I gave up watching this programme during the last series because it started to bore me. Then I read that the task on last night’s programme was to set up and run bus tours. Just the sort of thing to interest me I thought. But, what a waste of time! I wouldn’t employ any one of this year’s contestants – complete waste of space. The only bit of the programme which made me sit up was seeing where the winning team were sent as their reward for ‘success’ – The Atlantic Hotel, Jersey where Essy and I spent our honeymoon 4 years ago.
Stagecoach chief Brian Souter mulls dedicated ‘Granny Bus’ for pensioners
That’s a headline from The Daily Telegraph of today.
Brian Souter is obviously unaware that Stagecoach in Winchester already run such a bus – the 6A service. I honestly can’t recall the last time I had a fare paying passenger on this service. It would however be unfair to call it a ‘Granny Bus’ because at least as many Grandads use the service. The 6A service is a 20 minute loop around what is almost predominately areas of housing for the elderly. What I hate most about the route is that the timings are set as if it were a mixed passenger type route not one where you have to wait whilst each passenger slowly makes their way to a seat and then with arthritic joints slowly lowers themselves into a sitting position. The other problem is that due to the narrow roads and tight bends a low floor bus would struggle in places so a stepped Dart is allocated to the route. Our stepped Darts have a pole in the middle of the steps and it’s painful to observe passengers struggling to raise their feet high enough for each step whilst trying to lift and manoeuvre a shopping trolley or walking frame around the other side of the pole.
Flocking well
That may well sound like something James Naughtie might stumble over on the Today programme but it’s about the birds I see on my route.
It seems that the colder the weather becomes the larger each flock of birds becomes. Today I’ve seen immense flocks of fieldfares, or rather mutations of fieldfares as I wrote in January. Also large flock of starlings, sparrows, rooks and wood pigeons. It’s the wood pigeon flocks which seem to have increased the most in size. Any field of greens seems to be smothered in wood pigeons. As I passed one such field they suddenly took flight and flew in front of the bus, it’s not uncommon to hit one bird but in the space of a few seconds I think I hit 5 or 6! They seemed to be everywhere, a couple hit the windscreen, there were several bangs on aluminium body panels and at least one hit the nearside mirror which folded back and twisted.
One highlight of today was the crossing of the road in front of the bus by four deer. They didn’t suddenly appear rushing across the road but were almost orderly. I was able to slow the bus and the passengers were all able to have a good look at them. These are wild deer which I frequently see far off in the fields and which are spooked by the slightest sound or movement, yet today they were almost docile. Are they starving because of the snow and frozen ground?
Today I also saw a Barn Owl flying low over a field in the middle of the day. What chance did he have of catching a mouse or vole with the temperature below zero? I think all mice and voles would be holed up and asleep. Then again one may venture out as did the other animal I’d expect to be sleeping through the freezing weather, a grey squirrel. He too rushed across the road and up a snowy bank.
The Southern Vectis blog
Yesterday’s post about the Purple Bus Blog reminded me that perhaps I should remove the Blogroll link to the Southern Vectis Bus company blog which rarely had anything added to it. I clicked on the link one final time just to confirm that it was still moribund and discovered that it’s sprung into life again!
I found a charming post from 26 October which included, amongst other things, the revised Route 8 timetable being dedicated to Mrs Mary Ward of Bembridge ‘for continually nagging’ about its timing problems!
The most recent posting is about their new ERG TP5000 (I think I’ve mentioned those before !) ticket machines which are being introduced in 2 weeks time. Tellingly they wrote ‘The first phase has been a ‘re-zoning’ of our current bus stops which took place last week to create a manageable number of point to point (or rather zone to zone) fares for the new system.’ In order to reduce the number of key presses required to issue a ticket?
Purple Bus Blog
The Velvet Bus blog was finally declared dead at 12:33 today. However, as they say when the reigning monarch dies ‘The King is dead, long live the King’ and so it is with Phil Stockley’s blog. The successor to the Velvet Bus Blog is the Purple Bus Blog. The first post explains the reason behind the shift to a new blog. At first the reason seemed logical, but then I began to wonder how a bus blog, openly written by someone who is the MD of a bus company with purple liveried buses, wont be seen as at least ‘endorsed’ by the Velvet Bus company if not ‘official’. Anyway, the good thing is that Phil is posting about buses again. I wish the Purple Bus Blog all the best.
Post number two, I bet he doesn’t keep up two posts a day for long :-), mentions that Velvet Bus tickets can now be purchased using a mobile ‘phone. There is also a link to mymobiletickets.com where it says ‘You can buy weekly and monthly passes using My Mobile Tickets as well on-demand daily tickets by text at lower costs than buying on the bus.’
During the time I drove for Megabus hardly a day went by without someone boarding and then saying that their mobile battery had gone flat so they couldn’t display their ticket reference, or that they’d inadvertently deleted the text. In each case a phone call had to be made to Megabus control and the ticket number obtained from the information provided by the intending passenger. Mostly it was genuine and they had paid for a seat but sometimes no record of a booking could be found! I wonder how bus companies like Velvet handle similar situations, it is totally impractical for a ‘regular’ bus driver to have to call control each time someone can’t show their electronic ticket for one reason or another.
Unilink Buses
I wrote about visiting my son in Scotland a few days ago, to get there I flew Flybe from Southampton Airport. Essy wasn’t able to drop me off, nor collect me from the airport so I was going to use a taxi. But then I remembered that Unilink buses run to the airport. A quick check showed that the service runs every 10 minutes at the times I wanted. I’d not used Unilink before but to get to the airport they’re great with the airport stop being right at the Departures entrance door.
As the bus drove to the airport I began to become quite envious of the driver – ticket issuing didn’t take any time at all. I would estimate that 80% of the passengers had smart cards which they simply laid on the ticket machine for a moment before being cleared. If the driver did have to sell a ticket it was either £2 for any length single journey or £3 for a day ticket. Apart from being able to issue the ticket with only 2 key presses (key presses being the bane of the Stagecoach TP5000 ticket machine) there was very little time spent counting out change, if change were needed it was always in whole pounds).