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Why do buses have Timetables if they aren't going to stick to them?

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We have a new set of buses in Sheffield now,and instead of improving the relibilty of or bus services it getting Worse,Drivers can not keep up to date with there times,and are making people late for work or late getting home,Drivers can get away with being late as there is nobody checking if late regulary,Stage Coach use to be reliable but there Number 2 or Number 1 Buses have got really bad and so unreliable and the First 1a buses is the same,Why?can"t something be done to Charge the Drivers if they are late and Improve our Bus services in Sheffield,you can never plan a trip now in Sheffield with our buses so unreliable

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All buses are tracked by GPS these days so the management has data on every bus without inspectors checking up on drivers.

 

Timekeeping will never be perfect unless the council bites the bullet and addresses road traffic congestion and invests in public transport priority.

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The 95 is pathetic. It's a straight A to B route, one of the shortest in Sheffield and is supposed to be every 6 minutes. I've waited nearly an hour for one and people on 95s in the afternoon have been told to get off mid journey because the bus has suddenly changed to one doing the school run.

 

 

OK if unexpexted things happen, accidents, road works etc thats fine...but to deliberately take off buses from timetabled services is surely contravening their contract.

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Guest busdriver1

Bus companies planning departments are staffed by kids who go to college to learn how to plan routes. In the past the job would be done by someone with experience of driving buses. Couple that with an inept council and a PTE that are only interested in creaming money off operators and the result is what you see.

One operator has on occasions timed a new route by sending a guy out on a bike on a Sunday and taking his times to schedule a service. They then wonder why the buses cant keep to time. Dont blame the drivers, they are just trying to do the best they can, the blame lies further up the tree.

 

---------- Post added 20-07-2018 at 00:51 ----------

 

 

 

OK if unexpexted things happen, accidents, road works etc thats fine...but to deliberately take off buses from timetabled services is surely contravening their contract.

 

What contract would that be?

Edited by busdriver1

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The 95 is pathetic. It's a straight A to B route, one of the shortest in Sheffield and is supposed to be every 6 minutes. I've waited nearly an hour for one and people on 95s in the afternoon have been told to get off mid journey because the bus has suddenly changed to one doing the school run.

 

 

OK if unexpexted things happen, accidents, road works etc thats fine...but to deliberately take off buses from timetabled services is surely contravening their contract.

 

 

The 95 bus route in Sheffield runs every 12/13 minutes or longer. Never every 6 minutes.

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I never blame the drivers for being late, I just notice that other traffic on the road and road works cause a lot of problems, people are now paying with their phones and credit/debit cards, older people have to scan their passes as do other type of pass holders, you get immigrants that can hardly speak English. All these events take time to deal with, if a bus is missing passengers getting on the next bus doubles so up to twelve or more get on, again taking time and not seconds it's minutes at every stop, this builds up and could total 15 minutes or more on your journey. On the 56 Herdings to Wybourn route, from Leighton Road to Pond Street before the scanning machines the journey took 12 to 15 minutes now it's over twenty.

If conductors were brought back I'm sure there would be a big improvement but traffic problems would still be a problem, at one time transport companies that ran the buses could be fined for running early but not for being late, if they were now fined for buses missing the 56 route would cost First thousands, there's at least three buses missing per day.

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We have a new set of buses in Sheffield now,and instead of improving the relibilty of or bus services it getting Worse,Drivers can not keep up to date with there times,and are making people late for work or late getting home,Drivers can get away with being late as there is nobody checking if late regulary,Stage Coach use to be reliable but there Number 2 or Number 1 Buses have got really bad and so unreliable and the First 1a buses is the same,Why?can"t something be done to Charge the Drivers if they are late and Improve our Bus services in Sheffield,you can never plan a trip now in Sheffield with our buses so unreliable

 

Not fair to blame the drivers, a few factors that cause issues,

Unplanned accidents,

General hold ups,

Unrealist time tables,

Failed / missing vehicle causing back log.

 

I must rather arrive late and safe rather than online and feeling scared.

 

Bus companies should reflect real time but this would cause some issues,

 

Passengwrsnwoyld be inuproar saying they are late!

More vehicles maybe needed.

 

By having unrealistic timetables it's a false economy!

 

Less empty fresh air buses are need to be talent service to partninprove reliability

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Guest busdriver1
I never blame the drivers for being late, I just notice that other traffic on the road and road works cause a lot of problems, people are now paying with their phones and credit/debit cards, older people have to scan their passes as do other type of pass holders, you get immigrants that can hardly speak English. All these events take time to deal with, if a bus is missing passengers getting on the next bus doubles so up to twelve or more get on, again taking time and not seconds it's minutes at every stop, this builds up and could total 15 minutes or more on your journey. On the 56 Herdings to Wybourn route, from Leighton Road to Pond Street before the scanning machines the journey took 12 to 15 minutes now it's over twenty.

If conductors were brought back I'm sure there would be a big improvement but traffic problems would still be a problem, at one time transport companies that ran the buses could be fined for running early but not for being late, if they were now fined for buses missing the 56 route would cost First thousands, there's at least three buses missing per day.

Al services that are missed must be (and are) declared as having not run and a reason given. This information is passed on to the relevant authority. This used to result in the Bus service operators grant (B.S.O.G.) being withheld for those trips missed out (in effect a fine). However SYPTE managed to get control of B.S.O.G. payments and it retains it all for itself now resulting in a massive increase in costs to bus operators. This does not mean there is no incentive to not report lost mileage as a failure to do so could result in heavy financial penalties from the traffic commissioners if detected. The traffic commissioners do make random spot checks and compare them with what is reported. P.S. If a bus is recorded as running more than 5 minutes late, under this system it is deemed to have not run. On a high frequency service this can be hard to determine though.

People are quick to blame bus companies for low capacity on routes but this situation was forced on them by SYPTE withholding payment and creating a situation where the best answer was to use ticket machine data to establish passenger numbers and provide only enough capacity with fewer buses. This was dressed up by SYPTE as an "improvement" their incentive being they got a massive pot of money out of it. One issue was that several drivers were not entering passes into the machines and as a result the seats per hour provided were too few. Hence scanning of ALL passes including day tickets etc was brought in. (a stable door being shut after the horse had bolted).

And yes, it often takes a lot longer to deal with scanned tickets than to deal with cash customers. Progress eh?

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Last month I have seen five buses emergency lights "not in service" on. I spoke with one of the drivers he said them new buses have a lot of problems.

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Guest busdriver1
Last month I have seen five buses emergency lights "not in service" on. I spoke with one of the drivers he said them new buses have a lot of problems.

 

The major issue is drivers not driving them correctly.

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Price wise now, if there's two or more people travelling it's often cheaper to get a taxi instead of the bus. I know it is for me.

 

Some of the fares are astonishing!

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Some of the fares are astonishing!

 

So is the cost of a bus, A lot more than the average family home for a double deck bus.

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