Demand Responsive Transport

[Bletchleyite]

The VIA / Arriva Click can never be economic, but there are ways to at least mitigate the work or school options - allowing regular bookings for instance. Of course one early booking in the peak period for an obscure origin & destination pair will decimate the availability for everyone else......

The opinion I put to the Councillor (who wouldn't have my vote due to the condescending* and untruthful way he replied to me) was that it would make sense to base one or more vehicles at each key destination and have those vehicles do an hourly, demand-led route from that location around the local area based on route that can take no more than 55 minutes. Thus for example you have one at a supermarket, and each hour it goes around the local area dropping people off from there and picking up pre-booked people on the way in, with the route determined by computer. Such places often are also connecting nodes for fixed-route bus services people can change onto. What you then do is book to arrive at Tesco at 1300 and leave at 1500, say, and you're given your pickup time when bookings close, say 15 minutes before that run. It's not perfect, but taking into account the fact that anyone in Milton Keynes who is time pressured will own a car or at least a bicycle, at least it maximises the number of people without either who can travel to places they need to go.

You also do it to/from fixed stops as Transport for Wales' Fflecsi does, not as door-to-door as it is, though you could offer people with relevant disabilities (in essence anyone meeting the Blue Badge criteria) the option of a door-to-door service; no reason to offer it to everyone. This makes the runs faster and allows more people to be served.

Other thing you'd do is genuinely fully fixed, registered local bus routes for daily subscribers, e.g. school and commuter buses, using those same vehicles before they go off to do the daytime supermarket runs. The 56 day requirement is a bit annoying in this context, but the Council could perhaps agree with the Traffic Commissioners to waive this as these routes would be for pre-booked subscribers only and not for walk-up travel.

* Every Councillor I've ever spoken to about the issue with MK Connect and proposed ways to make it work has been rude and condescending about it, which is why I suspect they know they've been "had". One even said something like "we're not obliged to provide anything, you should think yourself lucky we do", which I think was outrageously condescending. That's basically "get back in your box, serf" - and that was from a Liberal Democrat Councillor, allegedly left wing!

 

[edwin_m]

And yet Milton Keynes Council's Councillors seem to have been convinced by someone (I wonder who?) that that form of DRT is somehow illegal despite it having been used before (I think one of the Lancashire schemes did it). You do have to register that sort of operation as a local bus service and have a PCV operator's licence rather than simply run it under private hire taxi licensing, but it's not *illegal*.

Would it risk the wrath of the Competition Commission due to being a subsidised bus service that potentially competed with a commercial one?

The opinion I put to the Councillor (who wouldn't have my vote due to the condescending* and untruthful way he replied to me) was that it would make sense to base one or more vehicles at each key destination and have those vehicles do an hourly, demand-led route from that location around the local area based on route that can take no more than 55 minutes. Thus for example you have one at a supermarket, and each hour it goes around the local area dropping people off from there and picking up pre-booked people on the way in, with the route determined by computer. Such places often are also connecting nodes for fixed-route bus services people can change onto. What you then do is book to arrive at Tesco at 1300 and leave at 1500, say, and you're given your pickup time when bookings close, say 15 minutes before that run. It's not perfect, but taking into account the fact that anyone in Milton Keynes who is time pressured will own a car or at least a bicycle, at least it maximises the number of people without either who can travel to places they need to go.

That would make far more sense. Even better if it gave the option of booking connections to fixed routes or other DRT services from the same hub, to allow journeys that couldn't reasonably be done by the same circuit. But again the fixed route part probably falls foul of bus deregulation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would it risk the wrath of the Competition Commission due to being a subsidised bus service that potentially competed with a commercial one?

There'd be no point offering service where it competed with the commercial service because people would just use that, and indeed MK Connect points you to it within certain criteria, e.g. within 500m of where you're going and within a certain time to avoid tripping up on one-off diversions of the commercial service. Milton Keynes has a VERY thin commercial service, though, there's very little to trip over indeed.

That would make far more sense. Even better if it gave the option of booking connections to fixed routes or other DRT services from the same hub, to allow journeys that couldn't reasonably be done by the same circuit. But again the fixed route part probably falls foul of bus deregulation.

