Rate your local bus service/company!

[py_megapixel]

Thought this might be an interesting idea to have in this forum; don't know if it will take off or not but hey, if it doesn't then we need never speak of it again

Basically the idea is that you rate your regularly used bus services (or indeed any other service you have used) out of ten, 20, 100, whatever suits. Hopefully this will spawn some interesting discussions - or give us something to laugh at (in the case of particularly bad services). Feel free to be vague about the exact route if you're not comfortable specifying the area where you live

I'll start. Some of my local routes are Arriva, and I would probably rate them a 2 out of 10. They're always late, the drivers are rude and the buses are too small for the number of passengers. On the positive side the seats are pretty comfortable but that's about the only redeeming factor!

 

[PeterC]

My local service is a local authority contract set at a bargain basement price and Red Rose provide vehicles to match. Drivers on the other hand are generally very good and mostly know their regulars. I have known drivers stop for me when I was simply out for a walk and nowhere near a bus stop.
Vehicles 1
Drivers 8.5 (one or two occasionally let the side down)

 

[blackpoolwelsh]

Blackpool Transport
Great Buses and very good timetable for early morning and late evening buses although the evening ones have been reduced since covid.

 

[Geordie driver]

My local service is all Arriva, bit pricey but then I used to get free travel so it always seems expensive. Drivers ok, time keeping ok. During the beast from the east they kept services running in Northumberland.

Main problem I have is with some of the behaviour of other customers. 7/10.

 

[Boo_]

Blackpool Transport
Great Buses and very good timetable for early morning and late evening buses although the evening ones have been reduced since covid.

I would also like to say there the Best Rail Replacement Supplier I have had to work with. in over year of RR from Manchester to Blackpool they never gave me any issues. And they ran to time to point I did not even have too keep a eye on them leaving early.

 

[scotrail158713]

East Coast Buses for me. I’d say about 7/10 overall. The service frequency and buses used are both very good.
It’s a zonal system used for fares though so some of the more rural fares can end up quite expensive for the distance actually covered. The other thing that lets them down IMO is a lack of a season ticket in certain areas. Where I am there is one - however it’s like some hidden secret that they don’t want anyone to know exists, meaning most customers end up paying a lot more for their travel than they should be.

 

[cnjb8]

CT4N, operate electric buses and are quite on time with nice drivers so 8/10.

 

[Bus9120UK]

Lothian
Fantastic service, mix of modern and older vehicles. Kind drivers. At times drivers may not be the greatest or quality onboard isn't the best, but at most it's an enjoyable and comfortable ride. Many different routes connecting many areas, plus West Lothian & East Lothian operations. Buses arrive on-time mostly (personally.) I'd say 8/10.

 

[PaulMc7]

First Glasgow for me. Luckily all of my local services are all frequent which cancels out some of the really horrendous reliability. In terms of comfort etc they're pretty good apart from some of the older stock. Pricewise for me they're not too bad but I know a lot of people think our buses are too expensive.

Would say the big let down is customer service and social media policy. Overall about 7/10

 

[Jordan Adam]

"Insert endless comments of people saying they have the worst service in the universe"...

My local route only runs every 20 minutes but is very reliable (I couldn't tell you the last time i had a late bus) and is operated by high spec E200MMCs, so i can't really complain.

 

[Tempest3K]

First York. Abysmal service which frequently fails to run with old, unfurbished vehicles (despite repeated promises only a handful of basic refurbs currently completed and should have been done 5 years ago...). Only investment targeted at Park & Ride so limited benefit to actual locals.... Some OK drivers raising the score from 1 to 2/10

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

First West of England are generally very good, and much improved under the leadership of James Freeman - 7/10.

The disappointing aspects have been the continued contraction of services on the margins of the territory so that most of Wiltshire has been vacated and also the widening of headways outside of peak hours. However, they have clearly concentrated on improving the core services and that is noticeable, with a substantial number of refurbished vehicles as well as benefiting from new vehicles.

Since 2014, they have managed to remove their main competitor (Rotala's Wessex) though Stagecoach have parked their tanks on the edge of the lawn with tendered work and the purchase of South Glos.

Marketing is also much improved from First though there are still Barbie liveried vehicles about but that and Urban are now much rarer. Overall, it's a much better operation but still had some challenges before Covid hit.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Arriva MK (now part of South Midlands it appears) - about 2/10. Vehicles often very tatty, staff mixed, punctuality appalling. Very little good about it at all.

MK is crying out for an Alex Hornby/Best Impressions style approach, because buses will always be so much slower than cars people need to be attracted to them in a different way. As it is, it's a distress purchase, even compared with cycling, which with the Redway system is very popular, and taxis are cheap and plentiful.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Arriva MK (now part of South Midlands it appears) - about 2/10. Vehicles often very tatty, staff mixed, punctuality appalling. Very little good about it at all.

