Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

[V671 DVU]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 21:08)FC Pictures Wrote:  True about Manchester,but Arriva isnt the major operator there and it`s more about cost than anything,where is the 6 million quid for these deckers coming from,the pulsars on the 10/10A are young and don`t need replacing, there is a need for newer stock at St Helens,if they buy new then it`s likely to be Enviro200s as that`s what is being ordered for elsewhere by Arriva now, Pulsars can carry 70 people ,for the handful of journeys they might be full in a day standing room is fine, i doubt the fares taken on that corridor is even paying for the pulsars let alone deckers, and i`m sure drivers would be looking for pay rises if they suddenly had a larger bus, like Green Lane drivers refused the bendys without more pay.

I do agree to an extent about it being a waste replacing virtually new Pulsars but they did it on the Wirral with the Hybrids replacing 5 year old Enviro 400s which is what age the Pulsars at St Helens are! They'd do an ideal job at replacing the X and Y reg vehicles all over the North West, thus it's a win win isn't it? Oh, trust me, they definitely take enough to take a Pulsar! Packed buses every morning, even the lates are quite full. Whilst I agree deckers aren't needed on lates, but does the 79 need deckers on lates too? I'd be amazed if they did. Plus, think of the extra passengers who'd use the bus if they seen a decker too rather then a packed single decker. Bendys are different though aren't they? Deckers are even shorter then a Pulsar. What would you rather be driving? A decker with everyone sitting or a packed single having to face angry passengers who can't get on? I'm sure a 10/A driver'd back me up here!

[FC Pictures]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 21:14)V671 DVU Wrote:  I do agree to an extent about it being a waste replacing virtually new Pulsars but they did it on the Wirral with the Hybrids replacing 5 year old Enviro 400s which is what age the Pulsars at St Helens are! They'd do an ideal job at replacing the X and Y reg vehicles all over the North West, thus it's a win win isn't it? Oh, trust me, they definitely take enough to take a Pulsar! Packed buses every morning, even the lates are quite full. Whilst I agree deckers aren't needed on lates, but does the 79 need deckers on lates too? I'd be amazed if they did. Plus, think of the extra passengers who'd use the bus if they seen a decker too rather then a packed single decker. Bendys are different though aren't they? Deckers are even shorter then a Pulsar. What would you rather be driving? A decker with everyone sitting or a packed single having to face angry passengers who can't get on? I'm sure a 10/A driver'd back me up here!

Arriva got a sizeable grant towards the cost of the Wirral Hybrids, and the welsh assembly paid for the sapphire conversions on the Enviro400s that came from Birkenhead.The rest that ended up at Bootle have had zero work done to them. Arriva seems to want some deckers at Bootle in case of any rail replacement work they get, mainly on sundays. Older Passengers don`t like deckers as a rule and won`t go upstairs.
A full bus doesn`t always mean the ticket sales are good,i`m sure given the areas that service runs through the amount of forged and out of date tickets would be considerable,how many of those darling school kids are paying to travel ?,one saveaway chucked out of the window to get their friend on etc.
To be fair of all the Speke routes the 79 was ok with single deckers before the route was extended to Halewood, they are full on most 79 lates because the number of routes serving Halewood has been reduced and it only runs every 20 minutes at night, during the day Commanders would be often good enough.
The 79C needs larger buses and has done for years even before the Cadets that are the current standard, Occasionally a Pulsar sneaks on rather than a cadet .The story goes that somebody at Arriva made a clerical error when ordering those buses which should have been Commanders,several Arriva Runcorn people have said this on seperate occasions.

[Raawwwrrr!]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 21:41)FC Pictures Wrote:  To be fair of all the Speke routes the 79 was ok with single deckers before the route was extended to Halewood, they are full on most 79 lates because the number of routes serving Halewood has been reduced and it only runs every 20 minutes at night, during the day Commanders would be often good enough.

That isn't actually true, there was a large number of complaints from drivers and passenger alike about what vehicles were used on the 79. The main problem was peak hour and bank holidays where the service was every 15 minutes. Single Deckers would become full very quickly during the peak hour to the extent where no passengers could be picked up by 9/10 of the buses on route. There was numerous complaints from visitors to the Royal Liverpool Hospital that after visitng someone in care, they were sometimes unable to catch any bus at all for up to an hour due to how busy the services had become. Most services were unable to stop between Queen Square and Matalan Wavertree due to capacity reasons.
Drivers complained that they were loosing out on their brakes and there was a high amount of lost journeys due to the time full single deckers would take to get from A to B, this became an even bigger problem when it came to driver changeovers as the vans and cars would not be at the right place at the right time for the next drivers, and caused delays on other services.
During the festive periods, easter, and festivals such as Mathew Street, the buses became full very quickly and once again were unable to stop most of the route. During the Mathew street festival in 2010, buses were full between Netherley and Bellevale and became unable to call at any stop between the shopping centre and Brownlow Hill. Arriva were aware of this and started to run "79E" services between the shopping centre and liverpool one the following year.
Another problem was that the Renowns used on the route were well known for overheating in the summer, especially when they were working harder with large loads, the cadets were too slow climbing Brownlow Hill taking up to a whole minute to reach 20mph, and the ALX300 also had their fair share of overheating, although nothing like the renowns