This was the claim of the Councillor but it only does if competing with an existing commercial route, and doing so would be a waste of money because people will just use the commercial route, so in practice it's a non-issue. It is in essence exactly the same, when planning and registering these fixed routes, as doing so with any other tendered fixed route. Indeed you could put them to open tender in case anyone else could do it cheaper, but in practice you'd get few if any bids for peak time only services like that.

 

[edwin_m]

There'd be no point offering service where it competed with the commercial service because people would just use that, and indeed MK Connect points you to it within certain criteria, e.g. within 500m of where you're going and within a certain time to avoid tripping up on one-off diversions of the commercial service. Milton Keynes has a VERY thin commercial service, though, there's very little to trip over indeed.

This was the claim of the Councillor but it only does if competing with an existing commercial route, and doing so would be a waste of money because people will just use the commercial route, so in practice it's a non-issue. It is in essence exactly the same, when planning and registering these fixed routes, as doing so with any other tendered fixed route. Indeed you could put them to open tender in case anyone else could do it cheaper, but in practice you'd get few if any bids for peak time only services like that.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of MK, but in principle some operators might want to raise a complaint of unfair competition if they had some legal ground to do so. For example if they provided a bus every 2 hours, a DRT service that people could use to make the same journey at a time more convenient to them might abstract, or be seen to create a theoretical abstraction, from the patronage of that bus. The same would of course apply to an anywhere to anywhere DRT service, but if that's operated under private hire rules then it doesn't count as a bus and that might remove any grounds for complaint. I must emphasise I'm not an expert on the arcanities of bus legislation!

 

[Dai Corner]

Regarding competition with commercial services.

Here in Newport, most of the city is served by the municipal Newport Transport (who were also contacted to run the Fflecsi DRT service by TfW) but one or two corridors / areas only by Stagecoach. The booking app knew about the NT timetable and would not offer a competing journey. It did allow Fflecsi to compete with Stagecoach commercial services.

When I asked TfW why they claimed it was a technical issue. I have no idea whether Stagecoach made a formal complaint.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't doubt that this poses legal challenges, which may be avoided by going for the simple, packaged, many-to-many "taxi" solution from the likes of VIA, and the honest reality is that the Council have chosen an easy and cheap scheme that allows them to claim full coverage of the parts of the city not covered by commercial routes. And you can't entirely blame them for doing that. But that's quite different to the very bold claim by several Councillors that a one-to-many or semi-fixed setup would be illegal, a false claim I suspect they've got from somewhere else such as one or more of the major operators of these schemes.

On the other hand, Milton Keynes is fairly simple - there are only a few commercial routes and they're all frequent, so if applicable to your journey you'd always choose one, so the "2 hourly" issue doesn't exist, and in very rural areas the chance of there being anything commercial at all (other than where an interurban route passes through incidentally, where again people would choose that anyway, e.g. where the Stagecoach 905 passes through rural Cambridgeshire between Bedford and Cambridge) is very low.

 

[MotCO]

The opinion I put to the Councillor was that it would make sense to base one or more vehicles at each key destination and have those vehicles do an hourly, demand-led route from that location around the local area based on route that can take no more than 55 minutes. Thus for example you have one at a supermarket, and each hour it goes around the local area dropping people off from there and picking up pre-booked people on the way in, with the route determined by computer. Such places often are also connecting nodes for fixed-route bus services people can change onto. What you then do is book to arrive at Tesco at 1300 and leave at 1500, say, and you're given your pickup time when bookings close, say 15 minutes before that run. It's not perfect, but taking into account the fact that anyone in Milton Keynes who is time pressured will own a car or at least a bicycle, at least it maximises the number of people without either who can travel to places they need to go.

You also do it to/from fixed stops as Transport for Wales' Fflecsi does, not as door-to-door as it is, though you could offer people with relevant disabilities (in essence anyone meeting the Blue Badge criteria) the option of a door-to-door service; no reason to offer it to everyone. This makes the runs faster and allows more people to be served.

Other thing you'd do is genuinely fully fixed, registered local bus routes for daily subscribers, e.g. school and commuter buses, using those same vehicles before they go off to do the daytime supermarket runs. The 56 day requirement is a bit annoying in this context, but the Council could perhaps agree with the Traffic Commissioners to waive this as these routes would be for pre-booked subscribers only and not for walk-up travel.

