Rotala Management - Questions & Answers

[Simon Dunn]

Shame it seems to rotala's others operations that seem to be gaining new...

Yet again Simon the solos on the 63/64/65 have broken down with 20057 being todays casualty and trips being missed especially last bus of the day (which is ment to run) or so it states

yes i know break downs happen and they can't be help but it seems to be coming a regular thing lately and on a routes that are every hour and some people's only route to get out it not really on and if the last bus doesn't run like today how are people ment to get home if they relie on that route running.

I am sure you understand we have a long term business in Preston.  There are no immediate pressures or noise over Air quality improvements.  Therefore investing in a limited number of new buses becomes easier.   Across most of the business, we have exposure to cities which have stated desires for Air quality improvements potentially as earlier as 2030.  This makes investment in anything other than zero emission vehicles difficult.   We bid for grants in the TfWM area and have had limited success with bids for grants for such vehicles.   We have been investing in the 20 seater Illesbus and quite simply we only expect them to last 7 years - in line with the potential start of potential Emission standards.   The other problem - is as I have seen mentioned on this forum.  We have large tendering rounds on 05/01/28 and again - we could potentially lose a lot.  Put all in the round, makes it difficult to take long term decisions with some many unknowns.  If I am honest, we have got large PVR increases elsewhere on 05/01/28.  If we lose all the work we have out for tender, then PVR across the business will be flat.  On the back of your comment - I will review the last 4 weeks lost mileage on these services.

Simon

[900]

I am sure you understand we have a long term business in Preston.  There are no immediate pressures or noise over Air quality improvements.  Therefore investing in a limited number of new buses becomes easier.  Across most of the business, we have exposure to cities which have stated desires for Air quality improvements potentially as earlier as 2030.  This makes investment in anything other than zero emission vehicles difficult.  We bid for grants in the TfWM area and have had limited success with bids for grants for such vehicles.  We have been investing in the 20 seater Illesbus and quite simply we only expect them to last 7 years - in line with the potential start of potential Emission standards.  The other problem - is as I have seen mentioned on this forum.  We have large tendering rounds on 05/01/28 and again - we could potentially lose a lot.  Put all in the round, makes it difficult to take long term decisions with some many unknowns.  If I am honest, we have got large PVR increases elsewhere on 05/01/28.  If we lose all the work we have out for tender, then PVR across the business will be flat.  On the back of your comment - I will review the last 4 weeks lost mileage on these services.

Simon

Thanks for your reply simon and i fully understand it just gets annoying when said buses don't turn up and its an hour for the next one is all...

But thanks for the reply 

[Ryan Hack]

I am sure you understand we have a long term business in Preston.  There are no immediate pressures or noise over Air quality improvements.  Therefore investing in a limited number of new buses becomes easier.  Across most of the business, we have exposure to cities which have stated desires for Air quality improvements potentially as earlier as 2030.  This makes investment in anything other than zero emission vehicles difficult.  We bid for grants in the TfWM area and have had limited success with bids for grants for such vehicles.  We have been investing in the 20 seater Illesbus and quite simply we only expect them to last 7 years - in line with the potential start of potential Emission standards.  The other problem - is as I have seen mentioned on this forum.  We have large tendering rounds on 05/01/28 and again - we could potentially lose a lot.  Put all in the round, makes it difficult to take long term decisions with some many unknowns.  If I am honest, we have got large PVR increases elsewhere on 05/01/28.  If we lose all the work we have out for tender, then PVR across the business will be flat.  On the back of your comment - I will review the last 4 weeks lost mileage on these services.

Simon

I wish you luck in trying to make services more reliable then they currently are

[Ryan Hack]

There are two in total.

Simon

Ok, would be nice if we do end up getting more in the future but only time will tell.

[Simon Dunn]

I have just asked the officers at Staffordshire County Council for their guidance.
Simon

I have had dialogue with Staffordshire County Council and I am advised the following.

"The new tender was issued by Staffordshire County Council. In order to fill in the large gap in the afternoon that previously existed, and still remain within the legal driving hours, it was necessary to remove the final journey of the day. The previous operator confirmed that the passenger numbers on the final journey were minimal."


Simon

[Westy]

I know the recent 'Hail & Ride' posts were technically off topic, but could they be restored to a separate thread please, for future reference?

[Simon Dunn]

I know the recent 'Hail & Ride' posts were technically off topic, but could they be restored to a separate thread please, for future reference?

Is this a question for me?

[Westy]

Is this a question for me?

@Simon Dunn - It was for the mods, but seemed the obvious place, unless there's a legal reason why they cant?

[LiamsTransport1]

Good Afternoon, I was on the 183 service between Bromsgrove - Redditch this afternoon, For some reason the bus didn't serve Barnt Green stops at all and went straight through to Alvechurch. This seem to be a running theme of the two Barnt Green stop being missed out.

I'm just wondering is Barnt Green section still part of the route? Thanks

(I have attached the bustimes tracking below of todays journey) 
https://bustimes.org/vehicles/diam-20015#journeys/628312761

[BlackCountryBusSpotter]

Hello Simon just a question or issue that needs to be raised to TFWM on the 310 route the stop on Park Lane for Bebee Road is spelt wrong the street sign says it is Spelt Beebee Road but the bus stop, bus times and Google say Bebee Road.

[Stu]

Hello Simon just a question or issue that needs to be raised to TFWM on the 310 route the stop on Park Lane for Bebee Road is spelt wrong the street sign says it is Spelt Beebee Road but the bus stop, bus times and Google say Bebee Road.

Bus stop data and infrastructure in the West Midlands is managed by TfWM, not by any bus operators.

Any issues such as this should be reported to TfWM using their online service here:
https://fixit.tfwm.org.uk/

You do not need to reply to this comment @BlackCountryBusSpotter 

[Simon Dunn]

Good Afternoon, I was on the 183 service between Bromsgrove - Redditch this afternoon, For some reason the bus didn't serve Barnt Green stops at all and went straight through to Alvechurch. This seem to be a running theme of the two Barnt Green stop being missed out.

I'm just wondering is Barnt Green section still part of the route? Thanks

(I have attached the bustimes tracking below of todays journey)
https://bustimes.org/vehicles/diam-20015#journeys/628312761

I am advised there is a bridge at Coopers Hill which is causing damage to the undercarriage of the bus.

We have discussed this with WCC and potentially this section of the route is going to be removed.


Simon

[Simon Dunn]

Hello Simon just a question or issue that needs to be raised to TFWM on the 310 route the stop on Park Lane for Bebee Road is spelt wrong the street sign says it is Spelt Beebee Road but the bus stop, bus times and Google say Bebee Road.

We have registered this error with TfWM.


Simon

[IMarkeh]

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.

[GoldenSquid]

Route 96 Mon-Sat are missing details for all intermediate stops, only shows timing points.

Also the 96 has the wrong stop in Chelmlsey Wood on bustimes, it serves CM towards Birmingham Airport.
On M-F it's down as CF and on SA/SU it's down as CL