Cannock Garage

[Westy]

Cannock could sort themselves out, in my opinion i think theyv tried interconnecting routes too much, heres what i think should happen:

1: Cannock to Walsall (as it was, as Discodave said, a seperate route for the Huntington works better)

2/2A: make it hourly

25/26: make them every half hour with DECENT full sized buses

31: make it operate the old route and have it connect with the 32/33

32: get rid of the route

33: Hednesford to Brownhills (as it was)

60: Not connect it with the 825, decker it and make it hourly

61: bring this route back and get rid of the 81/35

62: kept as it is

68: transfer it to wednesfield garrage

70: make it hourly and not connect it with 76/560

74/75: deffinatley decker the 74 keep it hourly andmake the 75 Cannock to Penkridge (as it was origonaly as the 875)

76: send it back to Stafford depot

560: Transfer to wednesfield maybe interwork it with the 19's?

825: send back to Stafford..... and Stafford are very welcome to the sb200's  ;)

Re the 35/81 being replaced by the 61, what about the passengers on the sections past Aldridge to Lichfield?

At least Arriva you've heard of. Who the hell were Heartlands Bus?

Still think the 19 & 560 ought to be combined into one route, like NX's 89.

(Sunday's, as theres only a daytime service on the 19, link it with the Wolves 28A, & extend from New Invention to Bloxwich, becoming a  19 there!)

[Discodave]

What about make the 1 hourly and decker it same with the 2 ( jus send the 1 thru other bridge) would the Pye Greens need deckerin if half hourly?

They did it before with the 1 (idea was to put deckers on) and it failed miserably took 20-25 min just to get through onto orbital (not in peak) and if M6 goes tits up even longer (should know I was first when it ran via A5) runs ok as it is making it hourly would mean 30 min running time between Cannock and Walsall impossible never mind Huntington extension even if you throw lots of buses on or work it with 2 as both routes would be messed up if your late on one of them you will be on the other.  Too many buggies for Pye greens leave as decent full sized singles would suffice deckers are pointless upstairs was hardly ever used when stepped deckers on.

[Bob]

Make them fold the bloody things up? Too many buggies? Low floor deckers are buggy friendly too? I cant see it taking that much longer going up the A5? Its never took me more than a couple of mins?

[Discodave]

Cannock could sort themselves out, in my opinion i think theyv tried interconnecting routes too much, heres what i think should happen:

1: Cannock to Walsall (as it was, as Discodave said, a seperate route for the Huntington works better)

2/2A: make it hourly

25/26: make them every half hour with DECENT full sized buses

31: make it operate the old route and have it connect with the 32/33

32: get rid of the route

33: Hednesford to Brownhills (as it was)

60: Not connect it with the 825, decker it and make it hourly

61: bring this route back and get rid of the 81/35

62: kept as it is

68: transfer it to wednesfield garrage

70: make it hourly and not connect it with 76/560

74/75: deffinatley decker the 74 keep it hourly andmake the 75 Cannock to Penkridge (as it was origonaly as the 875)

76: send it back to Stafford depot

560: Transfer to wednesfield maybe interwork it with the 19's?

825: send back to Stafford..... and Stafford are very welcome to the sb200's  ;)

Re the 35/81 being replaced by the 61, what about the passengers on the sections past Aldridge to Lichfield?

At least Arriva you've heard of. Who the hell were Heartlands Bus?

Still think the 19 & 560 ought to be combined into one route, like NX's 89.

(Sunday's, as theres only a daytime service on the 19, link it with the Wolves 28A, & extend from New Invention to Bloxwich, becoming a  19 there!)

19/560 connected have you seen how delayed the 89 gets on the Lichfield road espically at peak time by the schools in Bloxwich and later on can be stuck there at least 15 mins and look at the Pelsall to Walsall bit difficult to keep on time going through loads of estates never known a 89 on time except on late nights.
Put the 560 back to 3 buses 30 mins just infront of NXWM if one is late there should be some layover in Bloxwich and solve problems with breaks.

81/35 are subsidised and come under 2 different authorities Centro for the 35 and staffs for the 81 the 61 was a flop if you mean the Walsall to Lichfield one never on time and NX had everyone from burntwood to Walsall anyway the 35 and 991 (peaktime) combination run ok anyway

70 just make more direct and leave frequency half hourly was ok maybe in peaks run 2 an hour through featherstone and off peak run one for example as 70A as existing 70 but A460 omitting featherstone and the other as a normal one.

