Anyone who has ever been involved in the planning of public transport will know that it is a minefield from start to finish.
One very famous quotation is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but as the world of transport continues to battle with the car, we are forced to look at new and innovative ways to improve our offering and also serve areas which are either new estates or to divert around a problematic area whether that be social or traffic.
Recently, the Sheffield Bus Partnership as good as ripped up the timetables and routes and started again. These were consulted to the good people of the city and the responses were overwhelming and also very upset at the PTE's plans who would "make a mess of their network".
The start of November saw the "revised" version hit the city's streets and just a few weeks into the new network, things don't seem to be getting any better with the local newspaper, Sheffield Star being full of letters, emails and editorial commenting on the state of the new bus services.
It was to be an improvement on the old setup with new numbers brought in and the big companies all coordinating to provide the best possible service. However the only thing that it has united is its passengers ... all getting together to social media and the local press and condemning what has to be one of the worst reorganisations of a transport network that the city has ever seen.
TAS is a consultancy who were drafted into review and implement the changes with First, Stagecoach, TM Travel and others all merging together with cross-company ticketing and a general Mary Poppins feel to travelling by bus. It's actually more Marilyn Manson.
Maybe not on such a grand scale, but all bus operators have in the past tried to reinvent routes and retimed services and it has sometimes failed. The question is though, how do you deal with it when it has gone wrong and also how long do you give it until you have to say, "it's great on paper, dreadful in reality".
This is the dilemma at the moment in Sheffield. Teething problems with any change follow and you have to be respectful to that before making the final call of going back to the drawing board. The worry is that SYPTE have used a consultancy and many of those people do not actually use the buses. In any good company, the key is your front-line staff. Their views are priceless and I suspect these people are the ones who haven't had the opportunity to say and suggest what they think needs to be done to the Sheffield network. Drivers and controllers are so valuable to a transport business and it's sad to note that this gets overlooked for a consultancy. Bad move.
In reality, nothing can change until around February at the earliest, not least to register any changes so you would expect that Sheffield has to put up with their new wonderful bus services until at least the summer of next year. I'm sure the big boys at First and Stagecoach are delighted with the exposure they are receiving from something that for a change isn't actually their fault.
In my opinion, it's a case of waiting another few weeks and try and iron out some of the recurring problems and if this is still the same after six weeks of running then we have to go back to that drawing board (or SYPTE in this case) and try again.
Although the next time they try again, talk to the people that make it happen every day. They are the most useful tool you have.
Admittedly this sounds like there's a lot to get through, but there isn't! So as they say in friendly porn films ... I'll break you in gently!
Buses
My part of the world has had a major shake up this month. Travel South Yorkshire (the posh name for SYPTE) has implemented a near enough rewrite of the bus network in Sheffield.
The bonus of all this partnership stuff is that the good old bus user can use any operator that turns up. In the good bad old days you would have to wait for a Lockhead (purple and pink) or alternatively a Souter (blue, orange and red) bus depending on what ticket you had. However the new Sheffield Bus Partnership (SBP) which has been around for a bit now put paid to all this tomfoolery and now all operators get on like one massive happy, albeit disfunctional family.
So it sounds like a massive boost for the bus traveller? Well, no. If First's Twitterbonk is to be believed it would appear the average chap (or chapess of course!) is far from happy with the SBP and that bus services have actually got worse since the new timetables. It was always going to be turbulent introducing a brand new range of services with new numbers but the actual act of running to a timetable seems to be the issue at the moment.
Rome indeed wasn't built in a day so we will revisit this in the coming weeks to see if the poor people of the capital of South Yorkshire are seeing the fruits of the new SBP tree.
What about Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley?
Well funny you should ask (I know, I typed that but you get the idea!) because Rotherham's partnership (called RBP - original!) generally involved the group ticketing and has yet to see a rewrite of the timetable. The lucky people of Doncaster are getting their chance to tell the PTE not to shag their buses up as I type (DBP ...) and sure enough a BBP is expected to be heading our way very soon.
The revisions to the Doncaster network aren't particularly brutal (unless you look at the poor folk wanting to go to Finningley Doncaster Sheffield Branton Robin Hood Merry Men Airport) who will lose their current service 91 and have to rely on an hourly Souter in the form of X19 which is about as frequent as a woman's period.
We will of course keep an eye on that (buses not menstruating females) and whatever is expected for the very good people of Tarn (that's Barnsley for everyone else!).
Trains
Today I had the delight of travelling from the capital of the UK to the capital of Yorkshire and unexpectedly was embroiled in delays over on the south of the river meaning I missed my connection and naturally I was on an advance ticket which essentially means you travel on that train or otherwise you can't get home or risk two hours sat in the bog of a train you shouldn't be on, despite the "discounted" ticket still being the price of an exclusive breed of dog.
Luckily though however, I explained to the train manager / guard / conductor or whatever they call themselves at Virgin Trains East Coast what had happened and provided some wonderful customer service by informing me that the train was relatively under-subscribed so feel free to park your bum on my train. What a jolly nice chap! He did later ask (or maybe it was quizzing?) about my morning thus far and after explaining that the train service from Brighton was a little useless this morning he confirmed that GTR (Southern to the outside world, but there's a bigger story for another day there ...) would struggle organising a social event in Wetherspoons (that's the polite version) and with a smile went on to commence revenue duties. Well done to VTEC here. Much appreciated by my good self this morning.
Hotels
For those that haven't lost the will to live by this point, I have to ask what is the point of these:
Yesterday I had the delight of stopping in a rather swanky (if a bit wanky!) hotel south of the river. I'd had a late night so decided to pop one of these on the door (the design was different but the words very similar) and have a lie in.
08:40 arrives and I'm rudely awaken by the cleaner who gets treated to seeing me with my cock and balls hanging out from the side of the duvet followed by shrieks of her native Español and the door slamming shut. Now they aren't the worst bits of bloke bits in the world and really didn't need the Eldorado acting that followed but really what is the point of attaching this to the door if they don't make any use of it? I bet she still has that image tonight as she's doing her paella.
Moan
And finally as Trevor McDoughnut used to say, a quick moan about London taxi drivers. A chap who picked me up from King's Cross the other day went on to kick off profusely about Uber and how he was being forced out of work. I hadn't mentioned this, it was of course a caller to local-but-pretends-to-be-national radio station LBC, back in the day known as London Broadcasting Corporation but now likes to call itself (hang on ...) Leading Britain's Conversation. A chap had rang up to say he was saving thousands with Uber and to be honest had my driver not got so upset and effectively shouted at me through his microphone about Uber I wouldn't have been any the wiser of the company or the issue.
That said, I arrived at my destination to be told that his ever present card machine didn't work. Once I explained I had no cash, he slammed into first gear and pointed the taxi to a cash machine and that good old London grunt. Lovely. £30 lighter and no customer service to boot, I decided to try the Uber way.
On my return, after setting my card up I find details of the driver, his number plate, his star rating and a lovely beaming smile as he waited for me. The smile then was returned as not only was the journey almost half price, there was no quibble on finding a cashpoint as the app did it all for me.
Mr Black Cab Driver, I understand your pain but your customer service was awful and not worth an extra 40% on top. Uber, you have a great product and I look forward to you making your way to more remote parts of Yorkshire.
More soon!