The major failing with this proposal is that it is too logical!

I can never ever see DRT being successful - it is a glorified, expensive, taxi service. Having semi-fixed routes within corridors to a fixed timetable will give confidence to users that the bus always leaves Tescos at 15.00 etc, and by following a fairly fixed route, potential passengers will start to become familiar with it and might even use it. Seeing a DRT minibus emerge from unexpected roads at unexpected times does nothing to promote its use, but merely confuse people who do not know what it is, how to use it etc.

Having some route variations to suit passengers makes it more like a door to door service, and you may not need an expensive app and back room staff - passengers on boarding, tell the driver where they want to go, and just like adding a destination step in Googlemaps, sets the route within the corridor. It does require the driver to know that the hospital is closer to Tescos then the station, so that he can sequence the route, but other than that no special systems are required.

 

[markymark2000]

That's exactly what's happening with the "MK Connect" service. People are simply using it as a cheap taxi. The only way you get the "synergies" (nasty business speak but hey) to make DRT work is if you fix one end of it. And yet Milton Keynes Council's Councillors seem to have been convinced by someone (I wonder who?) that that form of DRT is somehow illegal despite it having been used before (I think one of the Lancashire schemes did it). You do have to register that sort of operation as a local bus service and have a PCV operator's licence rather than simply run it under private hire taxi licensing, but it's not *illegal*.

I think that they may want to inform a good number of other places which do this sort of DRT then. Salisbury Reds 101/102/103 has 2 end to end points (Devizes and Pewsey and almost everything inbetween is on demand, call up 2 hours before and book it. If no one books, the bus just goes fast to the other end.

Theres a lot of community buses which say 'pick ups between 10 and 11 for drop off at [supermarket or town] at 11:30' (for example) so it's far from illegal. Just another publically funded transport team who don't care about providing the best transport for the area because it's not their money and they don't use the service or it makes it easier to use local buses because these schemes are a cheap taxi

Regarding competition with commercial services.

Here in Newport, most of the city is served by the municipal Newport Transport (who were also contacted to run the Fflecsi DRT service by TfW) but one or two corridors / areas only by Stagecoach. The booking app knew about the NT timetable and would not offer a competing journey. It did allow Fflecsi to compete with Stagecoach commercial services.

When I asked TfW why they claimed it was a technical issue. I have no idea whether Stagecoach made a formal complaint.

It's not just in Newport where that is an issue but in most of the Fleccsi areas. Even if it's a tendered service though, if you can put that person onto a normal local bus, the on demand bus can be better used for the more rural areas without a normal bus and maybe better match those journeys.

Me and a mate booked Fleccsi from Betws-Y-Coed to Llanwrst for a laugh. Say we had been on the service. There are 2 service buses which leave at 8.25 on the 19 and T19. Not once did the app attempt to put us onto these services. The new Buckley, some parts of this area have 3 commercial buses per hour and yet they can still book a Fleccsi.

For them to claim it's a technical issue is codswallop. Journey planners have been finding local bus journeys for years. The data is all out there, it's TFW and the DRT app developers who don't want to do it because this way, the passenger numbers are higher, more people pay for this service, less idle time (so it looks better on stats). Side effect is that it helps to reduce patronage on the commercial bus network and that is part of TFWs plan. That is why they won't sort it as they want to get people off local buses, blame the big bad private bus companies then swoop in like knights in shining armour with the all new publicly ran bus network. That is literally their whole plan. They don't give a stuff about commercial bus companies and that is why they refuse to act. It only picked up Newport bus services because it's a municipal. Looking after their own.

I don't doubt that this poses legal challenges, which may be avoided by going for the simple, packaged, many-to-many "taxi" solution from the likes of VIA, and the honest reality is that the Council have chosen an easy and cheap scheme that allows them to claim full coverage of the parts of the city not covered by commercial routes. And you can't entirely blame them for doing that. But that's quite different to the very bold claim by several Councillors that a one-to-many or semi-fixed setup would be illegal, a false claim I suspect they've got from somewhere else such as one or more of the major operators of these schemes.

