Bus Fares Up Again,Why?

[Retro Queen]

26 minutes ago, Resident said:

I appreciate its not acceptable but where are these extra buses coming from? 

 

They cost anywhere from 190k to 270k depending on model and features. 

 

Looking at recent filings, First South Yorkshire isn't making half of one new bus in terms of profit and has made losses in previous years. 

Simple, they should take some of the buses off the routes that have plenty on that route and put them on the lacking ones, they don't have to find more buses.

[Annie Bynnol]

7 hours ago, Retro Queen said:

Simple, they should take some of the buses off the routes that have plenty on that route and put them on the lacking ones, they don't have to find more buses.

Who is "they"?

Are "they" going to compensate the bus companies for loss of revenue?

 

What about the passengers?

Less buses=longer journey times and more congestion.

Equals overcrowding, equals more people left at bus stops, equals more car journeys.

 

The bus companies see a demand make a profit from supplying that demand.

Control and financing is done under Government rules making it impractical to tell bus companies outside London, what they can and cannot do.

 

[RollingJ]

9 hours ago, Resident said:

I appreciate its not acceptable but where are these extra buses coming from? 

 

They cost anywhere from 190k to 270k depending on model and features. 

 

Looking at recent filings, First South Yorkshire isn't making half of one new bus in terms of profit and has made losses in previous years. 

I think @Retro Queen is saying re-allocate buses from other Sheffield routes, not buy more buses. FSY have a big enough fleet to cover  their registered routes, just not enough serviceable vehicles within that fleet, and as an aside, not enough drivers.

 

There is an enthusiast group I follow (but to protect it. I'm not identifying on here) which I use for a lot of my information, and reading that site, the problem is bad management and maintenance procedures - along with the use of 'old' rolling stock, which is understandable given the low profitability of the FSY profit centre.

9 hours ago, Retro Queen said:

Simple, they should take some of the buses off the routes that have plenty on that route and put them on the lacking ones, they don't have to find more buses.

See answers to Resident, above.

2 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said:

Who is "they"?

Are "they" going to compensate the bus companies for loss of revenue?

 

What about the passengers?

Less buses=longer journey times and more congestion.

Equals overcrowding, equals more people left at bus stops, equals more car journeys.

 

The bus companies see a demand make a profit from supplying that demand.

Control and financing is done under Government rules making it impractical to tell bus companies outside London, what they can and cannot do.

 

'They' are FSY, not some other entity - but as FSY do not have enough serviceable buses (or trained drivers), there is a permanent failure to run the registered routes, and it appears (not proved, but my observations support this assumption), certain routes are protected at the expense of others.

 

I know you have a bit of a 'hobby-horse', but the fact is FSY are badly managed.

 

We get 'end-of-life' buses here in South Yorkshire because of this management failure, which leads to this spiral of despair.

 

I am aware that there is a constant claim that our 'low' fares are a con tributary factor, but as someone who has a hobby of exploring the country by public transport, I think some of this is a red-herring. I have been on buses elsewhere where the 'cost per mile' to the passenger is lower than here in South Yorkshire, and yet the routes are more frequent,   with newer and considerably more reliable rolling stock.

[Guest busdriver1]

2 hours ago, RollingJ said:

I think @Retro Queen is saying re-allocate buses from other Sheffield routes, not buy more buses. FSY have a big enough fleet to cover  their registered routes, just not enough serviceable vehicles within that fleet, and as an aside, not enough drivers.

 

There is an enthusiast group I follow (but to protect it. I'm not identifying on here) which I use for a lot of my information, and reading that site, the problem is bad management and maintenance procedures - along with the use of 'old' rolling stock, which is understandable given the low profitability of the FSY profit centre.

See answers to Resident, above.

'They' are FSY, not some other entity - but as FSY do not have enough serviceable buses (or trained drivers), there is a permanent failure to run the registered routes, and it appears (not proved, but my observations support this assumption), certain routes are protected at the expense of others.

 

I know you have a bit of a 'hobby-horse', but the fact is FSY are badly managed.

 

We get 'end-of-life' buses here in South Yorkshire because of this management failure, which leads to this spiral of despair.

 

I am aware that there is a constant claim that our 'low' fares are a con tributary factor, but as someone who has a hobby of exploring the country by public transport, I think some of this is a red-herring. I have been on buses elsewhere where the 'cost per mile' to the passenger is lower than here in South Yorkshire, and yet the routes are more frequent,   with newer and considerably more reliable rolling stock.

There is a cost that is not getting discussed on here that means the cost of providing a service in South Yorkshire is higher than elsewhere. That is the cost of wages. Whilst they are fairly high in South Yorkshire that high wage is not enough to attract staff. This goes back to my previous assertions that there is more to this than wages. There are plenty people who would not drive a bus in Sheffield at any wage. (Myself included). A company that is fortunate enough to operate in a more pleasant environment can pay lower wages and still recruit staff, and as a result operate better vehicles on better frequencies whilst making a good return on their outlay.  I am amongst the first to say that the recent management ( at in particular First) have been poor, it is also a fact that they are operating in a very difficult market where local authorities are failing on their end of deals that are supposed to fill gaps in services and using money to placate some people to give them a quieter life rather than fulfill needs as they are supposed to do.

Work it out, the facts are there. 

