On Line Tickets

You can now buy your tickets on line, though at present the tickets you can buy are limited. I was only able to find one ticket that was any use in Torbay and some of the information given on the web site was months out of date and other information regarding Plus Bus train tickets was completely inaccurate dispite me telling one member of our management team, two controllers and a member of the office staff that the information was incorrect. It was about annual plus bus tickets which cost several hundred pounds only being valid on the date of issue. That's several hundred pounds for one day's travel. Not good value.

Winge in the paper

THAT'S IT, WE'RE OFF THE BUSES
11:00 - 29 May 2008
We have finally given up on the buses altogether.It's a long and sorry tale, which seems all the more crazy when you consider that my two teenage daughters were paying Stagecoach nearly £10 a day between them to catch buses from our Torquay home.Now my elder daughter has found somebody to give her a lift, after being told that the number 85 was being cancelled.When she inquired she was told by the bus information service that there would be no bus to Teignmouth in the morning to get her to work on time after the new timetables were introduced.I didn't believe her when she told me, and phoned the bus information line myself, only to be given exactly the same information.The first bus to Teignmouth from Torquay would not arrive in Teignmouth until 9.20am, I was told.So she found a lift share, thanks to the kindness of somebody prepared to double back and pick her up every day.It was only after I wrote about the madness of the new timetables in this column that Torbay Council told me the information service was wrong. There would be a new service running earlier buses to Teignmouth every day.But it was too late, by then she had made her own arrangements for fear of losing her job.Then, in the same round of reorganisation, Stagecoach announced it was going to reduce the frequency of the number 12 service along the congested Newton Road.Again, it was a final straw moment.My younger daughter goes to sixth form college in Newton Abbot because when we moved to Torquay three years ago from Teignbridge, she was happy and well-established at her school. With all the other changes going on around her after our divorce, I agreed with her decision not to move to a new school in Torquay.It turned out to be the right decision, she has done well academically and is now loving sixth form and has a great crowd of nice friends.But the number 12 bus has turned out to be the bane of her life.Even when she first started getting the bus from the harbourside she needed to be leaving home at 7.30am in order to have any chance to getting to school by 9am.The bus has become her nemesis. She hates it with a passion.For her Stagecoach became slow coach. Hours of wasted time, week after week, staring out of the window of the number 12 as it inched its way like a snail along the ever more congested Newton Road, stopping and starting to pick up passengers as the traffic in front of it built up and brought it to a standstill.She curses the fact she is one of the youngest in her year, and still too young to drive.Our only alternative would have been for me to also leave home at 7.30am and drive her to Torquay railway station so she could get the only train to Newton Abbot which would have got her to school on time.I would have happily done that, but it seemed unfair on my youngest child, who was only four at the time. He also would have had to be up, and dressed, and out of the house by 7.30am every day.So she got the bus. And being a teenage girl, with hair straighteners and make-up and showering to worry about, that meant getting up ridiculously early every morning.However, being a teenager, mornings are not her best time. In fact, mornings became our worst time.I had a choice. Leave her to her own devices, knowing she would get out of the front door eventually, looking perfectly beautiful but also knowing she would be 10 minutes late for school, or try to get her up on time.Every parent of teenagers knows what a thankless task that is. I'm sure everybody has tried different tacks.There's the softly-softly, when you are in a good mood on a sunny morning when you gently tiptoe in and open the curtains with a smile and a drink.Or there is the fun and tickling approach, when you try to tease them awake in a good mood by tickling their toes under the duvet.Or you can bang in loudly, throwing back curtains and covers and poke them until they growl and swear at you.I have even tried ringing her on her mobile phone, knowing the one thing teenagers react to is a phone call.But the problem with all of these tactics is that, as soon as you leave the room, your teenagers will heave a sigh of relief, roll over and go back to sleep.Especially when, in the back of their mind, they know there will be another number 12 coming along in 10 more minutes.The only foolproof way is to stay in the room until they are up and out of bed and in the shower. This can take anything up to 15 minutes.And when you are the only adult in the house, with other children to sort and get breakfast for, it's not exactly a viable option.But the news that the number 12 was going to be running even less frequently was the final straw and I am now driving her to Torquay railway station every morning, so that she can have the pleasure of getting on the cattle truck full of schoolchildren.The train takes less than 15 minutes, but now she is getting to Newton nearly an hour earlier than necessary.But strangely, now that she knows there is only one train, she is getting up on time every day.And it seems we have escaped the pleasures of daily bus journeys just in the nick of time. Because last week, along with the confusion of the new timetables, Stagecoach introduced new ticketing machines.These, according to my bus travelling colleague, are the reason that all the buses in South Devon appear to be travelling in threes at the moment.It's no wonder too many of us drive cars rather than rely on public transport. It's no wonder older people try to hang on to their cars.I once had a very elderly neighbour who used to wait anxiously outside the house whenever her husband went out in the car alone.One day she confided: "It's all right when we're both in the car. But he can't see very well now and I have to tell him if there are any cars coming."We were living in a rural area with no bus service and when he eventually gave up driving after a bit of a crash at 90, their lives changed drastically for the worse.And for everyone who relies on the buses, being at the mercy of a nameless, faceless institution which appears to be trying everything in its power to annoy rather than help its poor customers every day, is enough to make you feel like a moaning, whinging wreck.