Probably a lie made up by Via or one of the developers because that style of working doesn't fit into their apps. I don't believe any tech firm has got this style of working covered yet, it's all done manually.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For them to claim it's a technical issue is codswallop. Journey planners have been finding local bus journeys for years. The data is all out there, it's TFW and the DRT app developers who don't want to do it because this way, the passenger numbers are higher, more people pay for this service, less idle time (so it looks better on stats). Side effect is that it helps to reduce patronage on the commercial bus network and that is part of TFWs plan. That is why they won't sort it as they want to get people off local buses, blame the big bad private bus companies then swoop in like knights in shining armour with the all new publicly ran bus network. That is literally their whole plan. They don't give a stuff about commercial bus companies and that is why they refuse to act. It only picked up Newport bus services because it's a municipal. Looking after their own.

It is definitely possible to make an app determine that a request for a DRT journey is too close to the commercial network. The MK Connect app does, using fixed criteria - something like both ends being within a certain distance of the commercial route and a journey being available within a set time period. I suspect the figures are 500m and an hour, but don't know for certain and it'd take a fair bit of experimentation or a Freedom of Information request to find out!

On the other hand, I don't think I'd go down the conspiracy line you often do about it being deliberately anti-commercial-service. First of all, the 19 and T19 are tendered routes, not commercial - there is very little commercial operation in North Wales and most of it is Arriva on the coast, though there are some odd other bits. The T19 in particular is a Trawscymru route though doesn't presently operate with branded vehicles. Secondly, never assume conspiracy when c**k-up is more likely, as the phrase goes.

 

[Typhoon]

I think that they may want to inform a good number of other places which do this sort of DRT then. Salisbury Reds 101/102/103 has 2 end to end points (Devizes and Pewsey and almost everything inbetween is on demand, call up 2 hours before and book it. If no one books, the bus just goes fast to the other end.

Thanks for mentioning those. I don't really know much about them (they might have been mentioned in a Roger French blog) except they have been going for (at least five) years so they must be doing something right. There is a similar service in West Sussex, Compass' 99. I realise that not every DRT scheme can be fitted into this but having a route where there is end-to-end traffic as well as from intermediate villages to the destination does seem to have advantages. Getting residents to the GP surgery or to go shopping is fine. Getting Doreen to see Edna, her friend in the next village is a taxi job.

 

[markymark2000]

It is definitely possible to make an app determine that a request for a DRT journey is too close to the commercial network. The MK Connect app does, using fixed criteria - something like both ends being within a certain distance of the commercial route and a journey being available within a set time period. I suspect the figures are 500m and an hour, but don't know for certain and it'd take a fair bit of experimentation or a Freedom of Information request to find out!

I'd say DRT too close to commercial and tendered networks. What is the point in any tendered buses if DRT is just going to then send another bus over them. Taxpayers paying up twice for local buses. Once to subsidise the failure of a DRT scheme and paying more for local buses due to reduced patronage.

On the other hand, I don't think I'd go down the conspiracy line you often do about it being deliberately anti-commercial-service. First of all, the 19 and T19 are tendered routes, not commercial - there is very little commercial operation in North Wales and most of it is Arriva on the coast, though there are some odd other bits. The T19 in particular is a Trawscymru route though doesn't presently operate with branded vehicles. Secondly, never assume conspiracy when c**k-up is more likely, as the phrase goes.

19 is commercial (or at least was. All that was funded was the evening trips by Conwy council). T19 I believe is only supported in part as well.

As for commercial operations in Wales, you'd be surprised. Even in areas like Pwllheli, there are commercial routes.


As for conspiracy, it's not a conspiracy. It's obvious to see what is going on but you have to look at the ongoing track record and spend time speaking to the operators and stuff to see what is going on. If you look at it as an outsider, it's all completely innocent. Spend time talking to the right people though, it is very, very obvious to see that Wales is trying to facilitate the downfall of commercial buses to make it easier to push the publicly funded buses.

 

[RT4038]

It is definitely possible to make an app determine that a request for a DRT journey is too close to the commercial network. The MK Connect app does, using fixed criteria - something like both ends being within a certain distance of the commercial route and a journey being available within a set time period. I suspect the figures are 500m and an hour, but don't know for certain and it'd take a fair bit of experimentation or a Freedom of Information request to find out!

