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If you have made a complaint to any bus operator and not received any satisfactory response within 14 days, then the next step will be to contact Bus Users UK who will escalate the complaint on your behalf:
https://bususers.org/complaints-process/

BusUsers can't do anything if the operator doesn't engage though. I've just gone through them for a complaint for Red Rose. Red Rose didn't reply and so they just closed the case and said there is nothing more they can do. 

As an ombudsman, they are about as useless as a chocolate teapot.

I believe this has now been resolved.

I am advised this has been updated.

Sadly whoever is advising you that they have fixed issues, is misleading you. And has been doing so for a while.

The only issues that have been fixed are Redditch 11 (but now I have found a new issue), Heathrow Terminal 3 stop was updated in some cases (but there's since been another update to NAPTAN and the stop code has changed again). 142 stops at Merry Hill and Oldswinford Junction Station have been resolved and 242S now shows up as a 242S. 

All other issues remain, plus many more that I keep finding. 
30 and 41 for example missing West Bromwich Bus Station Monday-Saturday. 40 missing Wednesbury Bus Station Monday-Saturday. Redditch 11 Mon-Sat missing Sheltwood Close.
For some reason, Diamond suffers major issues with revision numbers for service groups being wildly different meaning open data and data users can't always use the data properly (route 145 for example is on revision number 34 but 145A linked to the same reg is revision number 23)

II have our commercial team rectifying this.

Hi Simon,
Please can I ask for an update on these as I note the issues still exist. 

Would it be easier if someone just came and sorted the data out on behalf of the commercial team because the amount of errors are mind boggling. What I have listed above is just some of the errors.

Don't forget Thandi exiting Flixbus too. Things seem to have stabilsed at Flixbus UK of late, hopefully they're treating their sub-contractors better!?

Oh yes, I forgot about them. I need to do a list really and keep track of it all. 

Things are more stable but is that because operators have longer contracts and higher penalties for coming out of the contract? That would match what MW has said that operators can't wait for the contract to be over. 

Or is it that more operators are being treated better and now the brand is more established in the UK, passenger numbers are there to enable the profit sharing to happen?

Only the operators know. I do think the situation between Ridley's and Flixbus though will have sent shockwaves through Flixbus HQ.

There's existing Flixbus operators who can't wait to leave their contract too.

Are there? Seems strange that they haven't dropped out. A number of other firms have dropped out at little notice. Corbel, Ridleys, Tiger European and TJs (I think it was in Leeds) all being some examples. If they want to leave, I am sure they could, it would just perhaps cost them.

I notice Chalfont's are becoming a Flixbus subcontractor too, I assume they've lost their NX work & are defecting to the opposition the same as Whippet did.

Not sure if they lost it or threw it back. This only affects the Northampton depot NatEx stuff though. Chalfont will continue to operate National Express out of Southall depot.

Thank you.  I will get this looked at.

Hi Simon, thank you for getting some of the issues resolved. Some issues still remain though as well as a number of new issues (The list of data issues are really long).


Diamond South East - N555 still listed as not for public use. N30, the Diamond website gives different information to what Heathrow says for stand numbers in terminals. Service A60, your website says this bus departs from stand 20 at Terminal 5, in which case the open data should be updated to reflect this (correct stop code 49001643012). BL2 your website says you serve stop B at Hatton Cross, open data shows stop C (Bus stop B stop code 490000103D). Service H21 serves bus stop 9 at Terminal 4, this stop code needs updating to 4900001049.
All Heathrow Hoppa buses the stop updating at Terminal 3 in both directions. New stop code is 490008026W. H5H service missing it's OTC registration (PK1135862/36)

Diamond West Midlands - 
Various school trips have now got no details at all on school dates, it's just been lazily set up as Monday-Friday so these trips show up even in the October Half Term.

Redditch 11, towards Redditch, remove Webheath, Tynsall Avenue (2000G631010)
Dudley 17 in the evening, missing intermediate stops and wrongly shows as serving stops to Amblecote rather than showing as terminating at Kingswinford
Wednesbury 23 missing Bilston Bus Station as a timing point. When heading towards Wednesbury, after Bilston Bus Station missing Bilston Tame St (43000717602)
Stourbridge 25 missing Merry Hill Bus Station on most trips.
Service 96, on Saturdays the 18:45 and 20:45 trips towards Birmingham Airport are missing times at intermediate stops (shows timing points only). Mon-Fri towards Kingstanding Circle missing times for all intermediate stops. Also still issues at Chelmsley Wood Interchange.
142 towards Merry Hill, Mon-Sat has wrong stop at Oldswinford Junction Station (should be stop 43000821401). Also daily after Stourbridge Junction Road missing Vauxhall Road. Buses show as serving Stand E at Merry Hill Mon-Fri but on Sundays serve stop B?
142A towards Merry Hill after Stourbridge Junction Road missing Vauxhall Road.
242S still wrongly shows up as a 242, when it should be a 242S.

