Thames Travel cancellations

[Mikey C]

As the previous thread were closed, I've opened a new one, as for the first time I had the pleasure of using Thames Travel today. Luckily my service was fine, but I was keeping a keen eye on Twitter as over the last few days there have been loads of cancellations, as can be seen on their Twitter feed

https://twitter.com/thames_travel?lang=en

What's going on? I've seen mention of vehicle problems on Twitter, but it must be a significant proportion of their fleet?

 

[overthewater]

This is nothing new and has been going for year, What on earth is going wrong at Thames travel?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Their Twitterer gave this classy response to a customer making a valid and polite complaint about cancellations:

As a commercial company we do not need to provide a public service however should you wish to email us we can give a more detailed response.

Wow, just wow. Not a company that deserves to survive if they are going to take such an arrogant anti-customer attitude. That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in small to medium-sized bus companies.

 

[Cesarcollie]

Their Twitterer gave this classy response to a customer making a valid and polite complaint about cancellations:



Wow, just wow. Not a company that deserves to survive if they are going to take such an arrogant anti-customer attitude. That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in small to medium-sized bus companies.

Er......Thames Travel is part of Go Ahead. Hardly 'small' or 'medium-sized'. But agreed - a truly terrible response!!

 

[Busaholic]

Their Twitterer gave this classy response to a customer making a valid and polite complaint about cancellations:



Wow, just wow. Not a company that deserves to survive if they are going to take such an arrogant anti-customer attitude. That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in small to medium-sized bus companies.

If that response was in relation to a complaint about cancellation of a journey on a registered bus route, then it is factually inaccurate. If I ever received such a response I'd get the relevant Traffic Commissioner's office involved pronto.

 

[Typhoon]

Wow, just wow. Not a company that deserves to survive if they are going to take such an arrogant anti-customer attitude. That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in small to medium-sized bus companies.

I am not certain that this is fair. I would accept 'That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in some small to medium-sized bus companies.' Even 'That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in many small to medium-sized bus companies.' However, there are some really excellent small to medium-sized bus companies who go out of their way to support the passenger. As an example, I have twice received a thorough and detailed response to an e-mail enquiry before 6am from a small operator; I don't think any of the majors would replicate that.

 

[Mikey C]

If that response was in relation to a complaint about cancellation of a journey on a registered bus route, then it is factually inaccurate. If I ever received such a response I'd get the relevant Traffic Commissioner's office involved pronto.

After someone raised this, the company twitter account seemed to slightly back down!

Bizarre that they won't give a public explanation of what's going on, but will do so if you email them? That makes no sense.

- Is there any chance of getting a proper explanation about why this has happened?
- Please email office@thames-travel.co.uk so that we can provide an answer in detail.
- Why can't you make the response public?
- We require some investigation prior to responding.

 

[goldisgood]

The company is a bit of a mess. Buses are a bit of a state, investment is scarce, fares are too high and I am led to believe that they have driver shortages... Just a short reading of their twitter feed shows a lot of cancellations. Not surprising that customers are getting so annoyed, it's about time for someone with authority to step in. 50 cancellations over the last 2 days if I've counted correctly, which is frankly unacceptable. Some of the issues seem to be engineering faults such as 'a loose panel' on the X2 this morning, but most of it is just said to be 'operational issues'.
In comparison to this I use Stagecoach daily. There's been three times where the service I use has been delayed over 20 minutes because of road closures, but it has always arrived and never broken down. The fares are pretty decent as well!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am not certain that this is fair. I would accept 'That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in some small to medium-sized bus companies.' Even 'That does seem, for some reason, to be rather prevalent in many small to medium-sized bus companies.' However, there are some really excellent small to medium-sized bus companies who go out of their way to support the passenger. As an example, I have twice received a thorough and detailed response to an e-mail enquiry before 6am from a small operator; I don't think any of the majors would replicate that.

Yes, very true, I thought I had written "some" but clearly hadn't.

I'd forgotten they were now part of Go Ahead - surprised to see such a response from them!

 

[overthewater]

Does anyone know why stagecoach hasn't tried to make a land grab for some of the routes like x2?

 

[goldisgood]

Does anyone know why stagecoach hasn't tried to make a land grab for some of the routes like x2?

I think that Stagecoach's depot is pretty much full with no space for more routes, as already the 7, S3, S8 and S9 run at least partially from outstations. They might not also want to do anything that could make relations bad with the partnership.
Personally, I think they should make a land grab for the Wantage-Didcot routes, maybe running a direct Grove - Wantage - Milton Park - Didcot service which there is a gap in the market for alongside a service via Harwell Campus. The current route takes too long to get from Didcot to Wantage as it runs through Harwell Campus, and it's pretty unreliable as well.

 

[Mikey C]

I think that Stagecoach's depot is pretty much full with no space for more routes, as already the 7, S3, S8 and S9 run at least partially from outstations. They might not also want to do anything that could make relations bad with the partnership.
Personally, I think they should make a land grab for the Wantage-Didcot routes, maybe running a direct Grove - Wantage - Milton Park - Didcot service which there is a gap in the market for alongside a service via Harwell Campus. The current route takes too long to get from Didcot to Wantage as it runs through Harwell Campus, and it's pretty unreliable as well.

Having just been from Wantage to Didcot (via Harwell) once (yesterday!), it's not much of a sample, but the Harwell stops were by far the most important ones on the route. Commercially, I imagine Harwell makes far more money than Wantage.

 

[goldisgood]

Having just been from Wantage to Didcot (via Harwell) once (yesterday!), it's not much of a sample, but the Harwell stops were by far the most important ones on the route. Commercially, I imagine Harwell makes far more money than Wantage.

Wantage gets quite a few passengers, particularly at peak times where a single decker bus can be pretty full by the time it leaves the first stop. The direct Wantage-Didcot route is one that the council want to see with all the new houses being built around Wantage, and although Harwell Campus is a busier stop it does put off lots of potential passengers going to Didcot and Milton Park as it adds a good 10-20 minutes to the journey time. The journey time Wantage-Didcot by bus is 45 minutes, but by car is around 20 minutes.