On the other hand, I don't think I'd go down the conspiracy line you often do about it being deliberately anti-commercial-service. First of all, the 19 and T19 are tendered routes, not commercial - there is very little commercial operation in North Wales and most of it is Arriva on the coast, though there are some odd other bits. The T19 in particular is a Trawscymru route though doesn't presently operate with branded vehicles. Secondly, never assume conspiracy when c**k-up is more likely, as the phrase goes.

The app used in the DRT service that I am involved with most certainly can do the 'certain distance of a commercial route' (by geo-fencing the mapping as to the DRT area). You can set this by different time periods, so say if the commercial service only operated 07h00-19h00 the DRT area could be expanded to include this area after 19h00. I suppose technically it would be possible to set up tens of time bands between commercial journeys also, but this would be a major faff, especially as the time bands would likely be different in each direction! All this would have to be done manually (there is no facility to 'load' a bus timetable and get the program to work it out!) - probably take 100 man hours to set it up and then the bus operator would make some change in their timetable....

I think all this talk of so-called 'illegal' competition between subsidised and commercial services is a bit of a red herring? There is nothing illegal about it, per se. In fact, it is hard to find areas where this does not happen in one way or another - bus routes running along common sections of road before branching out to different areas; same route but at different times ( LA procuring more frequent service than operated commercially), end to end same but different intermediate routeings etc etc. Bus operators are well advised to take these possibilities into account when designing their commercial networks and timetables, I would suggest. Yes, a pretty exact replica could be challenged (and I can't think of any cases, but maybe there has been the odd one) but there can't be many LAs with the money to waste on such a thing. It all comes down to the relationship between Operators and LA - operators that have adversarial relationships (in one way or another) obviously should have considered this when adopting a particular stance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd say DRT too close to commercial and tendered networks. What is the point in any tendered buses if DRT is just going to then send another bus over them.

You generally wouldn't set up your DRT to compete with a tendered bus service for that exact reason. Again, never assume conspiracy. People will use the scheduled service instead of DRT anyway as it's generally more convenient; an enthusiast doing it for the laugh isn't a real-world scenario any more than the oddly high ticket sales between Denton and Reddish South is.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2022 ==

I think all this talk of so-called 'illegal' competition between subsidised and commercial services is a bit of a red herring? There is nothing illegal about it, per se. In fact, it is hard to find areas where this does not happen in one way or another - bus routes running along common sections of road before branching out to different areas; same route but at different times ( LA procuring more frequent service than operated commercially), end to end same but different intermediate routeings etc etc. Bus operators are well advised to take these possibilities into account when designing their commercial networks and timetables, I would suggest. Yes, a pretty exact replica could be challenged (and I can't think of any cases, but maybe there has been the odd one) but there can't be many LAs with the money to waste on such a thing. It all comes down to the relationship between Operators and LA - operators that have adversarial relationships (in one way or another) obviously should have considered this when adopting a particular stance.

There was if I recall a challenge locally between the tendered service from Central Milton Keynes to Olney via Newport Pagnell duplicating the commercial service to Newport Pagnell. It was I believe thrown out on the basis that a shuttle service from Newport Pagnell to Olney would provide significantly reduced utility and the overlapping part was basically incidental. So you can go pretty close, and MK Councillors should know that full well.

 

[RT4038]

You generally wouldn't set up your DRT to compete with a tendered bus service for that exact reason. Again, never assume conspiracy. People will use the scheduled service instead of DRT anyway as it's generally more convenient; an enthusiast doing it for the laugh isn't a real-world scenario any more than the oddly high ticket sales between Denton and Reddish South is.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2022 ==



There was if I recall a challenge locally between the tendered service from Central Milton Keynes to Olney via Newport Pagnell duplicating the commercial service to Newport Pagnell. It was I believe thrown out on the basis that a shuttle service from Newport Pagnell to Olney would provide significantly reduced utility and the overlapping part was basically incidental. So you can go pretty close, and MK Councillors should know that full well.