Summer 2008 Part 1

080526

What is normally a fairly straight forward process turned in to a possible nightmare. No not possible, a certain nightmare for some people. It started some time in, I would imagine, February or March or when ever head office in Exeter started to look at the summer timetables. In the past this has meant slight changes to timetables, more time on the 12 route and increased running of other services and the reintroduction of the open top service. Not this year. The MD decided now was the time to go for whole scale changes.

The most noticeable being the curtailing of the 32 service at the Harbour. In living memory the 32 has run between Shiphay and Marychurch via the Harbour and is one of the few services to make a profit. From now on the Babbacombe Rd would have 12A/12Cs running along it. This was at once seen as an attempt to extract more money from the concessionary pass holders who would now have to change buses at the Harbour and would therefore mean the council would have to pay for two free rides. There was no other logical explanation for it, certainly not the one I heard from the MD which was he was now providing a service from Paignton to Marychurch. He had been doing that in the form of the 12B which ran mostly empty. The second big change was the dropping of the 12A from Newton Abbot. The MD said that it was because the buses were held up on the road through Kingskerswell but he only reduced the number of buses along that road from eight to six only now they would all be 12s. Along with this he also cut the 12A service between Brixham and South Devon College. There used to be 4 an hour, last winter he reduced this to two an hour. Now there is only the 66 every hour running along this route. This is not what the college, the council and he agreed 3 years ago when the college moved to Paignton. A five year contract to provide direct services to college in return for £300 000 a year. But the number of students travelling to the college could never have paid. There just weren't enough of them using the buses.

The third big change was the removal of the 85 service which ran between Exeter and Torquay via Dawlish. The Dawlish connection is the important bit. There are several big holiday caravan parks in Dawlish and a day or two out in Torquay was an important part of the holidaymakers plans. The money they spend in Torquay is important too. In the past they got an 85 direct to and from Torquay. Now they must get a number 2 which runs between Exeter via Teignmouth to Newton Abbot. To get to Torquay, I'm sorry but holidaymakers don't normally got to Newton Abbot, they must change to a 12A/12C in Teignmouth. This makes it a bit more of a bother on what should be an easy day out so I expect less people will make it to Toquay this summer. The buses that used to run along the coast road on the 85 were single deck low floor, now double deck low floor buses are doing the trip along a narrow, bendy, tree lined road. Already, and we have only been running a week there are marks on buses where they have come into contact with the side of the road while negotiating tight left hand bends.

The red mud is from the banks of earth at the side of the road. And where did the MD get all these double deck buses from? He took them of the 12A route which he cut because, he said, congestion in Kingskerswell. He lives in Kenton so he must be aware of the congestion in Teignmouth and over Sheldon Bridge every summer.

A noticeable omission this summer is the open top service. People on holiday expect to have a ride on an open top bus. It all part of a sea side holiday. But we aren't running an open top. Not enough drivers. Too many drivers required to run the 12A/12C to Marychurch and Teignmouth when the 32 and 85 did the job well enough in the past.

A footnote about the first photo on this page. It was put up on the staff notice board on March 27, two days after the route changes had been registered with the local Traffic Commissioners (a Legal Requirement, 8 weeks notice). I published it a couple of days later and got dragged in to the office to be asked why I had published confidential information. As if Firstbus were going to read my blog to find out what Stagecoach were doing for the summer when they could go on The Traffic Commission's web site and find out in much greater detail. I thing someone doesn't like me blogging. (Note; if you are reading this then I have left the company, due hopefully to retirement. I wrote it in May but just didn't publish it). Oh yes I didn't hit the side of the road with the bus in the other photo.

Summer 2008 Part 2

Written on 27 May 2008

Something else that happened this summer, we got new ticket machines. Much more complicated than the old ones so we all needed training on how the work them Once you know the sign on and sign off procedures there are 3 different ways the sell tickets and 17 thousand ways to cock up. One example of how complicated the new machines are, If you sell several tickets, say two adult and 3 children returns on the old machine you issued the tickets buy pressing nine keys, you then got the total cost buy pressing two more keys. Simple. One the new machine there are 3 different ways of issuing the ticket but to get the total cost you have to use a 4th way, which is press 9 keys in exactly the right order or the whole thing fails and you either end up issuing too many tickets or too few or have to start again. And the forth way is nothing like the other three ways.

