Howards/Springfield

[knutstransport]

RE: Howards/Springfield

(02/08/2016 09:01)quahogbuscompany Wrote:  I see from the Howard's twitter feed that the service is reverting to the original timetable. I really feel for these guys as they appear to be being mucked about with all over the place. Hopefully it's just teething troubles as I know first hand that the guys at Howard's are really nice people to deal with. I would hate to see them fail at this because of bureaucratic incompetence. Let's just hope potential customers aren't put off by all this. I note that they have a 62 plate Enviro 200 running on this service on hire from Mistral until possibly a new vehicle is sourced?

The 289 and 10A contracts were up for renewal even if GHA hadn't collapsed with new contracts due to start in the autumn: http://england.unitedkingdom-tenders.co....2016_Crewe

What was strange is for the 88 route Arriva published a timetable, before they even started running it, which specified the services they'll operate initially and which ones which only commence on 1st August. Yet the new 289 timetable didn't say the 06:55 from Northwich was only until 30th July, so unless the timetable on the Howards site didn't reflect the registration wouldn't they need to give VOSA 8 weeks notice to make the change?

One problem in Cheshire East generally is the old bus times are still displayed at what seems like every bus stop. So, for instance the Howards 27 Saturday service is at xx:15 every 2 hours from Knutsford bus station but the bus stand timetable still says xx:45 every hour. Some people who are aware of the 27 High Peak M-F timetable are still unaware that a different operator has registered a Saturday service.

I've not seen the Mistral Enviro 200 but hearing that reminds me of when Swans had the 200 and 289 contracts and they were using a Mistral Enviro 200, with Mistral obviously being based a couple of miles off the 289 route but the bus having to make a 35 mile trip to/from Swans depot at the start and end of the day.