Which is interesting, because it was the Government's plans to close them in the first place. There was little interest from the operators in mass closures until they were instructed to draw up plans to do so by the DFT.
Public Transport in your particular part of the region
And, rightfully, people have balked at the idea, and the DFT had to do a U-Turn. If it happened, then there would be major issues for all customers, not just the disabled and the elderly. My local station has one ticket machine on its main platform. The amount of times it has been out of order means that no one would be able to get tickets. Having ticket offices open a few hours a day means that people cannot get their season tickets renewed. Those are just two examples that the idiocy that we would have had to deal with, had the plan gone ahead. It is a stupid idea.
I'm visiting Glasgow this week, so you get my semi-regular rant about public transport ticketing in the Strathclyde area.
the Zonecard, SPT's multi-modal multi-operator ticket has been relaunched. It was previously a paper-based ticket, which would only ever start on a Saturday, and came with a panoply of zone options. They've now simplified the zones - which means there's fewer of them, but many people will be paying for a much wider area than they'll ever use - see complaints from people that the cost of their journeys have doubled.
It has, however, joined this century and moved to an ITSO smartcard. You can add it to an existing card (but not any old card, just from a selection of operators), or purchase a Zonecard ITSO card for the promotional price of £2.50. Or go to a *different* bit of SPT, and get a Subway ITSO card for free, and add it to that. So that's a wonderful bit of joined-up thinking.
They've also added an option for a day ticket covering all bus operators, trains and the Subway, but at £8.40 for Central Glasgow and £12.80 for the whole city, I'm struggling to see how you could get value for money from it.
Just bring on bus franchising, Easdales be damned.
the Zonecard, SPT's multi-modal multi-operator ticket has been relaunched. It was previously a paper-based ticket, which would only ever start on a Saturday, and came with a panoply of zone options. They've now simplified the zones - which means there's fewer of them, but many people will be paying for a much wider area than they'll ever use - see complaints from people that the cost of their journeys have doubled.
It has, however, joined this century and moved to an ITSO smartcard. You can add it to an existing card (but not any old card, just from a selection of operators), or purchase a Zonecard ITSO card for the promotional price of £2.50. Or go to a *different* bit of SPT, and get a Subway ITSO card for free, and add it to that. So that's a wonderful bit of joined-up thinking.
They've also added an option for a day ticket covering all bus operators, trains and the Subway, but at £8.40 for Central Glasgow and £12.80 for the whole city, I'm struggling to see how you could get value for money from it.
Just bring on bus franchising, Easdales be damned.
Oh, and the new Subway trains are quite nice, but given the amount of testing they went through it still feels like there's a few improvements to be made - the acceleration/deceleration isn't as smooth as it feels it could be; and for some reason there's no automated stop announcements: the driver has to do it manually, at which point the screens display "announcement in progress". Given there are only 15 stops it feels a bit strange they've not cracked this yet.
-
all new Phil
- Posts: 1997
- Joined: Sun 13 Feb, 2005 00.04
- Location: Next door to Hell
Some transport developments over my way recently. West Yorkshire’s buses are all coming into a franchising system much like TfL and Manchester. We’ve also got plans for a tram network being consulted on. The first few lines proposed include one between Leeds and Bradford. You’d think there’s not a huge amount of need given it’s proposed to practically run the same route as the train line (and there are several an hour), but the rationale is that it’d be more efficient apparently. Not sure how.
they claim to allow for longer engineering possessions for "modernisation work", though progress is so glacial I expect by the time they finish the last station they'll have to move back round to the first one again.
I'm glad I wasn't planning on using the buses today. Rioters have attacked a hotel that's next to the transport interchange, resulting on it and the surrounding area being put on lockdown and no buses running. Hull is paralysed. Probably not the only place either as these anti-asylum seeker riots are happening in over half a dozen towns and cities today, from what I've seen on the BBC News website.