Calls in Oxford for the conversion to double decks of service 13 from the infamous John Radcliffe Hospital resonate with me. It reminded me a little of the problems some routes face in Bournemouth.
The Oxford Bus Company’s 13 is not the most frequent of services but when you add in the X13, it doubles to every 10 minutes, though the X13 misses out the rail station which, apparently, is where residents of Marston are concerned about overloading. Probems seem to occur over but a short section of the route.
A group of residents says that in 13 days, eight *buses* were unable to pick up all passengers. “At least once a week, people can’t get on the bus”. Now, that’s hardly “chock-a-block” as the complainants suggest. Indeed, it seems to boil down to “too many students and their luggage.” And these aren’t archetypal Oxford university types, but foreign language students.
Regular travellers across Bournemouth & Poole will know that English as a foreign language (EFL) students can also cause sparodic overloading. They’re a good source of Glo Card revenue (smartcard season-type ticket) but, like in Oxford, they are unpredictable from one day and one week to the next and they often travel in packs, sometimes large ones. June is particularly problematic, as schools are in, workers working, tourists plentiful and EFL students abundant. Ordinary Bournemouth passengers tend to accept that, occasionally, buses become full. They accept, too, the EFL students’ loose concept of queuing. EFLs are, after all, continentals.
In Oxford, it would be foolhardy indeed to up capacity (and costs) for such an almost infinitesimal problem. Yet, the Oxford story about the 13s could so easily have turned into something of a bad PR gaff for the Oxford Bus Co. But, with so few occasions when the bus is overloaded, I liked the way its spokeswoman handled the press. Here we have a young woman as operations director who is probably someone to watch.
Said Miss Weeks, “I can assure our passengers in the Marston area that the last thing in the world we want to do is leave them at their bus stop.” And she went on, “We are aware that occasional journeys at the busiest times are full on a small part of the route. We know how frustrating that can be for passengers but it’s also really frustrating for us.” A refreshingly honest answer rather than a “no comment”, brush off, or we-know-best answer.
And that’s something else Oxford has in common with Bournemouth: TYB’s usual good handling of the press.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Resonates
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10 comments:
as a former oxford bus driver and road steward on this route i can tell you the problems are not that bad.at peak times for the JR coming out in thje evening(16.00-16.45) you will fil up on the 13/x13/x23 but most passengers get of at carfax with very few going on to the station. the only time you get a real problem with leaving passengers on the marston road was the 8.54 ex JR 13 and the 9.05 ex JR x13 which would fill up with freedom pass holders who have to travel at 9am or the world will end and it has been known most days for these busus to be full by oxfrod road leaving passengers stranded on the marston road.there is not a real problem with students on this route as most will catch the free for them to us brookes bus u5.the biggest problem with this route is the interworked x3/x4/x13/x23 from abingdon which will have standing loads in to oxford city centre for most of the am peak with the same out in the evening which means on most days passengers for marston JR will be left along the abingdon road.as you may be aware oxord bus co have secured green fund funding for 17 hybrid dekka's which is the pvr for this route so perhaps it will be getting some new douible dekkas and the problem will be solved.
Anon at 1017 said "the only time you get a real problem with leaving passengers on the marston road was the 8.54 ex JR 13 and the 9.05 ex JR x13 which would fill up with freedom pass holders who have to travel at 9am or the world will end"
Why does it not surprise me that Concessionary pass holders seem to be the cause of the problem . . .
"an almost infinitesimal problem"
Not if you're a passenger. This sort of thing puts people off bus travel.
Not an easy or cheap one to solve, of course, which is why COMS responded as they did. But it is not "infinitessimal" (sp), and not insignificant, and to suggest it is shows a complete disregard for the passenger.
Under classic economics if there is excess demand the price should rise.
Perhaps Oxford Bus Co need to revise their pricing strategy to overcome this?
It may be good PR, but PR is only words. If I was one of the frustrated passengers, I would be looking for actions rather than just words. As Neil says, it is not such a minor issue if you are one of the people left behind, and knowing that the bus operator is also frustrated is not much help.
I don't have detailed knowledge of the operations concerned, but the times referred to by the first anonymous contributor suggest that the problem occurs towards the end of the morning peak, so perhaps one of the journeys could be duplicated to provide extra capacity? Such a solution could no doubt be implemented much more quickly than the acquisition of a batch of double deckers for the whole service - and probably more cheaply, in the short term, at least.
hooray for common sense.well said rc169
I did see the article in one of the Oxford papers on the web. I actually didn't rate the reply from OBC as it just seemed that they shrugged their shoulders and said "we feel your pain but aren't going to do anything about it".
That's no answer if, as Neil & RC169 point out, you're one of the poor souls being left behind. If you need to use the bus to get somewhere for a given time then not being able to get on the bus is unacceptable. You will seek an alternative and that may not be public transport so that may be a customer lost for good. I doubt that is really what any decent public transport operator wants to see.
In fairness to Oxford Bus (although they are quite capable of defending themselves) and to give you all a fuller picture, here is the quote in full:
“We are aware that occasional journeys at the busiest times are full on a small part of the route. We know how frustrating that can be for passengers but it’s also really frustrating for us.
“There’s no pattern or rhyme or reason to indicate when the buses are likely to be full, it seems to happen on average on one journey a week, at different times, in the morning rush hour.
“We are carefully monitoring the situation.
“We will be reviewing the whole of the service once the next phase of Transform Oxford is in place and resources are freed up.
“In the meantime I can assure our passengers in the Marston area that the last thing in the world we want to do is leave them at their bus stop.”
Taken from www.oxfordmail.co.uk
paul said fairness etc.the statement is absolute waffle.you cant kid a bus man .they know but arent taking any action
So Anon at 2129 - what do you suggest OBC do?
If their comment about the unpredictability of the overloading is true, and if their comment about it is only on one journey a week on average is also true, how do you address it. Anon at 1017 quotes some times which show just how frequent buses on this corridor are - I'm guessing here that the problems may arise when for whatever reason there is a gap/delay in service.
I'm sure Oxford would love to adopt the classic economics theory to solve the problem, but as stated the service is free at point of delivery to a large number of the patrons, and there's nowt they can do about that.
I don't think adding resource will necessarily solve this one - better regulation of the service may help, but you can't beat unpredictable congestion without extra resource either.
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