Ember: Electric coach service

[JohnMcL7]

I can certainly see a use for needing to travel overnight but I can't see how it's sustainable to run big buses like that overnight with hardly any passengers.

I'm also concerned about how sustainable the services are and I think they're likely to get busier (at least the services during the day), when mentioning I'd used their services a number of people were asking me about the how the trip was because they've seen the buses and planning to try them. Normally after using public transport I wish I'd taken the car but I thought the trip with Ember was good, the buses are obviously very quiet and smooth which is a welcome change from having a noise engine rumbling underneath the entire time plus it was half the cost of the train. Obviously the bus stops for pickups/dropffs are minimal but I can live with that.

 

[gingerheid]

On the one hand they have essentially prepaid for fuel (to a huge extent with other people paying, via funding for batteries and charging infrastructure), so that makes their life easier. Overnight is also when there is no rail competition and when people often want to go to airports.

On the other hand they're currently a venture capital funded company at mid stage and seeking growth, and at some point the product is going to be subject to en****tification in order to obtain shareholder value!

There must also be a risk that at some point the Scottish Government will get bored of working with fare structures designed to calculate concession pass reimbursements on fares that aren't intended to be paid!

 

[overthewater]

There must also be a risk that at some point the Scottish Government will get bore of working with fare structures designed to calculate concession pass reimbursements on fares that aren't intended to be paid!

That wont happy as no one wants to clean up that mess, Unfortunley the trouble is half the coach network in the highlands operate as a local bus services.

Ember very smartly has decided to throw out it's seeds to see what will grow, ( I wish First Scotland East had done that back in 2005 when they had millage floor, they could have tried some out of the boxes ideas to see if they could have grown its market but instead just improve the local freq which did them no favours in the long run. )

I say good luck to Ember, I see plenty of thier services and there always got passengers. They claim thier are a tech company who runs buses, that means they want to cater for everyone and there is plenty of people traveling overnight, what about people going to Edinburgh Airport?

 

[markymark2000]

That wont happy as no one wants to clean up that mess, Unfortunley the trouble is half the coach network in the highlands operate as a local bus services.

You can get around that though by removing eligibility for journeys of 15 miles or less (which is how often a local bus service must stop to be counted as a local bus service), or remove all coach eligibility except for where the operator can prove that they are providing a local bus service and/or making journeys which are not available on the core local bus network.

Quite a few ways that the Scottish Govt could change it to remove the stupidly open to abuse, coach travel element, while also ensuring that normal local buses (including those where the route happens to be operated by a coach) aren't affected.

 

[overthewater]

You can get around that though by removing eligibility for journeys of 15 miles or less (which is how often a local bus service must stop to be counted as a local bus service), or remove all coach eligibility except for where the operator can prove that they are providing a local bus service and/or making journeys which are not available on the core local bus network.

Quite a few ways that the Scottish Govt could change it to remove the stupidly open to abuse, coach travel element, while also ensuring that normal local buses (including those where the route happens to be operated by a coach) aren't affected.

That will only affect the Citylink/Flix Saltire city routes, Ember would still be allowed under these rules.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I say good luck to Ember, I see plenty of thier services and there always got passengers. They claim thier are a tech company who runs buses, that means they want to cater for everyone and there is plenty of people traveling overnight, what about people going to Edinburgh Airport?

I'm certainly hoping it works out for them and also interested I could get the bike on as well which has been a frustration with the trains due to the very limited availability. I thought the tech side works well so far, it was very simple to buy the ticket and then I received a single e-mail with two barcodes and a link to track my exact bus. Getting on each time was just a simple scan of the barcode and it was useful when I was waiting at Edinburgh to know exactly what bus was doing the pickup plus I could send that link on to the person who was picking me up in town. While there's nothing innovative about what they're offering I was impressed it was all simple given these days it's often apps and layers of complexity to get simple information.

 

[InOban]

The difference between a bus and a coach is not just frequency of stops. A bus service doesn't require pre booking. So a service between Inverness and Perth would have to leave the A9 to pass through every village in case someone was waiting at the bus stop.

 

[318266]

You can get around that though by removing eligibility for journeys of 15 miles or less (which is how often a local bus service must stop to be counted as a local bus service), or remove all coach eligibility except for where the operator can prove that they are providing a local bus service and/or making journeys which are not available on the core local bus network.

Quite a few ways that the Scottish Govt could change it to remove the stupidly open to abuse, coach travel element, while also ensuring that normal local buses (including those where the route happens to be operated by a coach) aren't affected.

They would never do that because that would effectively constitute political suicide to all 16-21 voters!

 

[Rab Smith]

For a relatively new start up company boasting tech savvy booking, I am quite surprised they don't currently have a booking app!
Saying that, on looking at times for a bus from Inverness to the Central Belt, I'm pretty impressed that you can be in Glasgow before 7am!

