Reversing Beeching

[TheQ]

And that fabulous A11 dual carriage way has 8 roundabouts between it and the M11, it's better than it was, but by no means perfect.  I can remember when coming from the west you drove through Cambridge  Newmarket, Thetford etc..

 

Those of us in North Norfolk  are just as remote, for me it takes nearly an hour to Get to the Norfolk and Norwich, 3/4 hour to to Cromer hospital, or the James Padget in Great Yarmouth. This is we have an ambulance station just 4  miles from my house. I Regularly go round the south of KL heading up the dreaded A17 to get to Scotland.

I think they should have finished  the M11 at the Humber Bridge having gone with the M11 to near KL then round the right of Lincoln.

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Nice, except it is not the reason BR did it that way, and did not do it that way anyway. The Crewe etc bit was built first because the grid electrical feeds were already available and to prove the engineering, and then the bulk of the build started in various points between London and the North West/Midlands, not southwards. I would remind you that the entire programme was endorsed from 1956, and further approved by Beeching (and thus Marples). It is not the same as HS2, to which you allude (I am guessing), because the northern end geography (Phase 2B) took so much longer to agree, in particular because of synergies deemed necessary with the Northern Powerhouse, whatever that turned out to be, and with the subsequent demands of Sheffield City, contrary to the wishes of the surrounding area (the other elements of South Yorkshire).

 

I would also remind you that BR made no attempt to extend the existing Wath route electrification, after Tinsley and Sheffield (Manchester was curtailed to just London Road (now Piccadilly).

 

The problem with the Northern Powerhouse? Few organisations in the northern conglomerations can agree what "The North" means, and even where they do, it has become a battle between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and, latterly, Newcastle.  Although I believe some consensus has been reached (minus Newcastle) which has been submitted, finally, to Marsham Street, it was way later than required, and was even beaten by Network Rail's submission, as to what was affordable and feasible short term.

 

We can blame Westminster politicians for many, many things, but the inability of the North of England, and its voters, to understand that devolution of powers to regional government was a "good thing", is prime. It has all been about localised jealousies and self-interest, or complete lack of interest from the view of voters. But blaming London (or Brussels too) is a national sport, so who am I.........?

 

Carry on!

 

 

Sorry Mike but WCML electrification basically progressed southwards from Crewe. ( I say basically because of the way the Birmingham/Stour Valley 'loop' was fitted into the overall scheme of work). Thus in electrification terms installation, wiring and then energisation progressed southwards with resignalling doing the same.   the only major signalling commissioining which did not take place in the established southwards moving order was Watford Jcn which commissioned in july 1964 while Rugby did not commission until September of that year. As a result electric haulage and loco change points was also gradually moved southwards (from Crewe) as well - which i saw as a regular, albeit infrequent, traveller over the route.

[Coryton]

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

There are statistics on line of bus useage per person in each local authority area outside London - the link below includes the top and bottom ten but there is more detail by clicking through to the spreadsheet.  The places with the greatest use of buses tend to be those where the local council is suppotive of bus use, providing the necessary priority facilities.  They also tend to have buses run by the remaining part-municpal or independent operators rather than the big groups, and the operators are largely local monopolies rather than the competition which bus deregulation was intended to encourage. 

 

Cardiff Bus (not in the link because that just covers England) does not seem to be doing too well at the moment, despite still being a municipal operator.

 

As for trams being more popular because they are generally segregated, they also have the advantage that it's more obvious where they stop, and if you buy a house near a tram stop it's unlikely that you will find in a few years the service will be re-routed, severely degraded or completely removed.

 

However, I think there is also a considerable psychological aspect in that some people just don't want to be (or be seen?) on a bus.

 

I think in some cases it's the fear of the unknown - they haven't been on a bus for decades if at all and don't know how to use one.

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

There are statistics on line of bus useage per person in each local authority area outside London - the link below includes the top and bottom ten but there is more detail by clicking through to the spreadsheet.  The places with the greatest use of buses tend to be those where the local council is suppotive of bus use, providing the necessary priority facilities.  They also tend to have buses run by the remaining part-municpal or independent operators rather than the big groups, and the operators are largely local monopolies rather than the competition which bus deregulation was intended to encourage. 

