At least in the south, today should be sunny and warm. Lovely and balmy for our visitors and out they will come, by bus. The Lib Dems have been in town, hopefully using the area’s bus service but however they’ve been circulating (usually on foot or by taxi between hotel & BIC), they’ve been generally rushing around as experience suggests all political delegates tend to do.
The rest of the late season visitors take life at a slower pace. They enjoy what remains of the season and its bursts of sunshine, as they prepare to pack up till next spring. At least the weather makes up for a poor August.
Something’s changed since last season and certainly a few seasons back. Then, if you asked at hotel reception for suggested days out by bus or even a timetable, you met with mild derision. “Are you sure?” No longer, especially at this time of year when a majority of visitors are older ones. Using the bus on holiday is getting to be rather popular and we have national free travel to thank for that. 
Free travel and a decent bus network. Plenty of double decks, too, from which to enjoy a day or half-day out (with the added bonus that some of them travel along remarkably rural roads). Here are a selection of prime examples from the Dorset tourist area:
- Frequent 1b/1c buses twixt Poole, Bournemouth & Christchurch by Transdev
- Half-hourly X3 Bournemouth-Ringwood-Salisbury by Wilts & Dorset
- Hourly 40 Poole-Swanage and its compatriot hourly 50 Bournemouth-Sandbanks-Swanage by W&D
- Occasional 387 Poole-Dorchester by Damory
- Two-hourly 183 Weymouth-Blandford & connecting 184 Blandford-Salisbury by W&D
- Hourly 31 Weymouth-Axminster via Bridport & Lyme Regis by First
1620 ex-Poole service X53, suitably branded, departs with a full load
And then there’s the daddy of them all, the award winning Jurassic Coast X53 a.k.a Coastlinx53 between Poole, Weymouth, Bridport, Lyme Regis, Seaton & Exeter. This appears to be enjoying a late boom, carrying vast numbers of Indian summer ‘twirlies’ on a service operating every two hours. At peak times and on nice days, it’s no exaggeration to say that there simply aren’t enough buses on this route any more. A victim of its own success, perhaps. How times change for the bus. All we now need is for a politician or two, no matter their colours, to rediscover the joy of the bus. And to consider proper free travel reimbursements, of course.
4 comments:
Any thoughts on the roadside publicity used by W&D and TYB?
If you mean to include timetables and maps, then to some extent, doesn't horses for courses come in?
For that reason TYB's is very suited to its nature: linear route diagrams with journey times to points on route, multicoloured ladder of times of buses departing that stop. All are suited to a compact urban area with generally high frequencies.
OTOH I do not think that would work for W&D with its longer more rural routes. For me the standard timetable seems more suited. I wish though that they would use larger and clearer print. TYB's, I guess is read easier on misted panels (not unusual in Britain).
However the standard timetable seems to faze some folk,perhaps because they have only of late used buses and is not down to W&D
Roadside publicity is still something poorly developed and delivered in so many areas. I've heard that Southern Vectis, who already have information at every stop, have commissioned Bus Users UK to help them develop the ultimate roadside displays. Should be worth looking at the results.
show some examples of both sets of publicity and make comments from there
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