Prospect Coaches are now confirmed to be starting Flixbus work. Starting with 2 buses from Birmingham to London, with another 8 buses coming onto the Flixbus network in 2025.

I'm informed that Prospect are no longer on the Megabus network and so I presume they have just jumped ship.

https://www.route-one.net/operators/prospect-coaches-is-latest-to-join-flixbus-network/

Prospect Coaches is partnering with FlixBus to offer services between London and Birmingham from 7 October.
The [color=var(--hyperlink-color, inherit)]Stourbridge-based operator[/url] will add two Scania Higer vehicles to the network with eight more to follow for as-yet undisclosed lines.
Prospect Coaches becomes the second operator in as many weeks to join the travel tech brand following the [color=var(--hyperlink-color, inherit)]Chalfont Coaches announcement[/color] on 19 September.
Managing Director of Prospect Coaches West, Nathan Hadley, says: "FlixBus has impressed us with the rapid growth of the brand and the huge number of green coaches we see on the road.
"We could not ignore the innovation and advanced model FlixBus is bringing to the coach market, and the time was right for us to make the move.
"We are excited to expand the business and partner with FlixBus. The FlixBus team has a positive energy, they share our values and are the only option offering the growth that matches our ambition."
Prospect has offered express coach services since 2021, as well as offering day trips, sports teams, private hire and schools.
FlixBus is part of the wider Flix group, which operates in 44 countries and has recently announced it will move into Mexico in the first half of 2025.
"Since our launch to the UK market, we've brought unmatched ambition and optimism which has allowed us to attract high-quality operators like Prospect to join us," says Andreas Schorling, FlixBus UK Managing Director.
"The rate of growth we are delivering is phenomenal and we have no plans to stop in 2025. We have plenty more in the pipeline as we continue leading the way in the coach industry."[/font][/size][/color]

For anyone interested, the Prospect trips are Birmingham to London Victoria Coach Station calling only at Finchley Road on the way.
08:15, 09:15, 17:00 & 17:45 from Birmingham
13:00, 14:00, 21:30 & 22:30 from London Victoria Coach Station.

Hi Simon,
Please can you get your commercial teams to review your bus open data entries again. I've been reporting these issues via BODS feedback and nothing has been done. In all divisions, the updates in Ticketer don't seem to be feeding into BODS. Last ticketer updates are often a lot more recent than the last updates to BODS. You may need to refresh the datasets or something.

Otherwise, issues exist on all datasets.
Preston Bus - 6, 16 and 23 are wrongly marked as not for public use. Route 287 and 289 are football buses and only run on football dates. These are in BODS as running daily (albeit different times on some days). Also data isn't refreshing in BODS. 

Diamond North West - Route MC1, MC4 and MC10 are all football buses and only run Etihad Campus days. These are in Ticketer data as running daily. Data isn't refreshing in BODS. May be worth just republishing.

Diamond South East - Needs refreshing to properly remove the 555. N555 wrongly shows as not for public use. Stops for all routes in Heathrow need reviewing as the DFT has just done a big update of NAPTAN around Heathrow, therefore some of the stops codes that you currently use are incorrect. May be worth moving the Hotel Hoppa routes over to the Hotel Hoppa NOC code as well so that people can find the routes easier and once someone has found the routes, they can get more info easier as they would be linked to Hotel Hoppa. H5H is missing it's OTC registration number too.

Diamond West Midlands - Firstly the dataset hasn't caught up with Ticketer updates. Also though, based off the Ticketer update, School day/holiday dates aren't set up for the 2024/25 academic year. 242S is wrongly showing up as a 242 in the morning, afternoon trip missing. 229 Mon-Sat trips missing stop 43007287501 (stop shows on the Sunday timetable, but not other days). 142 on Sundays randomly missing Stourbridge Interchange. Route 96 Mon-Sat are missing details for all intermediate stops, only shows timing points. 25 missing Merry Hill Bus Station on random trips. 30, 32, 40, 41, 41A all have parts of the route missing, mostly missing starting or terminating at the bus stations.
Some routes randomly missing stops, sometimes applies to all trips, sometimes just some trips, I'd be here all day listing the issues on this dataset though.

