Topics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-36590999

I wonder how many moaners will complain about 'lazy people not being arsed to walk a few hundred yards to the bus station', as we heard for so many years about the extension in Birmingham city centre?  :D

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/car-abandoned-metro-line-causes-11400055

>:(

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/queens-speech-mayor-run-greater-11350245

"Greater Birmingham's new regional mayor will take over bus services when they are elected in 2017.

New laws giving the mayor the power to run buses were announced in the Queen's Speech, as the Government set out its plans for the year ahead.

Voters in Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Walsall, Dudley, Solihull and Wolverhampton will elect a West Midlands Mayor in May 2017. The new mayor will lead a regional combined authority.

A mayor will decide how often buses should run, how much tickets should cost and even what the bus service should be called.

Private operators will then be invited to bid to run particular routes. While a number of different businesses may be involved, the mayor will be able to specify that the service operates as a single regional bus service, with a common brand name and colour scheme on every bus."

Will be interesting to see how this works out! In particular the burden to the tax-payer! Anyone who imagines that the first thing a new mayor will do is sit down and plan an entire new bus network from scratch will be clearly mis-guided!

Plenty of news articles on this historic event that took place today, so I won't bore you with links.

As with the NX fare increases, there are a lot of negative ill-informed comments on social media, usually along the lines of, "waste of money", "it's only a five minute walk the lazy bastards" etc etc.

Lots of people have commented that the money has been 'wasted' by the council and it could have been used to help the homeless etc. These people don't seem to realise that the council have not paid for this out of their own budget, but it has been paid for with money from central government funding.

More worryingly are the people who seem to think the tram only runs between Snow Hill and New Street!  :o "Pointless, you could walk it in the time you wait for a tram!" It's an extension of the existing line, so in effect it links Wolverhampton and West Bromwich to New Street station and the heart of the city centre. People can still walk between the two stations, and nobody is being forced to use the tram!

And finally, the constant stream of "pointless waste of money" comments - people aren't looking at the bigger picture; this seemingly 'short pointless extension' is the groundwork to further extend the Metro out to Five Ways and to Digbeth, you can't have those extensions without having this 'short pointless waste of money' extension built first.

I'm glad though that there have been a lot of positive reactions, I myself haven't used the Metro for some years due to a lack of any need to, but I'm pleased to see the years of work finally coming to fruition.

For the benefit of anyone who wants to check if something they've spotted can be classed as 'noteworthy' or not, there is a Google Spreadsheet I have created, which lists the usual vehicle type(s) used on any given route, as well as other common usages of vehicle on that route.

If you spot a vehicle type listed in either column, then that is not noteworthy. Please only report vehicle sightings if they are not listed as 'usual' or 'commonly used' as that will save a lot of pointless discussion/arguments.

As vehicles get cascaded or new vehicles introduced, the list can become out-dated, so if you spot anything that may be incorrect, please report it by replying to this topic. If someone else can verify your claim, then I will make the amendments accordingly when I get chance to.

Thanks all!

The list is also now viewable on a dedicated page on my WMBU website:
https://wmbu.org.uk/enthusiasts/nx-bus-usual-allocations/

There's a handy Search box on that page, so you can easily and quickly find any service you want, rather than scrolling through the list above.



If you notice any errors or anything that needs amending, please reply to this topic with as much detail as you can, and I will make any amendments when I get the opportunity.

While I don't have the luxury of time to travel around the region to verify any changes that need to be made, I am able to at least refer to BusTimes now to look through vehicle histories. But please, unless you notice a change for yourself on a route or routes that you regularly use yourself or are familiar with, I don't need others trawling through BusTimes to look for things to be updated.

Just because you've "seen xxx bus a few times now", don't just assume that it is 'usual', there could of course be 'operational reasons' for this.

Replies to this thread will be removed once actioned, to keep the topic clean, and to ensure I don't miss anything.

No 'general chit-chat' please, use the appropriate garage thread for that.

Just been amusing myself with some comments on the Network West Midlands Facebook page:

Why can't the bus drivers turn the heaters off on the buses???

Network West Midlands hows about not having the heating on in this weather on your buses, ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure that no buses are running around with saloon heating still on, and if not, then that's pretty bad.

But I'm also pretty sure that as our buses don't have air-con, the ventilation system just recirculates the air already inside the bus. So naturally, the air coming out the vents will feel warm, because, you know, the air is warm. And yeah, all the windows are open, so all the warm air from outside is getting in.

I'm convinced that the vast majority of ill-informed bus users think that buses are magic, ie they can slip through stand-still traffic and remain on time, and can be cool as a fridge when the weather outside is really hot.

Network West Midlands are giving away free 1-day nBus tickets, and there's a chance to win a free 4-week nBus ticket:
http://www.networkwestmidlands.com/ctbw/

Also, as reported in the Central Buses thread, passengers on the X73 service between Tamworth Estates and Birmingham can claim a free one-week ticket for use next week:
http://www.tamworthherald.co.uk/Free-bus-travel-Birmingham-Tamworth-commuters/story-26742767-detail/story.html

Reading Buses' "Bus Hound" reached 77mph on a test track:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-32801974

As part of the Family Fun Day planned for tomorrow (11th April), Childrens Party Bus (C260 UAJ) will be in Acocks Green Village 11am-1pm outside Wilkinsons.