 

Notably the top ten are mostly medium-sized cities with only one of the ITA (formerly PTE) areas featuring.  This could be because rail has more of a presence in the bigger cities, or simply that buses in metropolitan areas are less attractive (the report also notes they are declining faster there than elsewhere).  To me this helps make the case for regulation and integration of the buses, at least in the major urban areas. 

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/774565/annual-bus-statistics-year-ending-mar-2018.pdf

 

Very interesting document. Bus services doing least well paradoxically in the places they should be doing best.

[Mike Storey]

10 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Sorry Mike but WCML electrification basically progressed southwards from Crewe. ( I say basically because of the way the Birmingham/Stour Valley 'loop' was fitted into the overall scheme of work). Thus in electrification terms installation, wiring and then energisation progressed southwards with resignalling doing the same.   the only major signalling commissioining which did not take place in the established southwards moving order was Watford Jcn which commissioned in july 1964 while Rugby did not commission until September of that year. As a result electric haulage and loco change points was also gradually moved southwards (from Crewe) as well - which i saw as a regular, albeit infrequent, traveller over the route.

 

That is quite true about the commissioning stages of the OLE and signalling Mike, but this was also a major route modernisation programme and construction works took place all over the shop, in parallel, particularly at Euston, Camden, Willesden, Manchester and Birmingham, until the actual wiring up and signalling changeovers, which were undertaken much as you describe. It is also the case that electric services commenced out of Euston, about a year before the Brum route was ready. You could not have done all they did in the time they did it, by working progressively from one end to the other. We used it as a case study in my early days of PMP qualification studies.

 

So whilst the "bringing into use" phasing was broadly north west to south, then the Stour/Brum routes (and then later north west to far north), it would be wrong to describe it as a project built from one end.

 

[br2975]

23 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Cardiff Bus (not in the link because that just covers England) does not seem to be doing too well at the moment, despite still being a municipal operator.

 

As for trams being more popular because they are generally segregated, they also have the advantage that it's more obvious where they stop, and if you buy a house near a tram stop it's unlikely that you will find in a few years the service will be re-routed, severely degraded or completely removed.

 

However, I think there is also a considerable psychological aspect in that some people just don't want to be (or be seen?) on a bus.

 

I think in some cases it's the fear of the unknown - they haven't been on a bus for decades if at all and don't know how to use one.

A Cardiff Bus passes my front door every 8-10 minutes, bound for somewhere in the city centre (once upon a time we had a bus station).

.

five minutes walk, and in the same street, is a TfW City Line station, with a 2tph frequency........but, at the whim of the Valley Linecontroller(s).

.

My WAG crinkly pass allows me to use any bus service in the Principality, free.

.

Whereas, I got a 30% discount on ATW (I still don't know if TfW offer the same crinkly discount) with my WAG card.

.

So, despite my loyalty to rail, Cardiff Bus travel is a "no brainer" .....sadly

 

[Northmoor]

22 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

I'm pretty sure if you look at plans for siting new hospitals, there will have been quite a lot of consideration given to access by public transport. Whether they get it right or not is another matter.

 

When they were closing down A&E and maternity services at my local hospital in London, they used the official London Transport travel planner to show how easy it would be to get to the replacement hospital. However in reality bus travel times, with a couple of connections required, were not the same as the planner would indicate. 

 

As for golf courses....I'm firmly in the good walk spoilt camp, but at least they are un-built on and have preserved green spaces which in many cases would otherwise probably have had houses on. One day maybe they will end up as parks.

 

You're right, it should be considered, but it is too often a poor outcome.  I believe there is a major hospital in South London - can't remember which one - which is now over a quarter mile from the nearest bus stop.  Considering the number of people attending the hospital who are elderly and/or infirm, that's unacceptable.  However, my point about people not wanting to be seen on busses doesn't help; my local (excellent) hospital has regular bus services serving the front doors, but they can't always get to them because of the queue to get into the car park.....

 

I have been reading about the proposed amalgamation of West Wales hospitals into a proposed new build sort of mid-way between Carmarthen and Haverfordwest.   It sounds like they might be intending to purchase the site of Whitland Creamery  - where I briefly worked nearly 30 years ago - which would be an excellent solution.  The town is now bypassed by the A40, the site is accessed off the old main road so could handle the traffic, while the station is served by trains from all three branches and Carmarthen.  It could transform the town which is deserted these days.  I remain to be amazed that this obvious solution will be chosen, rather than the far-too-common outcome which would to build it two miles from the nearest main road, in a field.

