Diamond Bus North West

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
The other issue with the 582 is the running time, Buses are forever late as they just don't have enough time to do a trip

[iMarkeh]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
From what I saw when I was on the 582, it is busy enough for deckers but if you look at it another way, it doesn't need them. Firstly from the fact people start standing if the bus is around 50% full. Secondly, the majority of people use the 582 for shorter distance trips and therefore I the average time someone is standing for is around 5 minutes. It's not a lot of time.

It could be busier at other times and when trips are missed but based on my experience, deckers are not needed when you work out how long people stand for and the reasons why they stand. Infact, people are more likely to stand on the 582 if it was a decker because of the short hop, there is no point going upstairs.

[Bevan Price]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
The 582 has been "difficult" for many years, ever since I first used it - long gaps, often followed by convoys of 3+ buses. I suggest the main problems are congestion - particularly at the Bolton end, in Leigh and sometimes at Hulton Lane Ends. The problems are often made worse by badly phased traffic lights, too many traffic lights, and roadworks. Road authorities seem to think that traffic lights help to solve congestion problems - from my observations, they often make things a lot worse - and sometimes more dangerous.

[gilesbus1]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
One of the issues has been that bus lanes were installed throughout the 582 route in 1998, but then other road users protested about extra congestion so many of them were removed, all the others are part time.

Most journeys I see to be honest are not short hops, but several of them are journeys between 10 minutes and 35 minutes, Bendy Buses were tried by FirstGroup but failed because the road infrastructure and bus stops are not suitable for them. Yesterday I walked to Leigh in the evening peak and there was an Enviro Enviro400 allocated and it was totally full on the lower deck and two thirds full on the upper deck, so they can withstand usage at busy times and not be part full. Also look at the number of people waiting to board at Bolton Bus Station, quite often the Que is quite long, if not the longest in the entire bus station.

Suspect one of the issues why deckers are not allocated is down to user-ship in that about 50% are OAP's with free passes, and they are unlikely to want to go upstairs so by putting deckers on, your merely reducing the number of seats they can use,and therefore everyone else would have to be prepared to go upstairs onto the upper deck, but in practice they won't.

Even when GMPTE operate there were periods when saloons were allocated rather than deckers, usually Leyland Nationals, I never recall a Bristol or Seddon being allocated, but that's not to say they weren't, generally in the PTE period it was Atherton based Leyland Fleetline's and later Atlanteans then Olympian's that operated on it, often mixed up so you would get a large number of Fleetline's and an Atlantean then Olympian, later of course when Ribble and Merseybus competed on it you had Olympians that were branded as the main allocation. While the others generally used older deckers and Leyland National 2 series buses.

Another issue why the 582 can be quite busy is because of the withdrawal of other routes that served the same corridor e.g. between Bolton and Over Hulton (Four Lane Ends) you used to have the 12, the 580 and the 559 amongst others, plus a service to Chorley/Preston via Hulton Lane Ends and Westhoughton operated by Ribble, now there are none of these, at the other end between Leigh and Atherton, you had the 516, the 39 and later the 35, plus Shakerley circulars, now all you've got left on there is the 517 and half a Shakerley circular, both running at hourly frequencies, everything else has gone.

[M60lad]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
Another route lost on 582 route which used to do well was Paul Hughe's 592 Shakerley-Bolton service trading as Atherton Bus Company, this always used to do quite well for Paul and would always leave Bolton full and was always driven by Paul himself who was a wondeful and friendly person and looked after his passengers.

As for other problems that 582 has yes I will go with timings as most daytime journies between Bolton and Leigh only get 30mins to do the full journey and you can spend most of that time depending on the time of day queing in traffic up St Helens Road and because of this and the frequency of 582s during the day (its classed as a frequent service) you can end up with the one behind and even the one behind that catching up with the one in front meaning at least 3 are running virtually together all the way from Bolton-Leigh so by the time the buses get to Leigh there's been a gap in service.

Getting into Leigh can also be a problem sometimes losing more time for 582s with traffic on Leigh Road queing from just before Kirkhall Lane all the way into Leigh adding another 10 or more minutes onto the journey.

Personally I think the answer would be to increase the running time to 582 to give it more time to do the full route as I thik this would help as I dread to wonder what the loss mileage is like for 582 sometimes as I do know that from time to time the odd 582 does or did end up running empty from terminus to terminus to try and get it back on time.

[johnluke]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
I remember paul one bus call ABC lives in westhoughton although not seen him for years he used to walk a lot

[gilesbus1]

RE: Diamond Bus North West

(07/11/2019 07:28)M60lad Wrote:  Another route lost on 582 route which used to do well was Paul Hughe's 592 Shakerley-Bolton service trading as Atherton Bus Company, this always used to do quite well for Paul and would always leave Bolton full and was always driven by Paul himself who was a wondeful and friendly person and looked after his passengers.

As for other problems that 582 has yes I will go with timings as most daytime journies between Bolton and Leigh only get 30mins to do the full journey and you can spend most of that time depending on the time of day queing in traffic up St Helens Road and because of this and the frequency of 582s during the day (its classed as a frequent service) you can end up with the one behind and even the one behind that catching up with the one in front meaning at least 3 are running virtually together all the way from Bolton-Leigh so by the time the buses get to Leigh there's been a gap in service.

Getting into Leigh can also be a problem sometimes losing more time for 582s with traffic on Leigh Road queing from just before Kirkhall Lane all the way into Leigh adding another 10 or more minutes onto the journey.

Personally I think the answer would be to increase the running time to 582 to give it more time to do the full route as I thik this would help as I dread to wonder what the loss mileage is like for 582 sometimes as I do know that from time to time the odd 582 does or did end up running empty from terminus to terminus to try and get it back on time.

Yep I agree with most of this, the issue with Kirkhall Lane is that many people use it as its an access route to the large ASDA and therefore several cars queue to access ASDA in the reverse journey, and also as has been said before a number of side roads opening on to Leigh Road then the Avenue lights themselves cause much of that.

Real improvements would be for larger 55 seat saloons on tri-axles, similar to those based on Alexander Dennis E200MMCXL chassis as sold in New Zealand to a number of operators, there are no major sharp turns so they should not be an issue with access, the step entrance saloons that were used, after all were fine. Iit would be even better no doubt if such machines could be given BYD Electric running units/chassis, so as to meet green standards, however not sure ADL will ever offer the XLB model in the United Kingdom, and neither are there any plans currently for BYD to provide chassis for such a model.

As for the empty trips I have seen several of them, which are a pain in the neck if your stood at a bus stop, I remember an occasion when 3 vehicles past all running empty from Leigh back to Bolton and ending up waiting about 25 minutes while this happened, I think that some times controllers want to get stuff from one end to the other but not the stages in-between.

[M60lad]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
Regarding the empty trips especially the ones running from Leigh-Bolton they will be running empty so the driver can get back to Depot for their meal break as not to sure how duties on 582 are worked but it could be after the driver has done a 582 their back-half will be on another route and if they've come in late on 582 it could mean one of Diamonds other routes could end of suffering because of the driver having a late meal break.

[SK15 GZG (Moderator)]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
It's been reported another forum that 33720 and 33725 have gone to First South Yorkshire

[Y458 KNF]

RE: Diamond Bus North West

(08/11/2019 19:18)Y474 KNF Wrote:  It's been reported another forum that 33720 and 33725 have gone to First South Yorkshire

Does anyone know where the other vehicles are that have gone back to First or are they just at Oldham?