The 79 was not converted to deckers due to the Halewood extention, it merely helped the cause and very few people use the service the full route, with most travelling to and from Belle Vale shopping Centre and Morrisons. 79 lates have always been busy in recent history, and was a lot worse when it was a 30 minute frequency, combined with a 30 minute 79c

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 19:16)FC Pictures Wrote:  I did point out that there are no parallel trains with the 432/433 and 437 they take a totally different route to Liverpool, so you would have to add a bus fare on top to connect to any train from Wallasey, and Saveaway Tickets for cross river cost about the same anyway.

The point is that for a return journey of virtually identical length (Wallasey Village to Liverpool and Egremont to Liverpool) you have a disparity of £1.60. That is remarkable, especially as the buses serve the more deprived areas of Wallasey that the trains do not and are charging vastly greater fares. Put simply, a more reasonable return fare would allow some residents who have been priced out of using the bus to start using it again. £3.40 is reasonable for Wallasey - Liverpool, £5 certainly isn't.

Now, I have used the 10/10A route on a daily basis while I was at University for nearly three years, and not once - not a single occasion - did I ever witness any act of anti-social behaviour, and this includes travelling at school times several days a week. Sure, the odd rowdy school kid wasn't unheard of, but in terms of acts of vandalism and bad behaviour towards other passengers, not a single incident. Regardless of experience, the back of most of St Helens' Pulsars that I've seen are not particularly vandalised, some not at all. They're certainly in better nick internally than some examples at Green Lane, Birkenhead and Bootle.

As V671 rightly says, other cities have equally bad and worse areas than Liverpool (Manchester has a significantly higher rate of crime than Liverpool) yet their provision of double deckers is unaffected. Vandalism and anti-social behaviour is a frankly shameful excuse.

The 192 route in Manchester even had issues with gangs boarding buses, going upstairs and threatening passengers unless they handed over money. I remember it reported in the Manchester Evening News a couple of years ago. Never once have I heard anything like this reported in Liverpool, yet as it city and region it has a mere fraction of the number of high-capacity buses as Manchester.

[FC Pictures]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
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The point is that for a return journey of virtually identical length (Wallasey Village to Liverpool and Egremont to Liverpool) you have a disparity of £1.60. That is remarkable, especially as the buses serve the more deprived areas of Wallasey that the trains do not and are charging vastly greater fares. Put simply, a more reasonable return fare would allow some residents who have been priced out of using the bus to start using it again. £3.40 is reasonable for Wallasey - Liverpool, £5 certainly isn't.

Bus fares are not usually set by how deprived an area may be that a route passes thru, fares won`t go down,and who is priced out of using the bus,why would someone be using a bus service to Liverpool ? .either for work or shopping, if you have no money the bus fare is the least of your problems ,you wont need any bus even if the fare was 50p. i wasn`t aware that Liscard and Greasby were deprived either.

[childwallblues]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(09/07/2014 21:41)FC Pictures Wrote:  Arriva got a sizeable grant towards the cost of the Wirral Hybrids, and the welsh assembly paid for the sapphire conversions on the Enviro400s that came from Birkenhead.The rest that ended up at Bootle have had zero work done to them. Arriva seems to want some deckers at Bootle in case of any rail replacement work they get, mainly on sundays. Older Passengers don`t like deckers as a rule and won`t go upstairs.
A full bus doesn`t always mean the ticket sales are good,i`m sure given the areas that service runs through the amount of forged and out of date tickets would be considerable,how many of those darling school kids are paying to travel ?,one saveaway chucked out of the window to get their friend on etc.
To be fair of all the Speke routes the 79 was ok with single deckers before the route was extended to Halewood, they are full on most 79 lates because the number of routes serving Halewood has been reduced and it only runs every 20 minutes at night, during the day Commanders would be often good enough.
The 79C needs larger buses and has done for years even before the Cadets that are the current standard, Occasionally a Pulsar sneaks on rather than a cadet .The story goes that somebody at Arriva made a clerical error when ordering those buses which should have been Commanders,several Arriva Runcorn people have said this on seperate occasions.

Once a route gets double deckers allocated it makes sense to use them all the time, rather than swap them out in the evening. Bootles 60 and 61 has deckers in the evening when passenger numbers rarely make double figures. I have no doubt that routes 1 and 11 in Wales could operate with Pulsars of an evening. Passenger loadings on the 79 have always justified deckers on the stretch between the City Centre and Wavertree Clock Tower. This can be described as an inner city area were the housing is very old and many are converted into flats and bed sits. There is a large population in this area especially from Poland. You would not have Polish shops otherwise. Belle Vale Shopping Centre also attracts large amounts of passengers especially with the Job Centre, DSS and Morrisons also on site.