During a training session I heard a rumour that the Managing Director, Mr C Hilditch had left the company. This was on Tuesday 20 May 2008. On Wednesday it was comfirmed. A couple of days later this item appeared in the local paper:-

MANAGING DIRECTOR TAKES BUS TO NEW JOB

BY GINNY WARE 24 May 2008

The managing director of bus firm Stagecoach Devon is transferring to a new position within the group, based in Blackburn, the company has confirmed.Chris Hilditch left his job at the Exeter-based headquarters on Wednesday and is due to take up his new post as managing director of a subsiduary company of Stagecoach on June 1.Mr Hilditch, who lives in Kenton, has worked for Stagecoach for 10 years. He began his career with the bus company in America and joined Stagecoach Devon five years ago.Stagecoach denies any connection between Mr Hilditch's leaving and the introduction of the new South Devon timetable this week.

Operations director Richard Stevens said: "Chris is leaving to take up the job as managing director of National Transport Tokens in Blackpool."He's not leaving Stagecoach, it's a new role within the organisation."In the interim, Bob Montgomery, the service delivery director of Stagecoach UK Bus, will be acting as the managing director for Stagecoach Devon until a successor is appointed."

There is absolutely no connection between Chris' leaving and the introduction of the new bus timetable this week."Mr Hilditch says he is looking forward to a new role and a new challenge.

He said: "It's something which came along. There is a personal family reason why I am leaving as well, but I do not want to go into that."I have enjoyed my time with Stagecoach Devon."For all those people who have been supportive of me since I decided to take this new role, thank you very much. I am going on to an exciting new career and I am looking forward to that."

Notice how the company spokesperson was forced to say twice that Mr Hilditch didn't leave because he had made such a hash of the new summer timetables. What some cynics would say is, they missed out that the summer time tables were the straw that broke the poor camel's back.

Getting an X46, the X Stands For Express.

A little story about going home from work the other day. Just as I came out of the depot to walk down to the main road a bus went past heading to Torquay. I muttered a swear word and continued down. It takes 3 minutes to get to the stop, we are allowed that and when we walk down to take over a bus we get paid that 3 minutes. In fact we get paid 8 minutes, the 3 to walk down and we should be at the stop 5 minutes before the bus is due to arrive. So I was a bit surprised when I got to the stop to find the bus, an X46, still there. The driver sitting, and all his passengers, waiting for the relief driver. I knew at once who it was, he was in the depot reading a magazine. True it was a bus magazine but he should have been driving a bus towards Torquay laden down with 50 passengers by now. The driver waiting to get of the bus was at the end of his shift and wanted to get home. He had been unable to contact control as the radio wasn't working. It hasn't worked properly since before Christmas, repairs have been carried out but it is so old half the time museums around the world have to be scoured to find spare parts. One part from the transmitter is now in the British Museum as it has Marconi's fingerprints on it. Mr Hilditch, the MD, recently told me the radio system would not be replace for at least 12 months.

I offered to sit with the bus so the driver could walk up to the depot and tell the relief driver, hopefully in no uncertain terms, that his bus and passengers were waiting. That would take an other 3 minutes. The bus had already been here 5. So of he went. 6 minutes later the relief driver appeared. Was he in a hurry, did he apologise to the passengers for keeping them waiting, did he regale me with some tale that had no point and took an other two minutes to tell? No, no, yes. And we were lucky, most of this drivers tales, all with little interest or point usually take much longer. By now two number 12s, both of which would have got me home quicker than the X46 had gone past.

Finally he got in the drivers seat and got the bus ready and set of 13 minutes late. What a way to run a bus service.

Running early and engine running.

A couple of incidents last week that get up my nose. The first was going into Brixham as a 12A. I was due to leave at 12:21 and I arrived at 12:09, two or three minutes early. That is normal, I left the last timing point on time but because the roads were quiet it meant I had a nice long wait, or it should have been nice but it wasn't. The 12 in front of me on the stop was due out at 12:16, 7 minutes to wait. And guess what, the driver hadn't switched the engine of despite a company rule that says if a wait is more than two minutes the engine MUST be switched of. Part of the problem is bus engines sound quiet when you are siting in the cab. Go outside and it is a different matter. For people within 100 metres the bus sits there thumping away and they have no idea how long it is going to continue disrupting their lives for. Some drivers have no manners. Me, I switch the engine off even if the wait is one minute.

