Bee Network Service/Route Discussion

[py_megapixel]

This makes sense.

I should clarify that my message above was poorly phrased. I meant that the feature should not be fundamentally too complicated to implement, because all of the required data and equipment is already available on the buses. I don't have any knowledge of how Bee Network specifically does it.

 

[mayneway]

@mayneway Do you mean not sure or do you know how it works?
I thought everything was done via the Ticketer machine.

The mobitec controllers requires the driver to input the minutes according to the posters in the depot, there’s no link up with the ticket machine.

TFGM have this week confirmed the ‘bus full’ destination will not be returned despite many calls from drivers and operators - the reason, because it could be misused or accidentally selected by a driver, says a lot about the countdown to departures

 

[Trackman]

The mobitec controllers requires the driver to input the minutes according to the posters in the depot, there’s no link up with the ticket machine.

TFGM have this week confirmed the ‘bus full’ destination will not be returned despite many calls from drivers and operators - the reason, because it could be misused or accidentally selected by a driver, says a lot about the countdown to departures

I see, so you input the timing/layover points beforehand? Thanks.

 

[M60lad]

Does anybody know what options are actually fitted to the new destination controllers in the cab? For example I know they can be fitted with the option to tell passengers to move down the bus and I think other announcements are optional as well.

 

[py_megapixel]

TFGM have this week confirmed the ‘bus full’ destination will not be returned despite many calls from drivers and operators - the reason, because it could be misused or accidentally selected by a driver, says a lot about the countdown to departures

If they don't have "bus full" as an option then won't that just lead to drivers putting up "not in service" instead? Seen that happen a few times (both in Manchester and elsewhere).

This is of course bad because it also disables the interior screens and announcements, so anyone who was relying on those is stuck.

 

[mayneway]

If they don't have "bus full" as an option then won't that just lead to drivers putting up "not in service" instead? Seen that happen a few times (both in Manchester and elsewhere).

This is of course bad because it also disables the interior screens and announcements, so anyone who was relying on those is stuck.

The issue is over buses being full, which is happening a lot on busy routes and drivers having to simply drive past people at bus stops which leads to complaints and in some cases confrontation. The bus full display worked well during Covid but it just seems like TFGM don’t want to do anything that looks bad on them, so the thought of dozens of buses passing with ‘bus full’ isn’t one they want.

 

[Deerfold]

Other obeservations on the Bee bus network this week include, some passengers with invalid tickets (computer say no) are let on, This wouldnt happen in TfL land, you would be told to get off.

I've seen it happen many times in TfL land.

 

[smtglasgow]

Whenever i'm in Manchester I usually buy an m-ticket day ticket on the app. At least 1 in 3 times it doesn't scan, but the driver just waves me on.

 

[JasonL]

Anyone else noticed that Go North West's buses aren't tracking on Bustimes.org? I was waiting for the 612 before and that's when I noticed that they weren't being tracked.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Anyone else noticed that Go North West's buses aren't tracking on Bustimes.org? I was waiting for the 612 before and that's when I noticed that they weren't being tracked.

Interesting, looks like most of them dropped off around 3pm.

 

[adam rogan]

With regards to Ticket checking, Travel Safe have an odd habit in Greater Manchester of hopping on board at bus stations after having seen everyone legally scan passes or pay in front of their eyes.

A shrewd passenger asked one of them in Bolton about why he needed to check his ticket given that he had just got on, the Travelsafe officer then replied that the drivers aren't allowed to challenge people and it was their job to remove fare dodgers, or those using concessionary passes fraudulently. When at Go Ahead , they had a policy of issuing zero fare tickets for those who couldn't pay and would leave it to inspectors to confront them.

 

[mayneway]

With regards to Ticket checking, Travel Safe have an odd habit in Greater Manchester of hopping on board at bus stations after having seen everyone legally scan passes or pay in front of their eyes.

A shrewd passenger asked one of them in Bolton about why he needed to check his ticket given that he had just got on, the Travelsafe officer then replied that the drivers aren't allowed to challenge people and it was their job to remove fare dodgers, or those using concessionary passes fraudulently. When at Go Ahead , they had a policy of issuing zero fare tickets for those who couldn't pay and would leave it to inspectors to confront them.

