It’s not really hidden, people are complaining about it constantly in real life.
Is there any single thing that’s not in crisis?:))
Here in Derbyshire whole communities are having their Public Transport or route frequencies drastically reduced. Don’t ever believe the bs about net zero. It’s simple. If a privately owned bus company doesn’t make enough money they will pull the service.
I reckon if they vote tory again, it will get sorted out soon enough.
Figures aren’t surprising tbh. There’s barely any rural buses anymore tbh, and they’re on such limited schedules.
When I worked it was impossible to get there in time and to get home on the buses. The service just never ran regularly enough full stop.
It’s a joke.
Privatisation caused this in the long term. The Mancunians have Burnham to the rescue to get buses back in people’s hands.
The article referencing a shortgage of bus drivers
> “A number of external factors, primarily the fallout from the pandemic and Brexit, have created a perfect storm and led to a greater number of people than usual leaving the industry,” Paul White, director of CPT Scotland. The CPT says Scotland has a driver vacancy rate of 14%, compared with 9% across the rest of the UK.
What’s behind that, beyond the immediate response of “well obvs they’re not paying a fair wage.”
Are the qualifications required unreasonably difficult to obtain? If so, were they employing a lot of well-qualified Europeans?
And competing companies aren’t allowed to put on their own busses as it wouldn’t be safe to have that many busses according to the monopoly guidelines councils have in place, despite not having any busses currently operating.
Bristol has the worst public transport for a city I’ve seen in any region of any country I’ve visited
I cannot afford to run a car so buses are essential when I need to make longer journeys, other people are even more dependent on them than I am. You cannot just lose a vital service like this, it kills communities and cuts them off from everything they need. At a time when we should be massively cutting the number of cars on the road, we need investment in bus services now more than ever.
What I never quite understood was how parts of the UK don’t look to branch out to use tram networks more and so be less reliant on buses.
Public transport in the North is beyond shocking.
Since living in London for a few years (can’t wait to leave) one of the things that I’ve loved is the public transport. Cheap, effective, fast, reliable and no-nonsense. No bullshut apps, no bullshit cash requirements. Just tap your contactless card and TFL opens a travel session, travel all over overground, underground and buses and it will just sum the charge for the day, which is also capped. There are downsides sure, but its a superb system.
Compare that to growning up in the North, in Lincoln – a large town verging on small city-ish size. £5.20/day return bus ticket to travel 5 miles down the road on a 30 year old smelly, loud clapped out bus that would maybe turn up once an hour. Sometimes would turn up, sometimes wouldn’t. Sometimes would just drive past. Regular breakdowns. Cash only, exact change. Would travel through all villages, so what would be a 15 minute drive is now over an hour on the bus down roads that are built like digestive biscuits and every pot hole hit (which were constant) would feel like the bus is just about to fall apart. It wasn’t even a competition, after doing that for a month I just bought a fucking 1 litre Polo. It was only marginally more expensive but saved a shit load of time and mental bullshit with dealing with the piss poor bus service everyday.
Its just another world, and good effectively funded and implemented public transport makes a WORLD of difference. Privatisation has destroyed those routes as there is no profitability in it, no service competition and no innovation to keep the services inline with social requirements.
Don’t get me started on the train service… its equally just as shit.
12 comments
It’s not really hidden, people are complaining about it constantly in real life.
Is there any single thing that’s not in crisis?:))
Here in Derbyshire whole communities are having their Public Transport or route frequencies drastically reduced. Don’t ever believe the bs about net zero. It’s simple. If a privately owned bus company doesn’t make enough money they will pull the service.
I reckon if they vote tory again, it will get sorted out soon enough.
Figures aren’t surprising tbh. There’s barely any rural buses anymore tbh, and they’re on such limited schedules.
When I worked it was impossible to get there in time and to get home on the buses. The service just never ran regularly enough full stop.
It’s a joke.
Privatisation caused this in the long term. The Mancunians have Burnham to the rescue to get buses back in people’s hands.
The article referencing a shortgage of bus drivers
> “A number of external factors, primarily the fallout from the pandemic and Brexit, have created a perfect storm and led to a greater number of people than usual leaving the industry,” Paul White, director of CPT Scotland. The CPT says Scotland has a driver vacancy rate of 14%, compared with 9% across the rest of the UK.
What’s behind that, beyond the immediate response of “well obvs they’re not paying a fair wage.”
Are the qualifications required unreasonably difficult to obtain? If so, were they employing a lot of well-qualified Europeans?
And competing companies aren’t allowed to put on their own busses as it wouldn’t be safe to have that many busses according to the monopoly guidelines councils have in place, despite not having any busses currently operating.
Bristol has the worst public transport for a city I’ve seen in any region of any country I’ve visited
I cannot afford to run a car so buses are essential when I need to make longer journeys, other people are even more dependent on them than I am. You cannot just lose a vital service like this, it kills communities and cuts them off from everything they need. At a time when we should be massively cutting the number of cars on the road, we need investment in bus services now more than ever.
What I never quite understood was how parts of the UK don’t look to branch out to use tram networks more and so be less reliant on buses.
Public transport in the North is beyond shocking.
Since living in London for a few years (can’t wait to leave) one of the things that I’ve loved is the public transport. Cheap, effective, fast, reliable and no-nonsense. No bullshut apps, no bullshit cash requirements. Just tap your contactless card and TFL opens a travel session, travel all over overground, underground and buses and it will just sum the charge for the day, which is also capped. There are downsides sure, but its a superb system.
Compare that to growning up in the North, in Lincoln – a large town verging on small city-ish size. £5.20/day return bus ticket to travel 5 miles down the road on a 30 year old smelly, loud clapped out bus that would maybe turn up once an hour. Sometimes would turn up, sometimes wouldn’t. Sometimes would just drive past. Regular breakdowns. Cash only, exact change. Would travel through all villages, so what would be a 15 minute drive is now over an hour on the bus down roads that are built like digestive biscuits and every pot hole hit (which were constant) would feel like the bus is just about to fall apart. It wasn’t even a competition, after doing that for a month I just bought a fucking 1 litre Polo. It was only marginally more expensive but saved a shit load of time and mental bullshit with dealing with the piss poor bus service everyday.
Its just another world, and good effectively funded and implemented public transport makes a WORLD of difference. Privatisation has destroyed those routes as there is no profitability in it, no service competition and no innovation to keep the services inline with social requirements.
Don’t get me started on the train service… its equally just as shit.