 

[takno]

For a relatively new start up company boasting tech savvy booking, I am quite surprised they don't currently have a booking app!
Saying that, on looking at times for a bus from Inverness to the Central Belt, I'm pretty impressed that you can be in Glasgow before 7am!

Apps aren't really popular with a tech savvy audience. I absolutely hate all the operators who demand you have one to do things that could perfectly well be achieved on a website. Generally the app is only insisted on so that they collect a pile of data about me, force me into seeing their ads and constantly bother me with notifications.

You get visibility on the app store with an app, but you effectively triple your development costs, and end up with an offering which is less accessible for disabled people. In various sectors you have to pay an eye-wateribg proportion of your revenue to Apple or Google.

Furthermore, once the app is there, some bright spark from revenue protection will start demanding you use m-tickets instead of barcodes, and the marketing team will want all the offers to be app-only so that they can hoover up masses of data and clumsily share it. It's a genie which is hard to put back in the bottle

Not having an app is one of their key features for me

 

[Rab Smith]

Apps aren't really popular with a tech savvy audience. I absolutely hate all the operators who demand you have one to do things that could perfectly well be achieved on a website. Generally the app is only insisted on so that they collect a pile of data about me, force me into seeing their ads and constantly bother me with notifications.

You get visibility on the app store with an app, but you effectively triple your development costs, and end up with an offering which is less accessible for disabled people. In various sectors you have to pay an eye-wateribg proportion of your revenue to Apple or Google.

Furthermore, once the app is there, some bright spark from revenue protection will start demanding you use m-tickets instead of barcodes, and the marketing team will want all the offers to be app-only so that they can hoover up masses of data and clumsily share it. It's a genie which is hard to put back in the bottle

Not having an app is one of their key features for me

Yes, I agree with what you are saying. I too use the website for travel as it gives you a much better booking experience than an app.
Just surprised they haven't given the option.

 

[takno]

Yes, I agree with what you are saying. I too use the website for travel as it gives you a much better booking experience than an app.
Just surprised they haven't given the option.

It's a fair question actually. They have at least one good mobile developer on the team so there might be something in the works, or they might be focusing on apps for the drivers.

 

[Rab Smith]

It's a fair question actually. They have at least one good mobile developer on the team so there might be something in the works, or they might be focusing on apps for the drivers.

They already have a Staff app but it states it's staff only and tickets can't be purchased

 

[JohnMcL7]

Apps aren't really popular with a tech savvy audience. I absolutely hate all the operators who demand you have one to do things that could perfectly well be achieved on a website. Generally the app is only insisted on so that they collect a pile of data about me, force me into seeing their ads and constantly bother me with notifications.

You get visibility on the app store with an app, but you effectively triple your development costs, and end up with an offering which is less accessible for disabled people. In various sectors you have to pay an eye-wateribg proportion of your revenue to Apple or Google.

Furthermore, once the app is there, some bright spark from revenue protection will start demanding you use m-tickets instead of barcodes, and the marketing team will want all the offers to be app-only so that they can hoover up masses of data and clumsily share it. It's a genie which is hard to put back in the bottle

Not having an app is one of their key features for me

I definitely agree with you particularly that not having an app is a plus. In the early days of smart phones where websites were not designed to work with mobile web browsers then mobile applications were a necessity but these days a webpage should be designed well enough to work on desktop or mobile browsers and I found the Ember site works well on my phone. Saves installing yet another unnecessary app and also makes it easy to share the bus tracking data with others since they don't need to install an app either.

 

[overthewater]

The difference between a bus and a coach is not just frequency of stops. A bus service doesn't require pre booking. So a service between Inverness and Perth would have to leave the A9 to pass through every village in case someone was waiting at the bus stop.

That isn't a difference either, I know of a few bus services where you had to phone to get picked up. Ember probably knows this already.

 

[InOban]

That isn't a difference either, I know of a few bus services where you had to phone to get picked up. Ember probably knows this already.

Surely that's what known as Demand Responsive transport, not a normal bus service.
Coach services Argyll and the Highlands don't only stop at bus stops. There are a number of recognised places where they will pick up or set down passengers (eg hillwalkers) without any bus stop

 

[route101]

Anyone used the late night and overnight services?

Glasgow/Edinburgh to Dundee seems to get a good number using.

 

[318266]

Anyone used the late night and overnight services?

Glasgow/Edinburgh to Dundee seems to get a good number using.

A few weeks back I went from Glasgow to Inverness via Dundee and Aberdeen. The E3 only had about 10 people, the E1 about 20 or so, and the E7 was at most 5 until about Elgin.

However, I'm not quite sure many would enjoy the 20 minutes in Dundee at 2 in the morning (for at least in Aberdeen there was a wee shop to sell me some Wine Gums...)

 

[Sealink]

For a relatively new start up company boasting tech savvy booking, I am quite surprised they don't currently have a booking app!
Saying that, on looking at times for a bus from Inverness to the Central Belt, I'm pretty impressed that you can be in Glasgow before 7am!