MK is crying out for an Alex Hornby/Best Impressions style approach, because buses will always be so much slower than cars people need to be attracted to them in a different way. As it is, it's a distress purchase, even compared with cycling, which with the Redway system is very popular, and taxis are cheap and plentiful.

Arriva as a whole seems bereft of direction. Odd that First still generates such negativity yet Arriva often gets a free hit (and Transdev gets all manner of grumbling from various gricers).

 

[CBlue]

Stagecoach East (Cambridge) are my local operator, with my nearest service being the Stagecoach Gold 13 route between Cambridge and Haverhill.

I'm not a frequent user, about once or twice a month - but I'd say they deserve a 7/10. Fares are a bit high but not excessive compared to First in Suffolk and Norfolk, and the 2014 era E400 Scanias used on the gold route have nice seats even if the bodywork is starting to fall apart on them a bit. Unfortunately the majority of the fleet is comprised of 10 year old E400s which are beginning to look incredibly scruffy inside and out, including faded paint and threadbare seats. Only recent fleet investment apart from the Busway was some new E400 MMC's for the P&R services.
Drivers generally seem professional and polite and timekeeping is just about okay although congestion seems to be making that increasingly difficult of late.

Local management still seems keen to experiment with new routes, including tacking a peak hour extension onto one of the P&R routes to provide a Monday-Friday commuter service from some smaller villages.

 

[Andyh82]

First West Yorkshire - 5/10, they are basically just functional, they provide a decent enough service at a fairly decent price whilst having to put up with bad traffic but that’s about it. They do very little marketing, and have a lot of old unrefurbished kit. One of the few places that is still mostly uses standard livery

Leeds seems to take new buses for granted and just puts them into service 1 in, 1 out. You’ve got Transdev who make a big song and dance if they refurbish 5 buses. First Leeds gets 100 new buses and doesn’t tell anyone.

 

[northernchris]

The 2 I use the most are First West Yorkshire and Transdev Keighley. First are awful, buses regularly don't show, aren't well looked after and even their new buses have a drab, uninviting interior. Most of their drivers are rude, and the customer services team aren't able to do anything other than send out pre-typed responses to complaints that don't address the issue raised. I do like the seat availability feature on the app though, and they have given some new routes a try so 2/10 overall

Transdev Keighley are better, their buses are much cleaner and look a lot more presentable. Even the older unrefurbished vehicles look smart. Like First, they have some very rude drivers though, and the timekeeping can be patchy (they have a habit of leaving timing points early) so I'd say 7/10 overall

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

Stagecoach East Scotland service 73.

Prior to COVID-19 I'd have given the service a solid 9/10. The mainstream service was every 10 minutes, but every 20 minutes on my section. The service was rarely late and the fleet of buses was fairly new, only 5 years old and comfortable to ride on (unless they're doing an exhaust regen, of course...). The crew staff (drivers and conductors) were friendly and inviting and were always willing to go the extra mile to help passengers. The winter occasionally caused problems with buses not showing up (sometimes 2 or 3 in a row at 8am) as the buses had issues with fuel filters freezing over - or something like that. The Stagecoach app was reliable, you could track the bus on a map with it updating every 20/30 seconds showing its progress.

Post-COVID I'd now give the service a 6/10. Stagecoach have used COVID as an excuse to make the conducting staff redundant, and reduce the service to every 15 minutes (mainstream), every 30 minutes on my section of route. Journey times have now been extended (to allow drivers time to issue fares) and buses still run late frequently. Due to physical distancing requirements buses are now running full everyday, but thankfully, I stay at the start of the route so not affected by that. The Stagecoach app has gotten worse over the past few weeks, with some buses not tracking or "freezing" on the map indicating they're further away than they actually are. The "busy bus" indicator is pretty useless too, as I've seen me getting on a "red" bus (i.e. busy) despite it being empty.

 

[Statto]

I have 3 operators, one a local minibus operator that does 4 routes of which, 1/1A/1B/1C[1 daytime, 1A & 1C evening & Sunday] interwork with each other using one bus, the other a joblink route, &, the other 2 operators are Stagecoach MCSL & Arriva NW.

I'd say 7 out of 10 most of the routes are reliable, although can get delays especially as one of the routes 407 interwork with another route 471/472, & 471/472 can get held up when on that route, buses are in the main ok, newer ones are far better, Stagecoach often allocate a couple of gold standard buses to the route[38/38A] they operate in my area, Arriva are pretty ok, but the cross river hybrids are in need of a referb, a lot of the seats are worn.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Arriva as a whole seems bereft of direction. Odd that First still generates such negativity yet Arriva often gets a free hit (and Transdev gets all manner of grumbling from various gricers).

