What Went Wrong in York?

What major timetable relaunch has gone perfectly smoothly without a hitch? Hands up the traffic manager on a major change who *hasn’t* found he’s two buses on driver changeover and only one driver? It can take a week for drivers – and especially passengers – to understand and become comfortable with any major timetable change.

We said the eyes of the bus industry would be on First in York at the launch on Monday of ftr. The service on day one wasn’t quite as expected: buses bunching with gaps in frequency of up to 30 minutes plus a major ticket machine failure. Matters will and have improved but there must be those in the partnership council who must be wondering whether they should’ve put ftr on rails and called it a tram. Things can and will only get better on what is, let’s face it, the best hope the industry has of attracting modal shift.