Not directly true! As a driver we do have to monitor tickets and make sure people get on with the correct ticket.
Two prime examples. Making sure all children over 5 have a valid ticket. The amount of people who think kids are free is unbelievable.
The second is screen shots of tickets. There’s sophisticated groups on wattsapp and telegram that will share shots of day and week ticket QR codes to members who pay a little each week to be part of the group. As drivers we are actively encouraged to challenge anyone using screen shots rather than genuine tickets.

Finally the zero fare tickets are only given out in exceptional circumstances where the driver is happy for that passenger to travel without a valid ticket or pass.

Obviously there will be drivers who just constantly hit the zero fare button but that does flag up with OCC and depot teams.

 

[Trackman]

Something I have noticed this week - remember I not completely familiar with the Bee bus/tram network.
I see people with debit/credit cards asking for a day saver (£5) before presenting the card, so the driver taps the ticket machine and the passenger receives a ticket. But the contactless cap is £5 per day and there is a £20 weekly cap. So why are they asking for a day ticket rather than paying by contactless?

Other observations from last week:
I've also noticed people (mainly kids) putting down their card and beeping before they have said what ticket they want, but the driver can reverse this transaction. I think this is something to do with child cards.
I would say last week 30% of the onboard PIS did not work, they were either stuck or showed the Hanover boot screen.
I was on a bus with the countdown timer, it announces it - 'They will be a short wait at the next stop' and the onboard PIS had the timer displayed too.

 

[markymark2000]

But the contactless cap is £5 per day and there is a £20 weekly cap. So why are they asking for a day ticket rather than paying by contactless?

People are used to getting tickets rather than tapping and capping and there is also not a lot of trust in tap and cap stuff. I think to stop people getting normal paper tickets, they would have to ban card payments for paper singles and paper Bee Bus day tickets.

 

[mayneway]

Something I have noticed this week - remember I not completely familiar with the Bee bus/tram network.
I see people with debit/credit cards asking for a day saver (£5) before presenting the card, so the driver taps the ticket machine and the passenger receives a ticket. But the contactless cap is £5 per day and there is a £20 weekly cap. So why are they asking for a day ticket rather than paying by contactless?

Other observations from last week:
I've also noticed people (mainly kids) putting down their card and beeping before they have said what ticket they want, but the driver can reverse this transaction. I think this is something to do with child cards.
I would say last week 30% of the onboard PIS did not work, they were either stuck or showed the Hanover boot screen.
I was on a bus with the countdown timer, it announces it - 'They will be a short wait at the next stop' and the onboard PIS had the timer displayed too.

Firstly the fare caps are really badly advertised, in typical TFGM fashion so most people do not understand that they can tap on all day and only pay £5.

The kids paying contactless is a little more annoying as they slap their card on the reader as they ask for a single so before us drivers can press the option for child single it’s taken £2 from the card.

Finally the PIS was set up by a one man band (very nice guy btw) who set the system up and has now moved on. Not sure if it’s been taken over by someone else or is being done in-house by TFGM but it’s a shocking system. One of the biggest flaws is when you take when the slightest diversion, it completely crashes and won’t work again unless the bus is fully shut down.

 

[M60lad]

Regarding the problem on PIS with diversion, it must just be on the odd vehicle/s as I've never noticed this, whenever I've been on a bus that's gone on diversion its managed to catch up once its back on normal route.

One recent update to the PIS's has been the addition of times of Metrolink Trains integrated into the system so that if a bus passes/goes near a Metrolink Stop it was show on screen when the next trams are due from that particular station, I did mention this to the guy who used to sort out the destination displays and I'm sure at the time he said it was something he was trying to get sorted.

 

[mangad]

Something I have noticed this week - remember I not completely familiar with the Bee bus/tram network.
I see people with debit/credit cards asking for a day saver (£5) before presenting the card, so the driver taps the ticket machine and the passenger receives a ticket. But the contactless cap is £5 per day and there is a £20 weekly cap. So why are they asking for a day ticket rather than paying by contactless?

Depends where you were travelling and where they are traveling, and exactly what they asked for, but a paper ticket would also cover the passenger to travel on non TfGM buses in Greater Manchester where the contactless cap doesn't apply.