I'd say First and Arriva are both pretty lackadaisical, whereas Stagecoach is solid, reliable and well-presented but not innovative, and Go Ahead and Transdev more innovative.

 

[py_megapixel]

I'd say First and Arriva are both pretty lackadaisical, whereas Stagecoach is solid, reliable and well-presented but not innovative, and Go Ahead and Transdev more innovative.

I find Stagecoach's approach to innovation to be rather unusual (well I guess that's the point of innovation )

Stagecoach will do the same old thing for years, and then suddenly something shiny and new happens ("Gold" routes; new hybrid vehicles; new branding and vehicles in the Lake district; and most recently the Manchester electrics).
In contrast, it seems that Transdev, Go-Ahead and, to a lesser extent, First, seem to try to moderately innovate and modernise all of the time, but have less big pushes for change.

 

[Beemax]

I'd give Reading 8/10. Frequent services, reasonably priced and a modern fleet. Also enough variety to keep enthusiasts happy.

 

[mikeg]

Dales and District, absolutely pathetic even with their difficult to serve area. Where there is a comparable operation, at least the fares aren't quite so extortionate, I haven't actually used them in years.

That said, they seem to have given up on a lot of their work, many services lost to Hodgsons for a start in the Northallerton area, others taken over by NYCC directly, such as the 153.
When I lived in Thirsk, it cost almost as much for a return to Northallerton, and more for a return to Ripon on the 70 than it did for a return to York on the 30(x) with Reliance, who at least have reasonable fares if nothing else. I'd give Abbotts of Leeming an average rating for maintaining a useful service on the Northallerton to Stokesley route without a subsidy. Dales and District seem to have given up on all but the 73 Bedale to Northallerton when it comes to running a serious service.

 

[43055]

My local route is run by Trentbarton which I would give around 9/10. I have never had a problem with the buses, frequency or drivers as they are always friendly and the buses are regularly cleaned at the bus station. The part that brings them down is that when a problem occurs they seem to cancel journeys or a bus comes in and then suddenly departs not in service for us to wait another half hour but sometimes we do get a free trip out of it.

 

[route101]

First Glasgow.

Lived on 31 route but First pulled the route, leaves me a good walk up to half an hour to get to a bus stop for the 6 or railway station . Not looking forward to when i use it to work or it rains.

The 31 was quite realiable at every half hour/hourly. The 6 is every 12 mins but there can be large gaps and takes longer.

Buses on 31 were oldest in fleet.

 

[The DJ]

First Glasgow 31 still operating according to website.

https://www.firstgroup.com/greater-glasgow/plan-journey/timetables/?print=pdf&source_id=2&service=31/31A&routeid=23352818&operator=10&day=1

 

[scosutsut]

East Coast Buses for me. I’d say about 7/10 overall. The service frequency and buses used are both very good.
It’s a zonal system used for fares though so some of the more rural fares can end up quite expensive for the distance actually covered. The other thing that lets them down IMO is a lack of a season ticket in certain areas. Where I am there is one - however it’s like some hidden secret that they don’t want anyone to know exists, meaning most customers end up paying a lot more for their travel than they should be.

Also ECB here, can't fault the pros and cons you've mentioned but I'd give them a solid 8 out of 10 simply for banishing the absolute horror that was First.

21 brand new high spec vehicles added in a region First claimed was unviable. Presentation and cleanliness all top notch too. Night and day from before.

Should we ever get to pre COVID loadings ever again I'd like them improve peak capacity on my local route (the X7) and then I'd use them much more frequently.

 

[route101]

First Glasgow 31 still operating according to website.

https://www.firstgroup.com/greater-glasgow/plan-journey/timetables/?print=pdf&source_id=2&service=31/31A&routeid=23352818&operator=10&day=1

Yes but only to Carmunnock. I live on the chopped section.

 

[scotrail158713]

Also ECB here, can't fault the pros and cons you've mentioned but I'd give them a solid 8 out of 10 simply for banishing the absolute horror that was First.
21 brand new high spec vehicles added in a region First claimed was unviable. Presentation and cleanliness all top notch too. Night and day from before.

Agreed - the difference is huge. Ticketing is my only real complaint and even that can still be pretty decent with the integration with Lothian Buses.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Great idea for a thread here . I live in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Stagecoach Oxford, Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel in my opinion provide a hugely reliable service basically.

Pulhams coaches have recently taken over route 15 to and from Abingdon and Witney using new 70-plate Volvo B8RLE / MCV EvoRa's which I know will be several steps up from the regular vehicles Stagecoach regularly ran!