Reaction to reduced service levels from Wednesday 25th March

[Tony]

Apart from long term VoR vehicles (about 60 vehicles) the entire NXWM fleet is now retaxed and available for garages to use again, so you might start seeing some different buses going past your front doors

[Stu]

Apart from long term VoR vehicles (about 40 vehicles) the entire NXWM fleet is now retaxed and available for garages to use again, so you might start seeing some different buses going past your front doors

I live on a cul-de-sac so there are no buses going past my front door anyway!  ;D

I will have to admit, I have really enjoyed travelling to and from work the last few weeks on nice Platinum buses on the 2 and 3.

But then again, I suppose there is a part of me looking forward to a feeling of 'nostalgia' when the old Dennis Tridents start rolling out again. I guess it will feel quite 'quaint' at first!  :)

[2206]

New lockdown until at least mid February 2021. Will service reductions happen as they did last year?
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-boris-johnson-announces-new-national-lockdown-for-england-12179371

[Steveminor]

The difference this time is CBSSG is now in place to fund bus services whereas it wasn't initially during the first lockdown. In fact CBSSG was put in place to ensure service levels was increased. Therefore unless dft guidance changes its unlikely we will see the service reductions that we saw in March.

[ellspurs]

I would guess that there'd be timetable adjustments to account for the decreased time some routes will take to drive, to save buses laying over in inappropriate timing places to catch up on time.

[Stu]

I would guess that there'd be timetable adjustments to account for the decreased time some routes will take to drive, to save buses laying over in inappropriate timing places to catch up on time.

Some minor changes already taking place from this Sunday:
https://nxbus.co.uk/west-midlands/service-updates/minor-timetable-changes-from-sunday-10th-january-2021

With schools being closed and people being urged to work from home, there's definitely less traffic on the roads. I'd have thought it to be prudent to at least introduce the school holiday timetables across the region to reduce the running times.

[D10]

Some minor changes already taking place from this Sunday:
https://nxbus.co.uk/west-midlands/service-updates/minor-timetable-changes-from-sunday-10th-january-2021

With schools being closed and people being urged to work from home, there's definitely less traffic on the roads. I'd have thought it to be prudent to at least introduce the school holiday timetables across the region to reduce the running times.

The 10th of Jan changes were already planned before this lockdown came in as that would be way too quick to get everything in place.

An internal email went out today advising of changes due to this lockdown from the 24th Jan:

There will be some timetable changes from 24 January due to the schools being out and lighter traffic – it will be broadly similar to the service we ran in October half term. We'll post details in garages as soon as we have them to give everyone as much notice as possible.


Obviously things may change if government guidance or circumstances change, but this is the current working assumption.