[Mike Storey]

Peterborough is a classic case of relocating a city centre hospital to an edge of city location.

 

The old hospital was bang next to the railway station, and a new entrance on the hospital side was long planned. It was also not far from the all the main bus routes and very close to three of them. But the fact was that many people moaned like , well, the most moany person, because there was never enough parking and the traffic was terrible. It was also a very old and difficult site to expand and create the necessary facilities which a fast expanding city needed.

 

So they built a new one on a new site, which, whilst still served by a few bus routes, really demanded car or taxi journeys for most, which was relatively easier via the Parkway system, than trying to drive into the city centre site. The new hospital is brilliant and precludes journeys that used to be necessary to Cambridge (or even Liverpool) for a lot of specialist treatment (as was the case for the current Mrs Storey). It was also part-funded by releasing valuable city property. 

 

But the main complaint has become....parking charges, of course.

 

Nonetheless, were we still living there, we would have saved a huge amount of toxic emissions (and fuel costs), simply by no longer needing to drive to Addenbrookes (Cambridge) around 9 times a year, because Peterborough suddenly had MS nurses and a visiting consultant, with the necessary facilities. So not all decisions have been bad, and I would not like to have to make the decision trade off between better facilities, better public transport and a sense of city centre accessibility. I fully understand that the closure or combination of other hospitals in other areas, has caused an increase in travel, so this may not be typical at all.

 

Beeching relevance is, in practical terms, zero, because it was well outside his remit. As others have already said, joined up thinking (a strategy) has been long absent nationally, but there are mandatory requirements in planning considerations, that must be considered by officers. It is just that, very often, either costs or other consideration, override the holistic view required, and the elected representatives are faced with little choice.

 

 

[Fenman]

7 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

...

. As others have already said, joined up thinking (a strategy) has been long absent nationally, but there are mandatory requirements in planning considerations, that must be considered by officers. It is just that, very often, either costs or other consideration, override the holistic view required, and the elected representatives are faced with little choice.

 

 

There’s a nice example in planning for Crossrail 2. The proposed route goes close to the vast Chelsea & Westminster hospital which, though well-served by busses, is relatively remote from the tube system (0.7 miles from Fulham Broadway, over a mile from Earl’s Court). A proposed station nearby has been attacked by some local residents and, at least the last time I checked, had been removed from the proposals in the face of a PR onslaught against it. 

 

Paul

[caradoc]

On 22/05/2019 at 07:29, Zomboid said:

Whilst the JR might be in a poor location, what were the other options?

Oxford traffic being what it is, I suspect they had the choice of numerous wrong answers, but no right ones.

 

Saying that, the lack of foresight when it came to the car revolution and what it would do to our old fashioned town and city centres was pretty impressive. Where did they think all these cars were going to go?

 

The JR could have had (and in fact still could have) a direct, dedicated connection to the A40 Northern Bypass. Alternative sites might have been the Cowley/Horspath or Hinksey areas, or what is now Oxford Parkway; These would all have the benefit of not just easy access to the bypass but adjacent rail lines too.

 

 

[ejstubbs]

On 22/05/2019 at 21:57, Northmoor said:

I believe there is a major hospital in South London - can't remember which one - which is now over a quarter mile from the nearest bus stop.  Considering the number of people attending the hospital who are elderly and/or infirm, that's unacceptable.

 

Taxis/minicabs do exist - and given that bus fares in some areas are nudging £5 a trip, may not be that much more expensive.  And they should be just the ticket (sorry) for people who wouldn't be seen dead in a bus...

Edited May 24, 2019 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

On 21/05/2019 at 20:45, Northmoor said:

Question to Admin - how do I remove my duplicates

 

Use the "report post" link in the post header to report it as a duplicate and ask them to delete it.

[ejstubbs]

 

 

On 22/05/2019 at 10:21, Fenman said:

Addenbrooke's is on a vast greenfield site south of Cambridge along with huge, brand-new medical research council laboratories. A new railway station - Cambridge South - is slated to be built right next to it all (a mirror of Cambridge North, which opened only a couple of years back). So there is some evidence of joined-up thinking going on.

 

But "New" Addenbrooke's* was there when I was at uni, so nearly 40 years ago!  That's quite a time to wait for the joining up to happen...