[RollingJ]

37 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

There is a cost that is not getting discussed on here that means the cost of providing a service in South Yorkshire is higher than elsewhere. That is the cost of wages. Whilst they are fairly high in South Yorkshire that high wage is not enough to attract staff. This goes back to my previous assertions that there is more to this than wages. There are plenty people who would not drive a bus in Sheffield at any wage. (Myself included). A company that is fortunate enough to operate in a more pleasant environment can pay lower wages and still recruit staff, and as a result operate better vehicles on better frequencies whilst making a good return on their outlay.  I am amongst the first to say that the recent management ( at in particular First) have been poor, it is also a fact that they are operating in a very difficult market where local authorities are failing on their end of deals that are supposed to fill gaps in services and using money to placate some people to give them a quieter life rather than fulfill needs as they are supposed to do.

Work it out, the facts are there. 

I don't disagree with any of what you say, but that doesn't explain the problems which occur with depressing regularity on specific routes - which, IMO, is politically driven - but I am prepared to be corrected.

 

With regard to 'my' routes - that I have to use, as there is no viable alternative, there have been three occasions where the service is on a 15 minute schedule during non-peak times and it has been over an hour between actually seeing an 'in service' vehicle from First. One of these times,  it has actually cost me quite a bit, as I had a 'specified train only' rail ticket which I was unable to catch, and had to purchase a full-price ticket for that journey, with no chance of a refund on the outward portion.

 

At other times, I have had to apologise for being late for meetings, inconveniencing others.

 

BTW - I am in the untenable position now, where I go for buses 45-60 minutes before I should need to, but as above, even that is not enough!

Edited February 22, 2020 by RollingJ

[Guest busdriver1]

1 hour ago, RollingJ said:

I don't disagree with any of what you say, but that doesn't explain the problems which occur with depressing regularity on specific routes - which, IMO, is politically driven - but I am prepared to be corrected.

There are blocks of drovers who do certain routes only, none of them do all routes. The most likely reason for buses often being missing on a certain route is that there is a staffing issue on that block, or a traffic issue on that route. Both are possible and would explain your experience. To be honest, your suspicion of a political motive is extremely unlikely. The guys in control are hard pressed at the best of times and to them it is just numbers not areas. Its hard enough keeping the drivers legal as it is without playing games with services. Then you get drivers who after waiting 10 seconds for a response from control take it upon themselves to make their own decision. (often a poor decision due to not having all the information in front of them and if discovered leads to disciplines, but sadly get through unnoticed at times hence larger than expected gaps). Hope that makes sense.

[dutch]

Here we go again. London road 75 into town  normal afternoon fully packed as if there is some bus shortage.

Absolutely rediculous. If they don't make money out of that I will have to see the actual figures and will not accept stupid comments aimed to calm it down.

[dutch]

7 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

There are blocks of drovers who do certain routes only, none of them do all routes. The most likely reason for buses often being missing on a certain route is that there is a staffing issue on that block, or a traffic issue on that route. Both are possible and would explain your experience. To be honest, your suspicion of a political motive is extremely unlikely. The guys in control are hard pressed at the best of times and to them it is just numbers not areas. Its hard enough keeping the drivers legal as it is without playing games with services. Then you get drivers who after waiting 10 seconds for a response from control take it upon themselves to make their own decision. (often a poor decision due to not having all the information in front of them and if discovered leads to disciplines, but sadly get through unnoticed at times hence larger than expected gaps). Hope that makes sense.

We called a taxi last week and there were none in the area it took them a while to find a driver.

I looked on their app fivteen minutes later and they had send three drivers to that area to solve that problem.

Filling gaps is not difficult.

[1295galaxy]

Even a Minister in Sheffield as called the Bus Service in Sheffield so unreliable that he is going to report on the Service we get and the changes required to Improve the Service or even take away from First & Stage Coach,and bring someone in that is more reliable & Trustworthy

[RollingJ]

7 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

There are blocks of drovers who do certain routes only, none of them do all routes. The most likely reason for buses often being missing on a certain route is that there is a staffing issue on that block, or a traffic issue on that route. Both are possible and would explain your experience. To be honest, your suspicion of a political motive is extremely unlikely. The guys in control are hard pressed at the best of times and to them it is just numbers not areas. Its hard enough keeping the drivers legal as it is without playing games with services. Then you get drivers who after waiting 10 seconds for a response from control take it upon themselves to make their own decision. (often a poor decision due to not having all the information in front of them and if discovered leads to disciplines, but sadly get through unnoticed at times hence larger than expected gaps). Hope that makes sense.

I assume you mean drivers?😀 Yes,  I am aware of how drivers are allocated blocks of routes - it would be difficult for all drivers to be trained on all routes and expected to remember them. As I said, I was open to correction on the 'political motive' and having thought about since posting, realise it was a bit silly.

I realise too, that outside influences can affect vehicles, but if it is a regular occurrence on specific routes, and these are reported, as I do when I see clusters, surely they should be investigated. It is, as I have said before extremely common on the 97/98 route and, as these are the only services for a very large number of people between Totley/Totley Brook and the Abbeydale Road corridor, it is leading to a lot of complaints, which appear to be being disregarded.

As a point of interest, I had cause to complain bitterly  when there was one of these hour-plus gaps last Friday (non-peak) and fortunately got through to an advisor in Leeds who listened lo what I said and actually tracked the bus on the live system. I'm not going in to the full story, it is too long, but it kind of chimes with your last comment. Suffice to say the bus was tracking as 4 minutes away from my stop, then just disappeared - confirmed by the advisor - and then reappeared (on his system) a couple of miles down the route. How the  driver did that is a total mystery - I know the area very well having lived in it all my life, and how he got from point A  - where he disappeared to point B  - where he reappeared is difficult to determine as there are no suitable roads for a 33ft long bus to safely travel. This still 'under investigation' but I shall be pushing hard for an intelligent response next Friday - the time limit for a 'complex' enquiry