And in that particular case, how come a tendered separate CMK-Newport Pagnell-Olney service was cheaper than extending the commercial CMK-Newport service to Olney? Something strange there. Apart from greed and/or stupidity, I can't imagine that kind of scenario in many areas, including mine!

 

[Bletchleyite]

And in that particular case, how come a tendered separate CMK-Newport Pagnell-Olney service was cheaper than extending the commercial CMK-Newport service to Olney?

Because Arriva generally bid very high in such cases because they think they're guaranteed it, and the Council called their bluff (plus the Aylesbury independents can be very cheap). Plus I think it covered some roads between CMK and Newport that Arriva didn't and perhaps didn't want to.

 

[RT4038]

Because Arriva generally bid very high in such cases because they think they're guaranteed it, and the Council called their bluff (plus the Aylesbury independents can be very cheap). Plus I think it covered some roads between CMK and Newport that Arriva didn't and perhaps didn't want to.

I would think that the relationship between Arriva and the tendering authority is not that good then!

 

[edwin_m]

The app used in the DRT service that I am involved with most certainly can do the 'certain distance of a commercial route' (by geo-fencing the mapping as to the DRT area). You can set this by different time periods, so say if the commercial service only operated 07h00-19h00 the DRT area could be expanded to include this area after 19h00. I suppose technically it would be possible to set up tens of time bands between commercial journeys also, but this would be a major faff, especially as the time bands would likely be different in each direction! All this would have to be done manually (there is no facility to 'load' a bus timetable and get the program to work it out!) - probably take 100 man hours to set it up and then the bus operator would make some change in their timetable....

Traveline and similar sources will already give you public transport options between any two postcodes at any particular time. So an app could just do the electronic equivalent of looking up the journey on Traveline and if a result was a close enough match (for example within specified time margins and walk distance limits) provide that to the enquirer instead of booking a DRT journey.

Yes, a pretty exact replica could be challenged (and I can't think of any cases, but maybe there has been the odd one) but there can't be many LAs with the money to waste on such a thing. It all comes down to the relationship between Operators and LA - operators that have adversarial relationships (in one way or another) obviously should have considered this when adopting a particular stance.

The original subsidised NCT Skylink between Nottingham and East Midlands Airport via the A453 was discontinued because TrentBarton started a commercial service via Long Eaton (they now also operate something close to the original route as Skylink Express). I've an idea this was a legal challenge, but it may have been just the funders deciding it wasn't worth continuing the subsidy when many of the passengers now had a commercial alternative.

 

[RT4038]

Traveline and similar sources will already give you public transport options between any two postcodes at any particular time. So an app could just do the electronic equivalent of looking up the journey on Traveline and if a result was a close enough match (for example within specified time margins and walk distance limits) provide that to the enquirer instead of booking a DRT journey.

I am sure that could be developed (with sufficient funding), but I don't think it is an option at present, certainly not with the app that I am familiar with.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am sure that could be developed (with sufficient funding), but I don't think it is an option at present, certainly not with the app that I am familiar with.

Via's app does do this (though I don't know if it does rail, I haven't tried, if I do a bus journey that is even vaguely directly served by my local route it refuses a booking and tells me to use that). I don't know if it does connections but it wouldn't be hard.

I suspect the criteria (distance and arrival time) are probably configurable.

One issue I have with all this, much as I'm pro mobile phone, is that many of the target market won't be users, and are so restricted to the rather inferior and limited-hours phone booking service.

 

[markymark2000]

The app used in the DRT service that I am involved with most certainly can do the 'certain distance of a commercial route' (by geo-fencing the mapping as to the DRT area). You can set this by different time periods, so say if the commercial service only operated 07h00-19h00 the DRT area could be expanded to include this area after 19h00. I suppose technically it would be possible to set up tens of time bands between commercial journeys also, but this would be a major faff, especially as the time bands would likely be different in each direction! All this would have to be done manually (there is no facility to 'load' a bus timetable and get the program to work it out!) - probably take 100 man hours to set it up and then the bus operator would make some change in their timetable....

Strange that given the technology out there now, and with bus open data and stuff, this should all be able to work itself out. Act as a normal journey planner in first instance and if there are no suitable journeys, it lets you book a bus.