Then there is the Anybus ticket which works in some areas beyond the Greater Manchester boundary (such as good chunks of the High Peak - there's a map on the TfGM website) that have long had Greater Manchester ticket acceptance. That's because if you go right back to the beginning, the first PTE in the area was created before Greater Manchester existed and it's area of operations included places like Glossop that ultimately didn't become part of the country.

 

[TheSmiths82]

Does anybody know if TGFM are looking at the placement of bus stops? There are few in the Stockport area which are right next to junctions, if a bus stops there it blocks the entire junction causing traffic chaos. On one particular stop on (Councillor Lane to the junction of Stockport Road) there is another stop about 100 metres further up. It seems the stops have been there for decades and I think TFGM need to look at how they effect traffic flow. Ironically buses also get stuck so it isn't just car drivers it causes problems for.

 

[Trackman]

Firstly the fare caps are really badly advertised, in typical TFGM fashion so most people do not understand that they can tap on all day and only pay £5.

The kids paying contactless is a little more annoying as they slap their card on the reader as they ask for a single so before us drivers can press the option for child single it’s taken £2 from the card.

Finally the PIS was set up by a one man band (very nice guy btw) who set the system up and has now moved on. Not sure if it’s been taken over by someone else or is being done in-house by TFGM but it’s a shocking system. One of the biggest flaws is when you take when the slightest diversion, it completely crashes and won’t work again unless the bus is fully shut down.

I thought it might be down to education, @mangad mentioned they could be going over the bee network boundary, but I see a lot of people asking for a day saver before presenting the card.
Kids with cards, I see a lot of this as I travel outbound at school time, you'd think they have learned by now when the driver tells them off!
Thank you for the information on broken PIS's, I thought they might be a magical reboot button, but this isn't the case.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I thought it might be down to education, @mangad mentioned they could be going over the bee network boundary, but I see a lot of people asking for a day saver before presenting the card.

Just force of habit, especially the older you are (says me aged 81).

 

[mayneway]

Does anybody know if TGFM are looking at the placement of bus stops? There are few in the Stockport area which are right next to junctions, if a bus stops there it blocks the entire junction causing traffic chaos. On one particular stop on (Councillor Lane to the junction of Stockport Road) there is another stop about 100 metres further up. It seems the stops have been there for decades and I think TFGM need to look at how they effect traffic flow. Ironically buses also get stuck so it isn't just car drivers it causes problems for.

That’s how TFGM and councils want it. Tameside council is spending millions ‘improving roads’ which basically means putting in traffic calming measures and narrowing junctions to create more traffic.

TFGM spent months last year doing it around Broadstone road in Stockport. They narrowed the junctions so a bus would need both sides of the road to be clear to pull out.

During the final years of commercial operation at Go North west at Queens road, they undertook a massive scheme where they listened to drivers and relocated loads of timing points from stops on busy road to lay-bys where buses sat waiting out time wouldn’t cause issues, once TFGM took over in 2024 all the timing points reverted back to locations where they would cause issues and traffic back logs.

 

[Class 466]

That’s how TFGM and councils want it. Tameside council is spending millions ‘improving roads’ which basically means putting in traffic calming measures and narrowing junctions to create more traffic.

TFGM spent months last year doing it around Broadstone road in Stockport. They narrowed the junctions so a bus would need both sides of the road to be clear to pull out.

During the final years of commercial operation at Go North west at Queens road, they undertook a massive scheme where they listened to drivers and relocated loads of timing points from stops on busy road to lay-bys where buses sat waiting out time wouldn’t cause issues, once TFGM took over in 2024 all the timing points reverted back to locations where they would cause issues and traffic back logs.

They did similar around Bury & Bolton, dug up everything to add in Cycle Lanes - including making the pedestrian crossings littered with trip hazards from the segregated lanes that need their own curb - of course barely anyone actually uses these cycle lanes, and the traffic is truly horrendous. Bus routes into/out of Bury often end up running with huge delays due to this permanent state of congestion.

