Today was 'Car Free Day' here in Devon. I even had my photo taken by the local paper in an attempt to give some publicity to the event. Actually the local council sent a councillor down to the Strand and he was the main personality which was a good job as the Herald Express photographer (seen in the photo with the councillor) managed to hide most of my face behind the nearside mirror. Devon County Council organised a promotion with the company, we sold Car Free Explorer Tickets for £3.80 instead of the usual price. One passenger protested when I sold him an explorer for the reduced price that it usually cost £6.00. When I explained that the cheaper price was to reward him for not using his car today he pointed out that he did not have a car to use. So I said, "Right, that's different then. That will be £6.00." Only kidding.
Anyway I had a look at the number of passengers I carried last time I did Duty 3610 which was the duty I was doing today. (Each duty produces different numbers of passengers. Generally speaking the earlier you start the more passengers you carry). With it being 'No Car Day' I expected the number of passengers to be up today. Well I carried 83 less people than last time which was only two weeks ago. The County Council will have to work harder to get people out of their cars than they did today. But we all know that, car owners are not easily seperated from their cars.
Have a look at Devon CC's web site that promotes the event. If you were a teacher you would write' could do better' on this effort.
12 comments:
Agreed, getting people out of their cars is difficult, but 83 passengers fewer than 2 weeks ago may be a good result. You told us yesterday that the summer season is drawing to a close, so I would expect that the number of passengers would be declining.
You really need to compare the total number of passengers carried (on all duties) against the equivalent day last year, and for the previous 4 years. The trend is more important than results for a single day, and certainly not for a single duty.
Erm pardon me but isn't that the wrong photograph?
Hi David,
Your Blog gets a mention in The Guardian newspaper today. Turn to page 31 of The Guide and your blog is mentioned in a list of work blogs. "Bus driving - The driver of the no.12 from Newton Abbot to Brixham reveals all"
Sean.
You're in the Guardian? Wahey!
These methods will never work unless buses become popular. At the moment there are lots of stereotypes about buses: the drivers are seen as unpleasant, (false, most are nice people) the buses are "always late" (false, the buses in cambridge have been on time for most of the year) they are too expensive (the only stereotype thats true: it costs me a fiver for a 8 mile journey to cambs city centre) and they are slow (also false: most of our drivers regularly do 60-80 mph on the 13, 13A and X13 routes in a double decker)
60 to 80 on a vehicle mechanically governed to 62mph? Sorry but I think not...
I was standing right next to the driver as he did 80 MPH! Is said so on the spedometer!! Maybe it had something to do with the make of the bus? The bus in question was a Plaxton bodied Transbus Trident.
Most drivers touch 70 mph along the roads around here, ive seen it on a spedometer. They wouldn't send a bus out with a speedo that did not work would they? It would be taken off the road.
(stunned)
The 12 route which I drive along is either 40 mph or 30 mph and I NEVER go faster than the speed limit but I have been on one of our buses that was doing over 70 mph so not all of then are governed or the governer wasn't set correctly. Or the speedo was inaccurate.
That could be a possibility but these buses are faster than people think; once we had a bus accelerate from 25 to 65 mph in about 3 seconds (even though that was down a hill) they usually seem to reach pretty high speeds, apart from up hills where they get to the bottom at 40 or 50 and at the top the bus is doing about 15-20? These are new buses but I find that Volvo Olympians seem to climb the hill at a steady 45mph and then down the hill at 70! Its a lot of fun sometimes of the driver does not slow down as there is a gentle curve after and you can sometimes feel the suspension pulling the bus to keep it on track. Although it perfectly fine to do 70mph on a public road in a bus, the DVLA say so, and if they can go that fast they were obviously designed to, so there might not really be much of a safety probem with going at that speed.
The guardian got it wrong, I don't reveal all. I like my job too much to do that.
Our whole fleet are Tridents including transbus ones and they do just over 50mph max. I have to negotiate a three lane roundabout at Gallows corner and most of them are dangerously slow pulling away.
Post a Comment