 

In fact, Wiki says that the first building was opened on the New Addenbrooke's site in 1962.  That was eight years before the science park was opened, which was one of the drivers for Cambridge North.  By that logic Cambridge South is about ten years and counting late cf Cambridge North.

 

* As opposed to the original Addenbrooke's Hospital aka "Old" Addenbrookes on Trumpington Street which, when I was there, was where the student nurses started their training before being moved out to New Addenbrooke's after their first term.  This provided a welcome source of young ladies for Freshers' Balls, college discos and the like, with college union reps hanging around the entrance hallway handing out free invitations like confetti!  It was also handy for the Little Rose pub (now a Loch Fyne restaurant) just up the street - which also happened to be handy for students at the engineering labs a short way in the other direction.  Three of my pals ended up marrying Addenbrooke's nurses that they met that way!

[ejstubbs]

On 21/05/2019 at 22:11, Coryton said:

As for golf courses....I'm firmly in the good walk spoilt camp, but at least they are un-built on and have preserved green spaces which in many cases would otherwise probably have had houses on. One day maybe they will end up as parks.

 

It's true that golf courses do preserve green spaces, but they do tend to be a bit of a monoculture (i.e. short grass) so they're not particularly brilliant for biodiversity.  While accepting the fact that most golf course do have rough ground & cover vegetation between the fairways, they could be better if they weren't golf courses.

 

As for ending up as parks, there's a golf club near us that closed a few years ago and the current proposals to turn the land in to an MTB trail park are creating a bit of a hoo-ha.  The protesting body has had the chutzpah to describe an abandoned golf course as a "fragile conservation area".  My @**e.

 

Similar plans for another nearby abandoned golf course also received a fair bit of resistance.  So it's been left undeveloped and - guess what? - the local kids ride their MTBs around it anyway, building jump ramps etc etc.  And there have been no reports of any conflict with the dog walkers who have taken to using the place to empty exercise their pets.  (As it happens, though, it was hardly an ideal site for a proper "trail park" anyway, being largely devoid of any interesting declivities.)

[Coryton]

2 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

It's true that golf courses do preserve green spaces, but they do tend to be a bit of a monoculture (i.e. short grass) so they're not particularly brilliant for biodiversity.  While accepting the fact that most golf course do have rough ground & cover vegetation between the fairways, they could be better if they weren't golf courses.)

 

I was thinking more long term - much more chance of a current golf course becoming a park or other green area than if it had ended up as a housing estate.

[ejstubbs]

On 22/05/2019 at 09:13, Joseph_Pestell said:

What really puts people off bus travel is hanging around waiting at bus stops and not knowing when the next bus is going to arrive. You get much better ridership where there is a good PIS at each stop giving realtime info as to when the next bus will be.

 

Given that a sizeable majority of bus passengers these days have smartphones (as can readily be demonstrated by taking a ride on a bus and observing how many of the passengers are engrossed in their screens rather than watching the world go by outside), you don't necessarily need a PIS at every stop.  A smartphone app can reach a lot of your customers, and others can use PIS web pages before leaving home.  I see this a lot where I am: nearest bus stops to me don't have PIS but many old folks still manage to rock up to the stop at just the right time - they're clearly using the bus tracker web page to know when to head out.

 

PIS at stops in city centre locations, where you are more likely to get occasional and out-of-town users who haven't installed the app, make more sense.  You also cover a larger proportion of the non-smartphone using customer base per PIS in high-traffic locations like that - such as the ones who used the PIS web site on a desktop machine to find out when to leave home to catch their bus in to town, and who now want to know how long they'll have to wait for their bus home.

 

I'm told that this is one reason why Edinburgh council isn't planning to roll out bus stop PIS any further than they already have.

 

Admittedly this may not work so well in a places where the routes don't primarily radiate from the city centre, as they do in Edinburgh.  Larger conurbations with more complex bus route systems would almost certainly benefit from having at-stop PIS at and around key interchange hubs and the like as well.  (Which Edinburgh has also done to certain extent, by putting PIS at the park-and-rides, often a mile or more from the nearest other bus stop so equipped.)

Edited May 24, 2019 by ejstubbs

[The Johnster]

PIS is very useful if it is used; my local stop varies in giving 'expected arrival' times in minutes, which are good, or just the timetable times, which are useless and defeats the point of PIS anyway.  My iPhone 'Bus Checker' app is one of the most used ones on the phone, and is usually more reliable than the PIS board.  But it still isn't perfect, and waiting for a bus is still an uncertain and off putting thing to do.  Perhaps not all the drivers switch the thing on on the bus all the time, but lack of information, buses 'disappearing' from the PIS and other glitches always coincide with traffic delays, the very time when accurate and reliable information is most important.  

