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For some routes (e.g. the 23/4 which have the one way city loop), the driver can get away with changing it early, as the announcements for the one way loop work both inbound and outbound (e.g. Smallbrook Queensway works for the Bartley Green and Birmingham displays)

But I have noticed on the 82 and 87 inbound to Birmingham that if the driver changes it too soon after pulling away from the Charlotte Street stop - the last before the loop - if they're still within the GPS 'tolerance' for  the stop, the system immediately thinks they're heading outbound. It then goes round the entire city loop showing next stop as Nelson Street.  

Regarding Black Country Bus Spotter's assertion about other cities, above, several of those cited do, in fact, have such facilities.
Leeds Bus & Coach Station, Dyer Street, is served by more than 30 bus services plus NX and Megabus coaches.
Edinburgh Bus Station, Elder Street, is served by NX, City link and other longer-distance buses by Stagecoach, Border etc.
Glasgow's Buchanan Bus Station has 57 departure stands for Flixbus, NX, Citylink, Hannon and Megabus coaches and more than 40 bus services.
Norwich Bus Station, Surrey Street, serves NX, Megabus and out-of-town services of First, Konectbus and Sanders.
Newcastle has almost adjoining bus stations at Eldon Square and Haymarket served by Arriva and Go North East.

Interesting to note that service 808 (Wolverhampton to London) will use Faulkland Street coach park instead of the bus station.

Similar 'nearby but not inside closed bus stations' arrangements will apply to NX Christmas Day services from Edinburgh, Swansea, Middlesbrough and Golders Green. Passengers will need to check their tickets or the timetables at https://timetables.nationalexpress.com/routes carefully.

Very odd and very individual detour this afternoon leaving Birmingham on an 82 towards Bearwood. Waited over 20 mins for any sign of an 82 or 87 at the St Martin's Queensway (New Street Station) stop before getting on an 82 which initially pulled up jammed to the rafters just before 1630, showing Not In Service before disgorging some passengers and changing to show 82. 
Next stop it pulled up by Primark to let more alight, but not picking anyone up at the correct Moor Street stop despite seats now being available. Same on Priory Queensway, just before Old Square (by B&M), instead of the Colmore Circus stop.
Then the driver turned right into Corporation Street, crawled along in the traffic to Lancaster Circus, left into St Chad's Queensway left into Snow Hill and pulled up outside the police station (the one with the entrance in the side of the Lloyd House police HQ building). "Two minutes, I'm going to the toilet," the driver announced, before disappearing inside. I was puzzled where the relevant facility must be but assume it's in a public area of the reception unless there's some kind of access agreement for urgent need.
Once back, we continued into Colmore Row and as normal.
Very odd.
Having stopped right outside Primark an indeed directly opposite Moor Street Station I would have thought either of their loos would have been quicker than getting stuck in extra traffic all the way up the top end of Corporation Street.
Got off at my stop at Grove Lane to note the service showing 31 late on the ticket screen.
I guess this illustrates the paucity of suitable public loos in Birmingham. Yes, there are loos generally available to the public albeit inside private property such as shopping centres, department stores and rail stations. But no truly public facilities.

Mobico have released their 3rd Quarter Trading update:


- Closing down two NX Transport Solutions depots

Gillingham  and Sydenham, staff told today.
Scheduled services operated by Clarke's from Sydenham have already transferred to NX London at Wandsworth.
Gillingham is one of the Kings Ferry bases, along with Dover, which will continue to run 007 and 022 services.

Living just off Cape Hill the 82/87/89 are my nearest buses and so I occasionally get on an 89 towards Brum city centre if it just happens to be the first one along (and I don't really need one of the city centre stops on the 82/87 loop).
At various times of the day recently I can honestly say it is far less busy than the 82/87. So there really can't be that many passengers travelling through from the places that it alone serves.
On the common section with the 82/87 many passengers appear more picky than me and stand back to wait for one of those, presumably to their preferred city centre stop, rather than get on the 89.
Avoiding the often horrendously congested stretch of the A457 between the city boundary at Grove Lane and City Hospital (don't get me started on the total lawlessness when it comes to parking and loading on that stretch) will help provide a more reliable, stable service for those stretches of the 89 that have far fewer alternatives.
My elderly parents live further up the route near Hales Lane and would benefit from a more reliable service at that end as they more often use it towards West Brom, or only as far as the first stop in Bearwood Road near their GP, and hardly ever go into Birmingham.
Loss of a direct link to City Hospital might disappoint a small number of other passengers, but when the new Midland Met eventually opens in its place, the 89 will be just one stop short and can easily be amended to run across the Grove Lane junction to the new hospital entrance.

This is possibly the erstwhile 450 service which I believe was replaced by the 48A when the bus services in and around Sandwell were renumbered. 