These companies know full well that they could do it, it's a case that they WONT do it as it means less passengers for the DRT which would eventually effect their business. If they lose the public authorities, they lose their business basically as the only reason Via and those apps are still operational is because of brainless councils keep throwing stupid amounts of money at them.

You generally wouldn't set up your DRT to compete with a tendered bus service for that exact reason. Again, never assume conspiracy. People will use the scheduled service instead of DRT anyway as it's generally more convenient; an enthusiast doing it for the laugh isn't a real-world scenario any more than the oddly high ticket sales between Denton and Reddish South is.

I mean, tell that to the many areas who are doing it. Marketed more as 'expanding the transport offering' but in reality, it's being used to take a few people off the tenders, then they can cut the tendered buses and force people onto the DRT. Cheshire East Go-Too does this. There's other examples out there too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2022 ==

Via's app does do this (though I don't know if it does rail, I haven't tried, if I do a bus journey that is even vaguely directly served by my local route it refuses a booking and tells me to use that). I don't know if it does connections but it wouldn't be hard.

Fleccsi (Welsh DRT) is ran by the Via app and it isn't picking up local buses except where specifically put in. Depends on the area I presume.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I mean, tell that to the many areas who are doing it. Marketed more as 'expanding the transport offering' but in reality, it's being used to take a few people off the tenders, then they can cut the tendered buses and force people onto the DRT. Cheshire East Go-Too does this. There's other examples out there too.

Moving the tendered network entirely to DRT, as Milton Keynes Council almost have, is a different issue to trying to run down commercial routes. That's a valid choice if the priority is to save money while maintaining coverage - indeed it's pretty much the entire purpose of introducing DRT.

That's not a conspiracy either. It's totally open and deliberate policy.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The taxi trade here had a good whinge about the DRT in the North of the island, their argument being it was anti-competitive and abstracting custom from the taxis. This resulted in a review carried out on behalf of the Office of Fair Trading here.

The full report is attached, but the gist of it is that the DRT scheme here saved money compared to fixed routes and increased passenger numbers by about 5%.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The taxi trade here had a good whinge about the DRT in the North of the island, their argument being it was anti-competitive and abstracting custom from the taxis. This resulted in a review carried out on behalf of the Office of Fair Trading here.

The full report is attached, but the gist of it is that the DRT scheme here saved money compared to fixed routes and increased passenger numbers by about 5%.

Obviously it is a totally different jurisdiction from the mainland, but it's interesting to note that success against the fact that some of the service is "many-to-one", running to/from Ramsey via Jurby as a fixed route, timetabled service and then operating to/from the villages as required. I'm strongly of the view that many-to-one (or many-to-a-few) DRT works, and many-to-many DRT is little more than a subsidised taxi service because journeys won't align, and this seems to back up that view?

 

[RT4038]

Strange that given the technology out there now, and with bus open data and stuff, this should all be able to work itself out. Act as a normal journey planner in first instance and if there are no suitable journeys, it lets you book a bus.

These companies know full well that they could do it, it's a case that they WONT do it as it means less passengers for the DRT which would eventually effect their business. If they lose the public authorities, they lose their business basically as the only reason Via and those apps are still operational is because of brainless councils keep throwing stupid amounts of money at them.

So, according to @Bletchleyite, the VIA app does do this. So where is your argument now? Conspiracy theory? The DRT I have some involvement in covers an area of no fixed bus routes (in fact it replaced the only fixed bus route), so the facility would be of no use, so has not been explored with the provider.

Moving the tendered network entirely to DRT, as Milton Keynes Council almost have, is a different issue to trying to run down commercial routes. That's a valid choice if the priority is to save money while maintaining coverage - indeed it's pretty much the entire purpose of introducing DRT.

That's not a conspiracy either. It's totally open and deliberate policy.

In places/areas of low demand, where tendered fixed routes are wasteful, it may well be a way of saving money / providing service to places uneconomic (or physically unreachable) by larger fixed route buses. It may well also be a way of further dampening down already uneconomic demand levels to reduce costs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It may well also be a way of further dampening down already uneconomic demand levels to reduce costs.