[tinytears87]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
Great debate going on people, keep it up, always good to read constructive comments.

Those of you who know me, know that i'm a driver based in SH, and have been since Merseybus days.

Deckers ? Why did Arriva ever let them go ? They prefered the single deck, high frequency corridor. But this 'mindset' is changing again now. Deckers have slowly re-appeared on routes over the last few years as you all know, why the 10/10A's have not been considered defies belief. I don't deal with rumours, deckers were never ordered for SH, it was just a rumour 'we might' get them. Got us all excited, then sadly let down. Deckers in the future ? It's still being talked about, but nothing concrete as yet. I do late shifts every week on the 10/10A's, some journeys are quiet, some you get standing loads. For eg, 2325 10A from Mann Island last night, standing load by the time i got to London Road. It had been said by a previous manager of our depot a few years back, that no-one in this day and age should need to stand up for a journey, there are enough buses and seats available. I'd like to know his thoughts now. If deckers come back, expect frequencies to drop to ensure ' fuller buses' per journey. As a driver this worries me, as this would result in us losing work. I'd rather have 6 buses an hour for eg, than 4. More jobs. What would i prefer to drive ? Deckers, but not at the expense of jobs. Remember the 10'10A route is not Liverpool to an 'outer point', its a city to a town route, and it gets busy any time of the day, no two journeys are the same. Eg, Monday night, a late shift, i did one 10A, then two 10's, last night, one 10, then 2 10A's, result, £200 difference in takings, thats how changeable Prescot Rd can be. You cannot predict it. I'd love to see deckers back in our depot, but not at the expense of losing work. As for vandalism, it rarely happens, and i would say we suffer as a city, a lot less than other cities do. I'll leave it here for now :-)

TT

[wirralbus]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
Any investment in Double deckers for the 10/10A corridor really has to be looked at in the context of the partnership the routes are in , a double decker can easily accommodate more passengers but as some one said before if the service was all double deckers wouldn't the frequency have to come down otherwise there would empty seats for the vast amount of the journey beyond the M57 St Helens bound.

[FC Pictures]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot

(10/07/2014 08:09)tinytears87 Wrote:  Great debate going on people, keep it up, always good to read constructive comments.

Those of you who know me, know that i'm a driver based in SH, and have been since Merseybus days.

Deckers ? Why did Arriva ever let them go ? They prefered the single deck, high frequency corridor. But this 'mindset' is changing again now. Deckers have slowly re-appeared on routes over the last few years as you all know, why the 10/10A's have not been considered defies belief. I don't deal with rumours, deckers were never ordered for SH, it was just a rumour 'we might' get them. Got us all excited, then sadly let down. Deckers in the future ? It's still being talked about, but nothing concrete as yet. I do late shifts every week on the 10/10A's, some journeys are quiet, some you get standing loads. For eg, 2325 10A from Mann Island last night, standing load by the time i got to London Road. It had been said by a previous manager of our depot a few years back, that no-one in this day and age should need to stand up for a journey, there are enough buses and seats available. I'd like to know his thoughts now. If deckers come back, expect frequencies to drop to ensure ' fuller buses' per journey. As a driver this worries me, as this would result in us losing work. I'd rather have 6 buses an hour for eg, than 4. More jobs. What would i prefer to drive ? Deckers, but not at the expense of jobs. Remember the 10'10A route is not Liverpool to an 'outer point', its a city to a town route, and it gets busy any time of the day, no two journeys are the same. Eg, Monday night, a late shift, i did one 10A, then two 10's, last night, one 10, then 2 10A's, result, £200 difference in takings, thats how changeable Prescot Rd can be. You cannot predict it. I'd love to see deckers back in our depot, but not at the expense of losing work. As for vandalism, it rarely happens, and i would say we suffer as a city, a lot less than other cities do. I'll leave it here for now :-)

TT

Very sensible reasoning, It was MTL who converted the 10/10A to single deck years before the takeover,i think if they came back on here that would mean a cut in frequency and indeed a loss of jobs and even more frustration for passengers having to wait longer for bigger and fuller buses at times,given the present age of the Pulsars used it`s likely to be a few years before any kind of bus is bought for this service, Arriva probably consider Pulsars over sized for many St Helens local routes so anything new for there is likely to be smaller Solo/Enviro200 size.

[turbo777]

RE: Arriva North West - St Helens Depot
Has there been any passenger consultation/survey on the 10/10A route?
Has the drivers are the staff on the frontline is there a forum in place within the company where issues such has overcrowding can be raised & solutions can be debated? Only then with all the facts can the right decisions on how best to proceed be made.
Are the ticket machines fitted with GPS? If so that could some how be used to regulate and even out the gaps in the service, they use such a technique in London on the 73 Victoria-Stoke Newington. Why can't it be applied here? Maybe it will not be feasable but like any other company Arriva have a duty to its customers & it's staff to constantly look at how it can do things better. Companies these days have to be dynamic.