No, not that. 450 was replaced by a 53.
Currently, every stop along the route of the 22 (Bearwood to Oldbury) also shows a timetable, installed for the January 2023 changes, for a service 5 - identical route, times and operator .... which simply does not exist.

NX Website seems to be one of the simplest to use and find timetables/maps of all operators.I think Birmingham Library at Centenary Square has a tourist information desk last time I went in there.

NX website does not have network maps and does not have timetables of all operators, only NX  and many of those in a printer-unfriendly format with much wasted empty space and no street-by-street route listing.
The tourist information desk at the library is just the library information desk that's always been there with a single rack of heritage trail leaflets, no other tourist information whatsoever and I doubt very much the staff expect or are equipped to deal with the kind of visitor questions, accommodation requests, travel questions and theatre and event bookings that a traditional tourist information centre would handle.

Oh, dear. Not everyone is online and neither are all bus company or transport authority websites a model of clarity when it comes to simple matters like finding a timetable or map.
I'm guessing that this means the anti-paper brigade will get their way and we'll never see another printed publicity item because there's no outlets for people to obtain them anyway.
This comes on top of Network West Midlands' de-facto closure of its Birmingham travel shop, meaning that the UK's second city will have no tourist information centre and no travel information centre.
It's not like Brum's economy needs every penny it can get from visitors or that there are any big events in the next 12 months attracting thousands of people from around the globe.......

List of the additional services at https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/public-transport-1/bus-travel/4  with free weekend travel starting this weekend

Regarding the proximity of the MacArthur Glen outlet bus stops to the actual shops, surely you also have to consider the potential trade-off between getting the buses closer to the door but then getting more deeply embroiled in the circulating and queueing car park traffic at busy times.

Nice to see the X14 being advertised on the information screens at Telford bus station yesterday, with an eye-catching promo highlighting the fact that it stops at Weston Park and the designer outlet. The laminated X14 timetables stuck to the departure bay door were, in  fact, the only timetables on  display, anywhere, in Telford bus station. There is no signage for departure bays, only the electronic screens, and the travel office has of course been shut by Arriva despite apparently (according to the redundant sign by the door) being supported by the local tourist board. A truly abysmal place in terms of information. But also good to see from Chaserider were X14 timetables at all stops along the route through Telford and Shifnal.
I travelled at 1349 from Telford towards Cannock, in the company of one other passenger, a third joining at Shifnal; we all alighted coincidentally at the designer outlet where three were waiting to return.
While I was drinking a coffee in the sun just outside Telford bus station entrance beforehand, the bus passed through on its very slightly delayed westbound leg and I overheard, quite separately and coincidentally, a couple of pairs of passers-by remark along the lines of 'that red bus' being 'the new one to Cannock' - proving that they must have seen and absorbed the info on display.  So that's timetables and information prominently displayed, helping to spread the word about a new route - why do so few bus companies grasp how basic and important this is!!!!!

As of the 19th of April, a new service 12E will be introduced between Lichfield & Burton which will bring new early morning & late night links to the area (The last trip off Lichfield is 2220). This service is semi-fast and misses out the villages of Kings Bromley & Yoxall! I'd imagine these journeys are funded by the council?

Unlikely to be council-funded, as Staffordshire County Council withdrew funding for evening and Sunday routes well before the pandemic. The new early and late 12E journeys seem to tie in with potential 6am starts and 10pm finishes for workers in the various Fradley Park warehouses and distribution depots, and positioning the vehicle to/from Burton, so they're possibly commercial. If there were developer or employer funding it would probably be mentioned somewhere.

Did Central Connect buy the branding from Rotala?

https://trustybus.net/about-trustybus/

Don't know but not sure if they would need to as they would not appear to be 'passing off' as another company in the business of running buses.
The Rotala subsidiary of that name - which never operated anywhere Trusty Bus reaches - was renamed in November 2014 according the the Companies House website, so Rotala would appear to have no interest in it.
Trusty Bus's Central Connect logo doesn't look like anything I recall from Central Connect in the West Midlands.
The only other registered company called Central Connect lists its interests at Companies House as clothing and footwear.
Also, the government Intellectual Property Office website does not give 'Central Connect' as a registered trademark.

National Express coaches website to be updated at some point tomorrow, and mass generic email to go to all current and recent customers on database on on Friday, to advise that coach network will be suspended from midnight Sunday night, January 10.
Further advice regarding refunds or putting tickets on hold to be announced on website. Passengers strongly advised to use the online contact or ticket amendment options to be offered, as contact centre still on reduced hours and may yet be further reduced by furlough etc.
Suspension currently planned until end of February but subject to review in light of further government announcements etc.