I am impressed that you can get from Thurso and Wick to Inverness for 0713 - plenty of time to connect to the 0755 to Kings Cross. On Sundays it arrives at 0843 for the 0940 departure.

Sadly it doesn't work Mondays to Fridays coming back from London, however, on Saturdays and Sundays, there is a 2039 service from Inverness, which would make a connection from the 1200 from Kings Cross. And you could make the connection if the train was say, 25 minutes late.

 

[Sealink]

On 23rd I travelled on the 1410hrs Glasgow Buchanan to Inverness service.

Is this the first time non stop services have operated between the two cities? It was really nice!

The 1839hrs coach from Inverness to Scrabster was actually busier, and a much more comfortable bus, (Yutong TCe12) although there wasn't anything particularly wrong with the bus from Glasgow (Yutong GTe14)

I note that they operated the "core" Scotland route on Christmas Day and will do the same on New Years Day.

 

[AndrewTaylor95]

On 23rd I travelled on the 1410hrs Glasgow Buchanan to Inverness service.

Is this the first time a non stop services have operated on the route? It was really nice!

The 1839hrs coach from Inverness to Scrabster was actually busier, and a much more comfortable bus, (Yutong TCe12) although there wasn't anything particularly wrong with the bus from Glasgow (Yutong GTe14)

I note that they operated the "core" Scotland route on Christmas Day and will do the same on New Years Day.

Pretty much a normal service on New Year's Day except they start a bit later in the morning

 

[scottishtrains]

-

 

[overthewater]

Scottish Citylink axed all the journeys between Dundee and Aberdeen yesterday evening and into this morning, yet somehow Ember managed to keep running a few journeys. Does anyone know how Ember managed to do that?

 

[AndrewTaylor95]

Scottish Citylink axed all the journeys between Dundee and Aberdeen yesterday evening and into this morning, yet somehow Ember managed to keep running a few journeys. Does anyone know how Ember managed to do that?

Better drivers, they always run through weather warnings, The GTe14s seem to be tanks in the Snow as well, Been on an E7 to Inverness and hit the Huntly section of the A96 and the bus has charged on through it, Driving to conditions it's a breeze, Deserve a pay rise for their skills. And they're still running all routes as we speak, Dedication if you ask me.

 

[Spsf3232]

Better drivers, they always run through weather warnings, The GTe14s seem to be tanks in the Snow as well, Been on an E7 to Inverness and hit the Huntly section of the A96 and the bus has charged on through it, Driving to conditions it's a breeze, Deserve a pay rise for their skills. And they're still running all routes as we speak, Dedication if you ask me.

Running through weather warnings is not the flex you make it sound like. At least Citylink management looks at the safety aspect while Ember management couldn't care less and this has shown through a few times this year already with them putting drivers into dangerous circumstances and in turn putting them way over legal driving hours.

 

[AndrewTaylor95]

Running through weather warnings is not the flex you make it sound like. At least Citylink management looks at the safety aspect while Ember management couldn't care less and this has shown through a few times this year already with them putting drivers into dangerous circumstances and in turn putting them way over legal driving hours.

Nobody's forced to do anything you can down tools at anytime, If you're jeopardising your driving hours that's down to the individual

 

[Spsf3232]

Nobody's forced to do anything you can down tools at anytime, If you're jeopardising your driving hours that's down to the individual

The company is also responsible and if any issues arise from it will have to explain themselves to the TC. Putting the blame on the driver is not going to be accepted in the eyes of the TC especially when drivers hours and vehicles are all tracked in real time and they can see there is to be issues

 

[Porty]

Better drivers, they always run through weather warnings, The GTe14s seem to be tanks in the Snow as well, Been on an E7 to Inverness and hit the Huntly section of the A96 and the bus has charged on through it, Driving to conditions it's a breeze, Deserve a pay rise for their skills. And they're still running all routes as we speak, Dedication if you ask me.

As far as I can see on the live map there's no service Inverness to Caithness nor on the Braemar and Deeside services today (Sunday 4th). Hardly surprising as the road has only recently opened north of Helmsdale and the snow gates on south of Braemar are closed. I noticed that yesterday they ran at least the morning service Aberdeen to Braemar, then turned around to form a return journey. Don't know what happened about the afternoon trip.

Trains managed to run Inverness to Tain today by the looks of things.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

The weight of electrics is a benefit in the snow it gets grip down

 

[scottishtrains]

Scottish Citylink axed all the journeys between Dundee and Aberdeen yesterday evening and into this morning, yet somehow Ember managed to keep running a few journeys. Does anyone know how Ember managed to do that?

Not a clue, but some E1 journeys will still cancelled. The only reason citylink cancelled due to the A90 & A92 being closed. I believe Ember (from what I seen on bustimes.org) just followed the local diversion slowly, with some coaches arriving 60-100L, with one coach being nearly 3 hours late.