 

Passengers at bus stops have had many years of unreliable or no information, and good reason not to trust what they are told, well they do in Cardiff anyway!

[melmerby]

48 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Given that a sizeable majority of bus passengers these days have smartphones (as can readily be demonstrated by taking a ride on a bus and observing how many of the passengers are engrossed in their screens rather than watching the world go by outside), you don't necessarily need a PIS at every stop.  A smartphone app can reach a lot of your customers, and others can use PIS web pages before leaving home.  I see this a lot where I am: nearest bus stops to me don't have PIS but many old folks still manage to rock up to the stop at just the right time - they're clearly using the bus tracker web page to know when to head out.

 

PIS at stops in city centre locations, where you are more likely to get occasional and out-of-town users who haven't installed the app, make more sense.  You also cover a larger proportion of the non-smartphone using customer base per PIS in high-traffic locations like that.

 

I'm told that Edinburgh council isn't planning to roll out bus stop PIS any further than they already have for this reason.

 

Admittedly this may not work so well in a places where the routes don't primarily radiate from the city centre, as they do in Edinburgh.  Larger conurbations with more complex bus route systems would almost certainly benefit from having at-stop PIS at and around key interchange hubs and the like as well.  (Which Edinburgh has also done to certain extent, by putting PIS at the park-and-rides, often a mile or more from the nearest bus stop so equipped.)

Flawed logic, In the time it takes to get to the bus stop the timetable might have gone t*ts up

 

PIS works, not so much if the driver swiitches the transponder on but whether the bus has it fitted.

In the West Midlands NXWM fleet does, AFAIK no other operator does.

Result: Stops with accurate info for some buses (NXWM) but only timetable times for others.

 

No clever smartphone app is any good in those circumstances.

The PIS provides the same info you would get on a phone, another instance of numpties believing everything is better on a phone.

 

[Coryton]

29 minutes ago, melmerby said:

No clever smartphone app is any good in those circumstances.

The PIS provides the same info you would get on a phone, another instance of numpties believing everything is better on a phone.

 

 

Well I must be a numpty then.

 

Often my phone will give me live updates when the screens at the bus stop have defaulted to the timetable.

 

I believe Cardiff suffers from an early-adopter problem - the screens are using somewhat outdated technology and often don't receive updates when they should.

 

31 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Flawed logic, In the time it takes to get to the bus stop the timetable might have gone t*ts up

 

 

Well of course, but it stops you leaving ten minutes earlier than you need to if the bus is late. If you trust it... There might be a delay that only happens after you've left the house, but not much can be done about that.

 

33 minutes ago, melmerby said:

PIS works, not so much if the driver swiitches the transponder on but whether the bus has it fitted.

In the West Midlands NXWM fleet does, AFAIK no other operator does.

Result: Stops with accurate info for some buses (NXWM) but only timetable times for others.

 

 

In Cardiff, Cardiff Bus and (mostly) Stagecoach buses are fitted. NAT, who are happily cherry-picking Cardiff Bus's profitable routes make a big thing about how superior they are to Cardiff Bus, but so far they haven't made a point of the fact that catching one of their buses is much more exciting than Cardiff Bus because there's no way of telling when it's going to turn up.

 

I believe that Cardiff Bus have the transponders in their ticket machines, on the grounds that they can be swapped out easily if they fail - and a bus isn't going to leave the depot without a functioning ticket machine.

 

Not that any of this has much to do with Beeching....

 

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Given that a sizeable majority of bus passengers these days have smartphones (as can readily be demonstrated by taking a ride on a bus and observing how many of the passengers are engrossed in their screens rather than watching the world go by outside), you don't necessarily need a PIS at every stop.  A smartphone app can reach a lot of your customers, and others can use PIS web pages before leaving home.

 

Admittedly this may not work so well in a places where the routes don't primarily radiate from the city centre, as they do in Edinburgh.  Larger conurbations with more complex bus route systems would almost certainly benefit from having at-stop PIS at and around key interchange hubs and the like as well.  (Which Edinburgh has also done to certain extent, by putting PIS at the park-and-rides, often a mile or more from the nearest bus stop so equipped.)