Why bother trying any Vanhool products

They didn't have it to trial it. They had it because the prat of a metro mayor wanted some publicity photos for his new 'trackless tram' system that he wants to waste taxpayers money on. It wasn't over really for a proper trial.

Uno successfully diversified and made a successful business from it. Wolverhampton's has always been about student door to door services, closed to the public to promote student safety. Granted, most of the services I see are partially patronised, though do have some decent peak loads too.

It's always been a fantastic USP for students choosing which university to attend.

I love that they do it to 'promote student safety'. Such a poor excuse. Students don't just sit in the Uni ecosystem for years. They go to town centres and mingle with others. Many of them get trains to get from their family home/origin area to the uni in the first place. The students are more than happy to go out and get paralytic on cheep booze in sometimes quite dodgy establishments, but god forbid they have to share a bus with the general public. Uni management need to get a grip.

In my opinion, the issue that the Uni has is that they went down the route of the shuttles being exclusively for students. Given the decent flows of passengers between these areas, stick some ticket machines on there and sell some tickets for normal people. It's revenue coming in to support the service. If the service is operating anyway, opening it up to the public means they can claim BSOG, ticket sales are easy revenue.

Many other unis have opened up their buses and they seem to be better for it. Uno made a whole business out of it.

NX don't want DD coaches due to location & access to luggage storage & lack of storage capacity.

Granted. I was looking partly as DD coaches as sometimes DD coaches could be used as an overdecker. Remove some of the downstairs seats and make that into additional luggage space. Downstairs then becomes toilet, very small wheelchair area (and a few companion seats) and then just convert the rest to additional baggage.

As for just overdeckers though, you aren't blessed for choice, certainly not without getting a custom build for the UK. It will be interesting to see what option NX goes for.

I think it is extra Levantes initially until another high capacity vehicle can be sourced

Any sort of higher capacity vehicle would need to be a double decker or overdecker style vehicle. For the UK/Ireland, other than VanHool, I can't seem to find any overdecker vehicles. Double deckers are VDLs Futura, Neoplan Skyliner and the Volvo 9700DD but I am going to guess all double deckers would have the same issues as the Boa Vistas.

Are there any other examples of anyone building overdecker/double decker coaches? I've found Ayats and Beulas building an overdecker for Europe and both have done buses for the UK/Ireland but they don't seem to be in very big numbers in the UK, not sure if there is a specific reason why though.

Is there any quality control for Diamond Bus East Midlands?

• Travelled on a number of services in the past few weeks and vehicles are still in different liveries. Shed loads of Midland Classic branding around on bus stops and on bus stop timetables etc. You'd expect a professional operator to have removed the old companies names by now.
• Ticket machines are printing tickets with no logo so the firm looks like a dodgy independent rather than a 'professional operator'. (All tickets that I have from Diamond EM have this issue so it's not a single machine issue)
• Buses dumped here, there and everywhere in Burton meaning other buses were loading unsafely in the middle of the road. Buses refusing to move to pick up on the correct stand meaning other buses had their back end stuck out making it hard for everyone to get around the bus, including other buses.
• Many buses having tiny destinations on the front destination display. Why isn't the full display being used? Small text is harder for people to read.
• Bus open data still missing stops such as the 401 apparently doesn't ever go to Dove Valley Park! Many routes missing stops randomly.

Is this why Rotala came off the stock market? Investors started to realise what a low quality operation some areas are. I've seen more professionalism from Let's Go. When are you going to get to grips with Diamond East Midlands and raise their standards to even a basic level?

There's a few vocal people here constantly moaning about Chaserider - also the same people who complained about Arriva when they ran this operation - but I doubt any of them have ever taken any positive action themselves by making formal complaints to Staffordshire Council via their councillors, let alone made any complaint to the operator or indeed even followed up any complaint with Bus Users UK.

Just thought I'd nip in here and say I've emailed Chaserider previously, they don't answer. BusUsers are a waste of time. Staffordshire Council staff couldn't sort a kids party at a soft play, let alone hold operators accountable. Heck, they keep giving money to Bennets who aren't even compliant with the law (failing to upload bus open data), there is no hope for Staffordshire council to do absolutely anything!

Irrespective of what the user said, the remedies mentioned are absolutely pointless. You'd get better results spamming the DVSA with complaints (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-a-lorry-bus-or-coach-driver-or-company)