Then why not keep them on the 47/47B during peak hours, and have them on other routes any other time? I personally think Service 3 should have them, as it is very busy half the time, especially during peak hours, and on weekends. Maybe Service 3 could run on the MMCs during peak and the XLBs during normal hours?
And how do you propose interworking them between the route? Thats a lot of unnecessary dead milage. And the 3, while a busy route all day, is busiest at peak so suggesting having them off peak only to drop capacity at the busiest time is just outrageous. In addition to that the initial post said the 47 DOESN’T warrant XLBs at all let alone peak times so this suggestion is even more unbased. The 3 does justify XLBs or an increase to a 10 minute frequency but this suggestion is absolutely not the way to do it
To put it simply, this can’t work.
Curtailing the 44 removes most of Wallyford's services to the city centre (leaves only the X6 unless you can get down to the P&R) and a good chunk of Musselburgh's city services and all it's non-express buses along the Milton Road/Willowbrae route
XLBs would be too large on the 30 in my opinion. Of course it is busy, in a single decker, but if you put an 11.5m bus on it at it's current frequency even that would be most capable.
Are you sure they've been covered over systematically? Quite a few flags along Queensferry Road (the 16 route in Edinburgh) were replaced recently without much attention to detail. For example some just show operator name(s) without route numbers. It would seem rather early to be changing flags if the 16 is being withdrawn unannounced in West Lothian's October cull, and SD Travel still run the route - at least I witnessed a service earlier this evening.
There is a new silly arrangement with the flags where it just shows the operator rather than the services unless it is a busy stop like in the city centre or at interchange stops.
Yeah, in an ideal world every Edinburgh stop would have accurate flag listings of route numbers for all operators.
All ideal if they keep that up to date too, bus stop at Dalmahoy still has Blue Bus on it (I think from when they ran a morning 27 journey) which was years ago. I think I’ve seen Prentice Westwood on stops recently too, but can’t remember where.
I’ve seen this one too. I’ve also seen a Midland Bluebird X25 at Shandwick Place which has never operated and a missing X38 on Glasgow Road opposite Ratho Station. They would be better to just have a flag and make sure that the timetables are updated properly. One at Hermiston hasn’t been updated since 2012. It advertises the Horsburgh X5.
I've not seen much but from my observations I wouldn't say XLBs are needed on the Cammo section either, it can get busy but the passenger loads don't seem to fill up an XLB. Use up Queensferry Road to Barnton seems to be fairly split between the 43 and 47 with some (usually concessions) using the Stagecoach expresses, thus I'd say there's more than enough capacity. The 43 can get extremely busy in peak periods but most passengers seem to travel all the way to Dalmeny and Queensferry.
Can’t see this happening unfortunately as the 43 is now the only route that the full length of Queensferry Road so you can’t really have it skipping stops.
Certainly not my experience when driving it. You can leave the west end with a standing load and only have a handful still on when you get past Barnton junction.
The X43 doesn’t need to replace the 43 it could just provide a few extra peak time limited stop journeys at the busiest times.
Would it not work if it were an extra service rather than 43’s turned into X43’s? I agree with the majority that the 47 really doesn’t need the XLB’s, but I in fact would like to see a slight restructure in Midlothian. Any X43 in my view should run non stop from Barnton to Echline Corner and do the Queensferry route in reverse.
Fair enough, I don't have much experience with the 43 - the couple of times I've used it I've had to stand to Queensferry.
That’s true.
Don’t get me wrong there are some journeys where you have a fair amount going through to Queensferry but I’d say overall the majority of passengers are on the City Centre - Barnton section. It’s probably why Stagecoach couldn’t make it work as I’d guess they didn’t carry many within the city whereas now the city passengers subsidise the Queensferry section. But that’s probably a topic for another thread.
I like this, but where would all the XLB's come from? Withdrawing them from 1 route and putting them on 3 routes? Besides that, it would work. Maybe keeping the 14 on Gemini 2s would be fine, and the new route could have some MMCs withstanding a 20 minute frequency, to coordinate with the busy north 37.
I would rather the XLBs go on the 44, there's a problem at Longstone where 3 routes need XLBs.
Absolutely not, you’ve contradicted your own point as that would be a drop in frequency. The 3 is an extremely busy route throughout; a frequency decrease even with XLBs is an outrageous suggestion.
Talking specifically about the 3 though, it must be one of the worst offenders for bunching. I spent an hour or in Wester Hailes this time last week and the majority of 3’s were running in pairs. I wonder what mainly causes it besides ‘bad traffic’, as ultimately every route is affected in some capacity by that.
I can't see any major changes happening before the Council completes it's Bus Network Review. One of the goals of this is faster journeys from Midlothian to Edinburgh by skipping some stops, so I could see potentially:
Great Suggestion.
The following Services are tendered by East Lothian Council:
As they used to pre-deregulation (although, I’m not sure if the Eastern Scottish numbers were all listed at the limited stops they served)
