It is not always possible to design a timetable that meets every demand. Given that the overall (and perceived) demand is for 3 BPH on Mondays-Fridays along the full route, the next decision is what to do with Henley-Reading. Every 40 minutes on each leg? 1 BPH via 800 will give an unbalanced 20/40 frequency on 850; and vice versa of course.
Now consider the Saturday timetable, which is 2 BPH overall . . . trying to match that to MF timings will be awkward. The "upside", by going with the 850 route every day, is that Twyford now gets a Sunday service !!
Bearing in mind that Reading are now running a new 28, at a good frequency, overall the new service pattern seems to be the best possible. It is clear, understandable and unambiguous. It is longer, but gives better journey possibilities. Carousel / Oxford aren't known for coming up with duff ideas . . . time to wait and see.
Just a brief comment about Route 1 and loadings on departures from Hemel Hempstead towards Chesham . . . I'd expect most of those passengers to be travelling as far as Bovingdon only. For sure there will be some through passengers to and across Chesham, but in my experience only a handful. Not enough to contemplate doubling the frequency; which, given the Chartridge trial, would denude Pond Park of half of its service !!
I am responding to the above and many other posts on the 800/850. It is an interesting decision to increase the service to 3bph and route them all via the 850 route, even with the Reading Buses 28, especially so soon given that Carousel have not yet operated the services in school times. It will provide a welcome improvement to the Twyford and Wargrave service and I expect they will improve their custom between Twyford and Reading. I do think there is some through traffic between Wycombe and Marlow to the 800 via Caversham and through journeys to Reading will be slower, but its reasonably marginal. I do believe there are school flows from the Caversham route to Marlow at school times. After one of Arriva's changes last year they had to hastily reinstate an 800 at school times in the morning via Binfield Heath, even though the afternoon equivalent didn't go that way and didn't run almost as often as it did.
The times for the new 850 are now accessible via Carousel's website. A good clockface every 20 minutes in the main and they have got rid of some nonsense like an 05.00 departure from Reading. But slightly disappointing with the morning arrivals into Wycombe being 07.20, 07.50, 08.25, 08.45, 09.15 before getting to 3bph. In particular I hope they allocate a double decker to the 07.00 from Reading as this will be very busy between Henley and Marlow. And a great shame that there is still no departure from Wycombe after 21.30, that is so early for a last departure to Marlow in particular - the last bus back from Reading will be at 23.10! And that's good because there is definitely nightlife in Marlow with late returns to Wycombe. I think the running time allowed in the evening will prove to be far too generous.
On the 1, the extension to Chartridge seems sensible - previously the bus just sat in Chesham for an extended period. Its not providing any peak hour service though, hopefully this extension will not cause a loss of service at other times.
With regard to operations, there are certainly breakdowns as there were in Arriva days, the difference being that they get quickly replaced by another vehicle. The 800/850 are mainly run by the B7RLEs but all other types of vehicle (except ADL E400s) do appear, including Scania deckers, Citaros, Versas and E200s. The 36/37 were initially run with double deckers but they seems to have been replaced by E200s, not encouraging if the frequency is about to be doubled. The E400s that have run seem to have turned up mainly on the 30/31 now, but only one is out today. Other ex Arriva services, eg the 32 and 33, are mainly run by E200s, new and old.
It seems ambitious to expand so much so soon after taking on Arriva's work. I think four extra on the 800/850 and three extra on the 36/37 plus possibly a little more on the existing routes. Carousel haven't yet experienced schoolday Wycombe traffic on the Arriva routes. But so far so good, I presume they know what to expect and think they have enough resources to do this. Good luck!
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