This is also part of it. In Milton Keynes, because of its poor availability and low comfort, anyone who has a car, can afford a taxi, can walk to a fixed bus route or even who has a bicycle is going to avoid it. It's pretty much just there for those who have nothing else.

 

[Tetchytyke]

it's interesting to note that success against the fact that some of the service is "many-to-one", running to/from Ramsey via Jurby as a fixed route, timetabled service and then operating to/from the villages as required. I'm strongly of the view that many-to-one (or many-to-a-few) DRT works, and many-to-many DRT is little more than a subsidised taxi service

The DRT has some "fixed" times at Jurby- the biggest village and site of the island's prison- where a bus will be there to take people to Ramsey without the need to pre-book. The route it then takes to Ramsey will depend on pre-booking. Likewise in reverse. This was in response to complaints.

In general the DRT here does exist to scoop people up from the villages and drop them off in Ramsey, taking them home again later. Inter-village travel fits in with that to an extent.

I've struggled more to understand DRT that doesn't do this, e.g. take people from the suburbs to Milton Keynes shopping centre or railway station and then back home again.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've struggled more to understand DRT that doesn't do this, e.g. take people from the suburbs to Milton Keynes shopping centre or railway station and then back home again.

Two of the muppet Councillors I spoke to around this (and I do think it's the only DRT model that works) claimed it was illegal (it's not, though in England it does have to be registered as a local bus service).

Milton Keynes has a few "super local centres" e.g. Westcroft with a large supermarket and other shops - I suggested one option would be to operate a vehicle out of those departing hourly via a dynamic route to nearby areas, for instance, and yes, the centre and stations would be other places.

 

[markymark2000]

So, according to @Bletchleyite, the VIA app does do this. So where is your argument now? Conspiracy theory? The DRT I have some involvement in covers an area of no fixed bus routes (in fact it replaced the only fixed bus route), so the facility would be of no use, so has not been explored with the provider.

Perhaps I was living in a dream that day where I booked the Fleccsi for at the same time as 2 normal bus services. Or perhaps the accounts of others that you could book Fleccsi over Stagecoach routes, are they all false? Are we all wrong? Just because it's in one or two areas, it's not widespread.


I've got these 2 screenshots but the other Via apps insist on me signing up properly and sod that. I am not giving away personal information to these leaches.

First one from High Wycombe bus station to Beechwood Road. This journey has 7 buses per hour and yet people can still book a DRT. Yes it shows the bus as an option but doesn't prevent booking.

The second screenshot is from Fleccsi. From Broughton Retail Park to Buckley Cross. A journey which has 3 buses per hour. Yet it doesn't show buses at all and permits booking a bus. (after 6pm because the scheme has a gap in the service for schools. Still 3 buses per hour though 6-7pm).

 

[Bletchleyite]

That the VIA app can do this (I know it can, because I've done it) and that some operators haven't configured it this way, probably by incompetence or because they asked the commercial operator and they didn't mind*, doesn't conflict.

It's not all a big conspiracy. Hardly anything is - the old adage "never assume conspiracy when c***-up is a possible explanation" almost always holds true.

* DRT is fundamentally fairly inconvenient. You can rarely go exactly when you want. Thus, hardly anyone is going to choose to book a DRT journey when they could use a scheduled service. And if there's the odd person who does make that choice e.g. because they can't walk easily or because the experience of using their wheelchair on a DRT vehicle is better, for instance, who cares? It's hardly going to massively impact the bottom line. If it's going to adversely affect anyone, it's the local taxi firm or Uber/Bolt.

 

[TheManOnThe172]

* DRT is fundamentally fairly inconvenient.

I think that needs to be refined a fraction: reasonably loaded DRT is fundamentally fairly inconvenient.

There is a "halo" effect (which may translate into glowing reviews, as long as you are careful only to ask those lucky enough to get a booking accepted) in the early days when customers have a good chance that their phone call/app attempt will see a DRT bus take them where they want, when they want - for the price of a bus ride. Roger French recently reported horrendously low early usage for a new DRT scheme in Gloucestershire, which really would have felt like a taxi service for anyone who had managed to find out about it.

The "fairly inconvenient" rating will apply in time, once demand builds up even modestly - after a few attempts which don't yield a suitable ride offering, users with more reliable alternatives will return to using those.