The second incident concerned running early. Again I was driving a 12A to Brixham. The traffic on the Newton Rd had been heavy and I was 7 or 8 minutes late into Torquay. As I got into Hyde Rd in Paignton the 12A behind me overtook me and went into the bus station and on to the stand and picked up the waiting passengers. Fine you might think, nothing for me to do. But by now I was only 4 minutes late. As the other 12A should be 15 minutes behind me it wasn't due to leave for 11 minutes and I would be half way to Roselands by then it meant all those passengers who had been waiting for me now were sat on an unmoving bus for an extra 11 minutes. Well, don't worry, they weren't. When I got to the Zoo, 5 minutes up the road the 12A behind me over took me running 10 minutes early.

Which now means there is a 25 minutes gap before the next bus instead of 15. And who gets moaned at? The poor driver of that bus, "I've been waiting 25 minutes driver. What kind of a bus service are you running here?" A good question.

Nasty Letter 3 About the Blog

A letter from Richard Scant OM(A) T re post about safe driving certificate. I took a photo of a notice but failed to remove the bottom bit with Christina Ratcliffe's signiture on it. Other undisclosed problems which will be discussed on Tuesday 29 April 2008 at a hearing.

More on Tuesday

Booze Up in a Brewery

Today 29 April at 11 am I was due to see the assistant depot manager about something I posted on this blog. I am not saying what but all I will be able to do this time is plead guilty. So I got to work in good time 10:25 for a 10:47 sign on. There I was told by a controller I would not be going in for my hearing as the Union rep was at an other hearing in Paignton. Union members can have their union rep present at hearings. I don't have a union rep as I have been a member and then an Ex member of the TGWU, NUT, NASUWT, and the RMT. The reason I became an ex member of all these unions is because they all screwed up when I expected support except for the RMT. In the case of the RMT, the rep threatened to kill me. Anyway the controller, being told by the union rep that he, the rep, would be in Paignton and would not be available for hearing in Torquay sent the spare bus driver over to Paignton on the asumsion that I would not be having my hearing, so either I went in for my hearing and a bus didn't run or the bus ran and my hearing would be put back. You will be glad to know the bus ran and the hearing has been put back. No idea till when. Will keep you informed.

Later:- the hearing has been set for Wednesday 7 May at 1350.

Mr Hilditch in the Herald Express

Our Managing Director Mr Chris Hilditch was in the local paper yesterday explaining some of the forthcoming changes to the bus services in the Torbay area. These include changes to the 12 services which I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. He, quite rightly blamed the serious congestion on the Newton Road through Kingskerswell. The stretch of road between the Penn Inn and Scott's Bridge is a major bottleneck at the best of times and in the summer turns in to a 4 mile long two lane car park. The big problem is the traffic lights at Jury's Corner with considerable problems also at Penn Inn. Central Government have for years acknowledged that a by pass is needed but has consistently said, "There isn't any money to build a by pass." The cost was £70 million at the last count, which these days isn't much.

Maybe I am being cynical here, could the fact that we have a Lib Dem MP and either a Lib Dem or Tory council be affecting how a Labour Central Government make their decisions? Maybe if we voted in a Labour Council and MP they would change their mind.

Nasty Letter 2 About the Blog.

Summer services

This was at start of April 2008 and concerned me putting the summer season bus route changes on the blog. I have a feeling this is where it went banana shaped.
I put them in the blog on March 29 and was called in for an interview to explain why I had published confidential, sensitive material on the blog. Didn't I realize other bus companies could read my blog and adjust their summer services accordingly. The mental picture I got of the head of FirstBus instructing one of his minions to read my blog daily incase I let slip confidential information was nearly as funny as an episode of Eastenders.
I pointed out that the company had registered the summer changes with the Traffic Commission, as they are required to do 8 weeks before they start, by March 24. Once the traffic commission have got them they are public. This was countered with a statement that head office were having to deal with requests for information about the changes. I pointed out that now they would have more time to deal with these requests. I refrained from the "Clutching at straws" remark.
At the end of the interview it was decided by the assistant operations manager that no further action would be taken.

Nasty Letter 1 About the Blog

Nasty Letter 1 About the Blog.
About how Christina Ratcliffe mis read a tour of a bus as "a tour on a bus" I was in Australia and took a picture of the Cook Memorial on the boarder of New South Wales and Queensland and offered a prize of a free tour of one of our buses to the first person who told me where the photo was taken.

I was told we don't do "free" at Stagecoach.

It was only when I got the letter after the interview I realized the Depot Manager, C Ratcliffe had though I was offering a free tour ON a bus where as I was offering a free tour OF a bus. A free tour of a bus would go something like this. " This is the door, the big round thing is for the driver to hold onto while going round corners so he doesn't fall out, this is the seating area done tastefully in mostly blue cloth upholstery which is better than the post modern plastic of the eighties. These are the stairs which you can use to go upstairs Etc, etc.