 

[mayneway]

I thought it might be down to education, @mangad mentioned they could be going over the bee network boundary, but I see a lot of people asking for a day saver before presenting the card.
Kids with cards, I see a lot of this as I travel outbound at school time, you'd think they have learned by now when the driver tells them off!
Thank you for the information on broken PIS's, I thought they might be a magical reboot button, but this isn't the case.

I can remember vividly when the tap on scheme kicked in and apart from some tiny stickers on the cab screen and some bus stop adverts saying tap on was now live there is very little to actually say how it works.

I also think their shock be a option on the ticket machine to switch to £1 taps so when a bus is parked outside a school with 100 school kids queuing to get on they can just tap and be charged £1. It’s so time consuming having to manually keep pressing the £1 child care etc.

Another one I get a lot of, is passengers trying to tap out when they get off the bus haha. I’m constantly shouting NOOO as they try and do it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 15:03 ==

They did similar around Bury & Bolton, dug up everything to add in Cycle Lanes - including making the pedestrian crossings littered with trip hazards from the segregated lanes that need their own curb - of course barely anyone actually uses these cycle lanes, and the traffic is truly horrendous. Bus routes into/out of Bury often end up running with huge delays due to this permanent state of congestion.

Yes and dare I mention Castleton. The little town has been ruined by the awful cycle lanes down both sides of the road, the actual traffic lanes are so narrow now the the stopping causes pretty big tail backs.

 

[Trackman]

They did similar around Bury & Bolton, dug up everything to add in Cycle Lanes - including making the pedestrian crossings littered with trip hazards from the segregated lanes that need their own curb - of course barely anyone actually uses these cycle lanes, and the traffic is truly horrendous. Bus routes into/out of Bury often end up running with huge delays due to this permanent state of congestion

Farnworth springs to mind, The no.8 timing point was right in the middle of town causing mayhem with traffic queuing back so they moved it further down so traffic could overtake.

 

[BurtonM]

That’s how TFGM and councils want it. Tameside council is spending millions ‘improving roads’ which basically means putting in traffic calming measures and narrowing junctions to create more traffic.

MCC have been aggressively making it harder to drive in the city centre for 10 years.


Lately, Tameside have taken to putting absolutely massive speed bumps everywhere, even on 30mph roads. It's ridiculous.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

MCC have been aggressively making it harder to drive in the city centre for 10 years.

I was unaware that the MCC also had influance over matters outside cricket...

 

[mattyharding]

That’s how TFGM and councils want it. Tameside council is spending millions ‘improving roads’ which basically means putting in traffic calming measures and narrowing junctions to create more traffic.

TFGM spent months last year doing it around Broadstone road in Stockport. They narrowed the junctions so a bus would need both sides of the road to be clear to pull out.

During the final years of commercial operation at Go North west at Queens road, they undertook a massive scheme where they listened to drivers and relocated loads of timing points from stops on busy road to lay-bys where buses sat waiting out time wouldn’t cause issues, once TFGM took over in 2024 all the timing points reverted back to locations where they would cause issues and traffic back logs.

Speaking of Tameside Council, they've completely ruined Beaufort Road on the 237 and 356 routes and made the approach into Ridge Hill a lot tighter

 

[mattyharding]

Does anybody know if TGFM are looking at the placement of bus stops? There are few in the Stockport area which are right next to junctions, if a bus stops there it blocks the entire junction causing traffic chaos. On one particular stop on (Councillor Lane to the junction of Stockport Road) there is another stop about 100 metres further up. It seems the stops have been there for decades and I think TFGM need to look at how they effect traffic flow. Ironically buses also get stuck so it isn't just car drivers it causes problems for.

There is a similar example of this in Ashton with Glebe Street and Swan Street along Penny Meadow about 100 yards apart, personally I would shut one down and/or move one

 

[Simon75]

Have TFGM got plans to improve Piccadilly Gardens, as they have spent millions on rebuilding bus stations elsewhere within Greater Manchester ?

 

[M60lad]

While its been there for years the timing point at Broadway Baths heading towards Chadderton can cause problems, as if 181/182 gets there early and has to wait its time out anyone who's parked just behind the bus stop and want's to move their car has to wait for the bus to move off as the bus can't move off early as it registers on the ticket machine and the driver might be called in and asked why they left a timing point early.