No info on Tony's site on this one, but if anyone is interested, come along!
http://www.partybussurprise.co.uk/index.html

FixMyTransport, a website where users can make complaints about their local public transport, is to close down in March, unless someone is willing to step in and take over.

https://www.mysociety.org/2015/01/29/fixmytransport-needs-a-new-owner/

I was involved with this project for a period of time as a volunteer 'anorak', assisting and advising users with issues mainly in the West Midlands area, but had to give it up due to limited free time. The main problem the site had, was in being unable to keep up with the various service changes due to network reviews in the area. Within a year, the route data for the West Midlands area had become badly outdated, with many new routes introduced, others revised, and others withdrawn, thus making it useless in our area. No doubt the same problem also existed in other areas.

I hope someone can be found to take it over and devote the time required to redevelop the site in order to keep it more up-to-date and accurate, as I believe the principal behind it is sound. So if anyone knows anyone up for the challenge, put them in touch with MySociety and help save FixMyTransport!

I think it's already been mentioned here that the 4/4H/4M services are the latest to have the on-board audio-visual next stop announcements.

A regular on my Facebook page has commented that apparently according to a Walsall driver, this is going to be rolled out to all NX buses. But not on the older P, R,S,T or V Reg buses because "most of these are due to be scrapped".

Any idea who's provided the voice for the announcements on the 4? Or who will do all the announcements on all the other routes at other garages?

Also, I wonder if all the new buses being delivered later this year will have this technology installed from the off?

Noticed today while in Birmingham, all the Diamond buses I seem to have seen now have the route number shown on the left side of the display. Also, the destination is just shown in large letters, with no via points shown.

Is it just the Birmingham (Long Acre) buses that have these, or is this something being rolled out to all depots?

Just seen this on Facebook:
http://thebridgeradio.net/2014/12/stourbridge-shuttle-vandalised/

Something that's occurred to me on several occasions, that I think would be a useful feature for buses to have.

We've all been there before, on a bus when an announcement comes through on the radio, and it's turned up really loud so everyone can hear it... that kind of announcement to drivers that a diversion has been put in place at short notice etc etc. But if the radio is turned down, then only the driver can hear it.

Wouldn't it be useful to have some sort of on-bus tannoy system, where such useful announcements could be made to passengers about disruptions to services, diversions etc? At least passengers could potentially plan for short notice disruptions (and not get jumpy when the bus suddenly goes a different route to they expect!)

For example: "Notice to all passengers: due to a police incident on Yardley Road in Acocks Green, services 11A and 11C are being diverted via Warwick Road and Stockfield Road. Passengers are advised to change either at Acocks Green Village or Swan Island."

Of course there will always be a handful of people who don't listen because they've got their headphones on, but it potentially avoids confrontations between passengers and drivers, and just offers another level of customer service.

Any thoughts?

Timetables now available for Diamond's Boxing Day services:
http://www.diamondbuses.com/news/SpecialBoxingDayServices_302.html

Looks like they're operating some of Arriva's services this year.

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/bmap

A further step on from the Birmingham Mobility Action Plan drawn up last year, the Birmingham Connected White Paper, throws up some interesting and exciting ambitious plans to overhaul and introduce a fully-integrated network across Birmingham.

Of particular interest here is the document , which outlines the proposals for future Metro and Sprint BRT routes, as well as new 'CityLink' high-spec bus routes.

It's great to read that suggestions I myself have previously made are being taken into consideration, namely having 'cross-city' BRT routes, and transport interchanges, as well as having 'regular' local bus routes and Park-And-Ride facilities feeding into the new network.

Today on the Birmingham Mail website:
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/women-only-train-carriages-could-cut-7854436

1117 offences in a year sounds like (and indeed is) a large number, but must surely pale in significance to the number of train journeys taken by women that pass without incident. It would probably be more cost-effective to have more on-train security, than to provide extra carriages that only women can use.

Maybe more time should be spent on punishing the offenders, and educating people to respect others, rather than tarring all men as dirty sexual deviants.

Something I was thinking about the other day (obviously I was stood bored at a bus stop with nothing better to think about)...

With the exception of bus stations, and other terminus points, which road is served by the most number of different garages operating routes along it?

I was stood on Broad Street in Birmingham obviously, as it has the following:
AG - 1
BC - 22, 23, 24, 29, 29A
PE - 9, 120, 140, 141
WB - 127, 128, 129
WN - 126

So that's five garages operating routes along one road. I'm hard pressed to think of others, so I'm throwing it out there!

Bakerloo line extended to Tyseley?



;)

http://wmbusphotos.com/NXWM/gonebatches/2920.html

Spotted this morning on Bradford Street in Digbeth on my way into work towing a trailer, might still be round on Warwick Street, something to do with a scooter event taking place at the Adam And Eve pub on Warner Street today?

Painted all black, with just The Stage Bus logos on either side, but looks quite tatty and sounded very rough! Interestingly they've painted around the fleetnumber so it's still showing, for the benefit of spotters perhaps?  ;)