses around 9:00ish run late which more than likley counts for that 10% of late buses and yet again due to the ammount of cars on the road.

START using buses - more will run - and more will run on time

though if you ask me we have a great bus service.


The bus sevice on the whole is not bad but the fares are a complete rip off and thats why I use my car, and will continue to do so. It also takes me 15 max to get to where if I waited for buses it can take a minimum of 40

Lies, damn lies and statistics :)

However good the reliability figures are, it still doesn't give credence for such a ridiculously overpriced service.

True, and in my experience, on the 30 bus route, the bus runs early, then waits at a bus stop further along the route to make up time.

The result is that people are waiting at bus stops for a bus, which went through five or ten minutes earlier.

well that you have just said is wrong!

99% reliability - sounds good if you ask me - have you ever thought the 1% may count for road closures or bad weather ect yet again out of the bus operators control.

No from them facts it does not say one bus every week will be extreamly late. Like i say more buses around 9:00ish run late which more than likley counts for that 10% of late buses and yet again due to the ammount of cars on the road.

START using buses - more will run - and more will run on time

though if you ask me we have a great bus service.


more trams i say, better for the enviroment, cheaper, and a better ride. i use to catch the x78 to work, supposed to be ever 10 minutes, more like every 20 minutes. so i really dont believe these figures 1 bit

I heard sometime ago on this forum that many of First's busses in SY have GPS tracking. Once all of them have GPS, and they are linked to information points at bus stops (which I also heard on here was going to happen) then there will be no requirement for samples, as the actual numbers would become available for each and every service.

I too see problems with the sample size. The amount of time it takes a bus to do it's full service changes during the day, as the average traffic levels peak and trough. Also effecting journey times is the weather, the time of year, whether the schools are on holiday or not. This means the samples should have also ranged across the month of January, and the time of day.

600ish samples implies 20 ish samples per day. This is to cover the 100-200 services that First run in south yorkshire.

There is no way this sample can be representative of the population. The statistics are completely worthless. The sample could be representative of a smaller population of bus journeys, those sampled, and may be a useful measure if the same journeys are sampled each month, allowing a trend to be observed, which would at least indicate something of First's performance, probably only in the crude terms of "better" or "worse"

I think its a good bus service that first run, i just HATE the hugely inflated prices that they charge for it!

<snippitty-snip>600ish samples implies 20 ish samples per day. This is to cover the 100-200 services that First run in south yorkshire.

There is no way this sample can be representative of the population. The statistics are completely worthless. The sample could be representative of a smaller population of bus journeys, those sampled, and may be a useful measure if the same journeys are sampled each month, allowing a trend to be observed, which would at least indicate something of First's performance, probably only in the crude terms of "better" or "worse"

I totally agree with you on that, Richard... ther's no way we can extrapolate anything like true performance statistics from a sample so small.

So well done first and hopefully these figures may make the pricks on this forum keep quiet in future when complaining about bus services!

If this is how you speak to your passengers the poor reputation of First's drivers
seems very well deserved. :rolleyes:

True, and in my experience, on the 30 bus route, the bus runs early, then waits at a bus stop further along the route to make up time.

The result is that people are waiting at bus stops for a bus, which went through five or ten minutes earlier.

That will be what is called in the industry a timing point,all other stops are just estimated times of arrival which the driver has no information about on his/her running board.