[Discodave]

Make them fold the bloody things up? Too many buggies? Low floor deckers are buggy friendly too? I cant see it taking that much longer going up the A5? Its never took me more than a couple of mins?

You must have been lucky it was also passenger complaints as well one appparantly went to VOSA so would not be done again.  Try making Pye green chavs fold buggies up even when both spaces were full good luck and hope your medical insurance covers you for broken noses, even with a screen.  I just drove past to avoid the hassle.

[andy]

Make them fold the bloody things up? Too many buggies? Low floor deckers are buggy friendly too? I cant see it taking that much longer going up the A5? Its never took me more than a couple of mins?

You must have been lucky it was also passenger complaints as well one appparantly went to VOSA so would not be done again.  Try making Pye green chavs fold buggies up even when both spaces were full good luck and hope your medical insurance covers you for broken noses, even with a screen.  I just drove past to avoid the hassle.

Good example of why head office staff should not have sole control of service reviews and managers should be local.

By looking on a map or at loading figures you can't know how unreliable the A5 can be when the M6 screws up and you can't know what type of passengers you need to cater for on the Pye Greens.

Yet all bus companies have given these tasks to no marks at head offices now.

[Bob]

WMT / WMPTE always ran deckers up pye green area with no probs?

[Tony]

Make them fold the bloody things up? Too many buggies? Low floor deckers are buggy friendly too? I cant see it taking that much longer going up the A5? Its never took me more than a couple of mins?

You must have been lucky it was also passenger complaints as well one appparantly went to VOSA so would not be done again.  Try making Pye green chavs fold buggies up even when both spaces were full good luck and hope your medical insurance covers you for broken noses, even with a screen.  I just drove past to avoid the hassle.

And yet others on here seem to think it would be a good idea to reduce the frequency of the Pye Greens, thus reducing the number of buggy spaces. Hummm!

Good example of why head office staff should not have sole control of service reviews and managers should be local.

By looking on a map or at loading figures you can't know how unreliable the A5 can be when the M6 screws up and you can't know what type of passengers you need to cater for on the Pye Greens.

Yet all bus companies have given these tasks to no marks at head offices now.

[andy]

Make them fold the bloody things up? Too many buggies? Low floor deckers are buggy friendly too? I cant see it taking that much longer going up the A5? Its never took me more than a couple of mins?

You must have been lucky it was also passenger complaints as well one appparantly went to VOSA so would not be done again.  Try making Pye green chavs fold buggies up even when both spaces were full good luck and hope your medical insurance covers you for broken noses, even with a screen.  I just drove past to avoid the hassle.

And yet others on here seem to think it would be a good idea to reduce the frequency of the Pye Greens, thus reducing the number of buggy spaces. Hummm!

Good example of why head office staff should not have sole control of service reviews and managers should be local.

By looking on a map or at loading figures you can't know how unreliable the A5 can be when the M6 screws up and you can't know what type of passengers you need to cater for on the Pye Greens.

Yet all bus companies have given these tasks to no marks at head offices now.

You will never see me arguing for frequency reductions anywhere.

Reducing frequency and increasing capacity by using deckers does not work. Only increasing or maintaining a good frequency encourages bus use and builds it.

Bus operators should ALWAYS be looking to increase frequency and should always avoid reducing it, whatever vehicles they want to use.

[Bob]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

[PM]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

Totally agree with Andy. You end up with a sort of ebola bus system where u cut frequency, even less convenient, so less use it so then u have to cut more-essentially like first bus though replace cut frequency with up fares and it has a similar sort of effect. It should be about maintaining a balance between not running empty buses and cutting more and more.

[Tony]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

Proves our point!

Reducing frequencies ends up with no service.
One of the biggest increase in passenger numbers ever achieved was with the worst vehicles ever. Harry Blundred removed all 'proper buses' from Exeter and replaced the entire network with awful cramped 16 seat Transits and much higher frequencies and passenger numbers increased greatly. This was then copied in almost every other part of the UK.

Look at the 997 route in Birmingham losing money with one Metrobus every hour at one point, now up to every 10 minutes most of the day on half of the route.

It would make far more sense to put all Cannocks MPDs on the Pye Greens and increase the frequency, that deckers and reduce it

[Discodave]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

Proves our point!

