In response to yesterday’s post on the deregulation oddities highlighted by the Campaign for Better Transport, commenter RC169 is, of course, right to state that such curiosities are not confined to the present day.
Often, when a country operator arrived at the city boundary, the old road service licence system would protect the urban operator by laying down conditions on the country provider. These tended either to be a setting down only restriction or the charging of a heavily weighted fare to discourage municipal abstraction.
“NOTE—The same passenger may not be both picked up and set down between (a) Southampton Bus Station and Tanners Brook, and (b) Bournemouth Bus Station and Longfield Drive, and a 1/- minimum fare will apply over the following sections (a) Southampton Bus Station to Totton, and (b) Bournemouth Bus Station to Ferndown, Penny’s Hill.”I would argue that under that older system at least the passengers understood such rules, often in place for many years. Life was much simpler. It was obvious which were country buses and which were municipal. Invariably, the city provider operated at significantly higher frequencies and this would encourage municipal use and discourage short-distance journeys on the country service. Go back to the 1950s and there probably wouldn’t be room on the country bus in any case and the protection offered through the licensing system guarded against undue country service overcrowding.
And there tended to be only two suppliers, one country, one municipal. Demarcation was easy. Where there was a third, the country operators tended to co-operate, and they were often within the same group (e.g. National Bus Co and its predecessors).
Reading through the list of examples on the Campaign for Better Transport’s website, you get the impression that these days the competitive industry simply baffles passengers. Especially so where there are hourly buses competing just five minutes apart. In many areas frequencies have slimmed down yet operators *still* don't co-operate. Or, rather, operators couldn’t legitimately do so, perhaps till now.
(The example above from Hants & Dorset service 27 sounds horribly complicated but was actually easily understood on the ground. It isn’t the best example, as the 27 was limited stop with suitable restrictions thereon)
10 comments:
The once 'country' areas close to Edinburgh used to have services which were fast, but expensive and often not very frequent. Now, with extended 'city' services, they have more frequent and relatively cheaper, but much slower, buses. Swings and roundabouts?
You have actually picked a fairly simple example with H&D Service 27.
The Trent timetable for its service 67 in 1960 has the following note "On the journeys to Hucknall, no passenger will be picked up after leaving the Area Bus Stop Sign in Coppice Road situated 440 yards before reaching Beechwood Road, or the Area Bus Stop Sign in Gedling Road (Arnold), for the purpose of being set down before Arnold (White Hart). On the journeys from Hucknall, no passenger will be picked up after leaving Arnold (White Hart) for the purpose of being set down before reaching the Area Bus Stop Sign in Coppice Road or the Area Stop Sign in Gedling Road (Arnold). The same passenger may not be both picked up and set down between the Corporation trolley bus terminus Hucknall Lane and the junction of Hucknall Road with Arnold Lane"
Barton and Midland General timetables carried many similar restrictions, some even more complex.
Protection in towns was sometimes as much for the benefit of country services. Bristol would not set down on country services before the city boundary, but would pick up within the city inbound. There would also be restrictions between country operators on different days of the week to provide protection on an historic basis.
It was even more complicated on the H&D routes from Bournemouth to Lymington where you were in the BCT Corporation area from Bournemouth Square to Iford Bridge; left the BCT area for the run along Fairmile. Then re-entered the BCT area from Christchurch to Purewell. Many a trap there for the new conductor as to what sort of ticket to issue, Setright machine or BCT ticket rack!
The restrictions on Bristol country services that Anonymous (08:53) refers to, would, of course, seem entirely reasonable and logical to anybody familiar with bus operation. However, I guess anyone not so familiar with such matters would see it as very strange. This does of course highlight the fact that bus operators need to explain their actions and decisions rather better than they sometimes do - just as true today as it was 30/40/50 years ago.
unfortunately the old restriction practices led to the demise of many smaller operators when the industry started to lose passengers back in the fifties the combines always win!!nothing changes.
In Crosville's day there were restrictions around the edge of Chester. The most interesting was in Wrexham on the Chester -Wrexham service when the old D1 was not allowed to pick up or set down when very small operator M A Jones & Son operated along and the road and nearby. Crosville must have found this galling. Evenings and Sundays there was no Jones and the restriction was lifted.
Even in the late 70s M A Jones operated petrol engined Bedfords. They tried to sell out to Crosville in 1985 or 1986 but Crosville said No, they could just operate themselves if they wished, from that October.
Anonymous at 16:46, you highlight an ironic fact, i.e. that the restrictions were generally applied by the regulatory authorities - yet the Campaign for Better Transport would like to see regulation reintroduced!
True, RC169, but they were at the request of the urban operators concerned with the colusion of the authorities. I think this makes a difference.
Anonymous 16:46 said...
"True, RC169, but they were at the request of the urban operators concerned with the colusion of the authorities."
Agreed, but if you look at the relevant page on the Campaign for Better Transport website, the implication there is that these 'anomalies' are a result of the rules regarding competition. My point is that the existence of such anomalies is not a result of competition, although the exact detail of the specific cases may be different. However, looking again at the list of instances reported by CBT, several of them relate to fares (rather than the 'schedules' that CBT refer to), and could just as easily have arisen in the pre-deregulation era.
In looking at timetables to respond to today's post I have come across a mind-bending licence condition on Barton Route 4 (TER 1/272):
No vehicle operating on this service which has a lay-over at the terminus at the "Red Lion" Sandiacre in excess of the headway on the Derby to Nottingham service as co-ordinated with the Trent Motor Traction Co. Ltd., shall take up intending passengers at the "Red Lion" terminus until after the scheduled time of departure of the next Nottingham bound vehicle operated by the Trent Motor Traction Co. Ltd."
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