 

The bus companies don't even have to create an app - there is a standard for providing their schedules so that any app or Google Maps can use the data to provide information to users (and not even just stop schedules, but trip planning).

 

There is also I believe a standard for providing the real time locations of the buses so any app can know if the bus is early or late.

 

This of course gives the advantage that visitors don't need to download a special app or go to a special website, they can just continue to use Google or their favourite app.

 

Having said the above, it only works if the bus companies provide the data.

[melmerby]

38 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Well I must be a numpty then.

Often my phone will give me live updates when the screens at the bus stop have defaulted to the timetable.

I believe Cardiff suffers from an early-adopter problem - the screens are using somewhat outdated technology and often don't receive updates when they should.

 

Apart from power failures, which of course phones don't suffer from (unless your battery goes!) West Midland's PIS don't seem to do that.

They are either right for NXWM or occasionally off.

 

Just noticed that Diamond have a bus tracker on the web and phone but don't presumably give the data to the PIS system, pretty stupid idea IMHO.

Maybe TfWM will insist on it joining the system?

[Coryton]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

There is also I believe a standard for providing the real time locations of the buses so any app can know if the bus is early or late.

 

 

I have an app which presumably uses that and is very useful.

 

However, sometimes it fails to pick up on real time information when the bus company's app or web site does have it.

[caradoc]

Most of my bus travel is down in Oxford. Neither of the two routes I use to the city centre has PIS at the stops at which I board. Neither stop is a timing point either, meaning that I usually arrive at the stop well before the bus actually turns up, to avoid missing it. On less busy days (ie the school holidays) the bus on one route often stands waiting time at an intermediate stop, meaning that it has left previous stops earlier than would normally be the case. Conversely, on some journeys the bus has spent longer stationary (at bus stops) than moving, due to the complications of visitors and students unfamiliar with routes and fares, combined with One-Person Operation. None of which inspires confidence in bus travel, and compares unfavourably with the precision of train timetables, and information provision.

 

[ejstubbs]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Perhaps not all the drivers switch the thing on on the bus all the time

 

I'd be surprised if they are given any control over that.  I'd imagine that the bus trackers are also used by the bus company's operations team back at the depot to monitor services, reacting to incidents and so forth.

Edited May 24, 2019 by ejstubbs

[Coryton]

4 hours ago, caradoc said:

Most of my bus travel is down in Oxford. Neither of the two routes I use to the city centre has PIS at the stops at which I board. Neither stop is a timing point either, meaning that I usually arrive at the stop well before the bus actually turns up, to avoid missing it. On less busy days (ie the school holidays) the bus on one route often stands waiting time at an intermediate stop, meaning that it has left previous stops earlier than would normally be the case. Conversely, on some journeys the bus has spent longer stationary (at bus stops) than moving, due to the complications of visitors and students unfamiliar with routes and fares, combined with One-Person Operation. None of which inspires confidence in bus travel, and compares unfavourably with the precision of train timetables, and information provision.

 

 

Well it's true. On the other hand, it's the fact that buses share their infrastructure with other traffic and are one person operated that makes them commercially viable in most cases (and given that in this country it's seen as fair game to subsidise trains but on the whole not buses, it's a good thing really).

It would be nice if there were more timing points, but a lot of stops are in places where a bus can't really wait, and I suppose the fewer timing points, the more flexibility there is.

 

I believe bus companies have a legal obligation to run to time (-1/+5 minutes at timing points) despite the fact they have no control over congestion.

 

I don't envy bus companies trying to keep timetables working despite worsening congestion. I'm sure Cardiff isn't the only place that has had to introduce different schooltime and school holiday timetables so that they can keep to time on school days without having long stops at timing points in the holidays. Actually at one point Stagecoach just had a disclaimer that on schooldays buses might run later than the times shown - I don't know how that's viewed by the traffic commissioners.

 

What is useful is when they put timing points in sensible locations, i.e. not the last stop in a village as was the case in one place I lived for a while.

 

The bus company there was actually quite good at responding to feedback. Sadly, most of the things they responded to were things that should have been utterly obvious not to do in the first place.

 

(Like the example above, or when changing a half hourly to an hourly service on Saturdays, don't also miss out a bus so there's nothing leaving between 8:30 and 10:30 in the morning...)