Reducing frequencies ends up with no service.
One of the biggest increase in passenger numbers ever achieved was with the worst vehicles ever. Harry Blundred removed all 'proper buses' from Exeter and replaced the entire network with awful cramped 16 seat Transits and much higher frequencies and passenger numbers increased greatly. This was then copied in almost every other part of the UK.

Look at the 997 route in Birmingham losing money with one Metrobus every hour at one point, now up to every 10 minutes most of the day on half of the route.

It would make far more sense to put all Cannocks MPDs on the Pye Greens and increase the frequency, that deckers and reduce it

At least if that happened even though a little cramped (compensated by increased service) the MPDs would be not being used on long distance routes they are not really suited for.

[andy]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

Proves our point!

Reducing frequencies ends up with no service.
One of the biggest increase in passenger numbers ever achieved was with the worst vehicles ever. Harry Blundred removed all 'proper buses' from Exeter and replaced the entire network with awful cramped 16 seat Transits and much higher frequencies and passenger numbers increased greatly. This was then copied in almost every other part of the UK.

Look at the 997 route in Birmingham losing money with one Metrobus every hour at one point, now up to every 10 minutes most of the day on half of the route.

It would make far more sense to put all Cannocks MPDs on the Pye Greens and increase the frequency, that deckers and reduce it

Good old Harry Blundred!! Is he still about?? To be fair I think his project at the time was more about reducing cost by using far cheaper vehicles that use considerably less fuel and cost far less to maintain, which you could also pay drivers almost half less per hour in wages.

The high frequencies were probably originally intended to mirror capacity of less frequent larger vehicles. As you say Tony, the irony is that passenger numbers actually grew and this could only have been down to the frequency, something which is now far easier to understand than it was at the time. He struck upon a winning combination at the time, and was also clever enough to sell up at the best time.

The overcrowding that occured in many mini bus operations, when broken down, was actually as a result of there being more passengers using the service than previously, and not that the minibuses couldn't cope with the original passenger numbers. Then the mini buses became a victim of their own success, slowly going up in capacity, but the frequencies weren't reduced...so the mini bus revolution did it's job.

Strangely it was the West Midlands area that was one of only a few prime examples where the experiment failed except in a few niche places.

[Westy]

Only increasing frequency works? Cannock isnt a busy city like Bham/Cov/Wolves or a busy town like Walsall, its pretty dead to be fair. They have already reduced frequencies on some routes. Whats the point in running half empty buses day in day out?? Nxwm reduced and reduced and then pulled out also.

Proves our point!

Reducing frequencies ends up with no service.
One of the biggest increase in passenger numbers ever achieved was with the worst vehicles ever. Harry Blundred removed all 'proper buses' from Exeter and replaced the entire network with awful cramped 16 seat Transits and much higher frequencies and passenger numbers increased greatly. This was then copied in almost every other part of the UK.

Look at the 997 route in Birmingham losing money with one Metrobus every hour at one point, now up to every 10 minutes most of the day on half of the route.

It would make far more sense to put all Cannocks MPDs on the Pye Greens and increase the frequency, that deckers and reduce it

Good old Harry Blundred!! Is he still about?? To be fair I think his project at the time was more about reducing cost by using far cheaper vehicles that use considerably less fuel and cost far less to maintain, which you could also pay drivers almost half less per hour in wages.

The high frequencies were probably originally intended to mirror capacity of less frequent larger vehicles. As you say Tony, the irony is that passenger numbers actually grew and this could only have been down to the frequency, something which is now far easier to understand than it was at the time. He struck upon a winning combination at the time, and was also clever enough to sell up at the best time.

The overcrowding that occured in many mini bus operations, when broken down, was actually as a result of there being more passengers using the service than previously, and not that the minibuses couldn't cope with the original passenger numbers. Then the mini buses became a victim of their own success, slowly going up in capacity, but the frequencies weren't reduced...so the mini bus revolution did it's job.

Strangely it was the West Midlands area that was one of only a few prime examples where the experiment failed except in a few niche places.

First they tried Transits & Sherpas, then Metroriders!

Think Walsall even tried putting those Irish registered Darts on what was remaining at one point! (The old 323 Palfrey & Delves & the 347, which is mainly the 25 these days!)

Wasn't one of the Darts involved in a fatal accident at the old Park Street/Station Street terminus? 'Gordon the tramp' ISTR. Going back a good 20 years!