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First Greater Glasgow

overthewater

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16 Apr 2012
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9,102
Another bid could also be in play. However National express Brum has been claimed to have some of the highest profits going. Dundee has always been the poor mans relations. Of course if the current managament stays in place and all that happens is Midlands is swaped with Dundee, the end result could still be the same.

FirstGroup's HQ is now in Glasgow? That's news to me.

You mis-understand, First Bus scotland management is Glasgow now.
 
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RailUK Forums

PaulMc7

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If these October changes do happen on time and things keep to how they usually do then there will probably be January changes announced before we know it too meaning 3 sets of changes in 5 months
 

Bus Lightyear

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Joined
16 Nov 2018
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542
Another bid could also be in play. However National express Brum has been claimed to have some of the highest profits going. Dundee has always been the poor mans relations. Of course if the current managament stays in place and all that happens is Midlands is swaped with Dundee, the end result could still be the same.



You mis-understand, First Bus scotland management is Glasgow now.
No I didn't misunderstand you. I wondered if the Firstgroup HQ was still based in Aberdeen as it's certainly not on Glasgow. Over the years, going by numerous articles I've read, there have been decisions forced upon the local bus ops from the guys at the top particularly of a financial nature like theyre being ruled with an iron fist. Something you're not as likely to get with Stagecoach or Go-ahead.
 

lastbus

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9 Sep 2018
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1,025
No I didn't misunderstand you. I wondered if the Firstgroup HQ was still based in Aberdeen as it's certainly not on Glasgow. Over the years, going by numerous articles I've read, there have been decisions forced upon the local bus ops from the guys at the top particularly of a financial nature like theyre being ruled with an iron fist. Something you're not as likely to get with Stagecoach or Go-ahead.
First Bus Scotland is run by Andrew Jarvis and his team from Caledonia depot in Glasgow.
 

Jordan Adam

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12 Sep 2017
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5,654
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Aberdeen
First Bus Scotland is run by Andrew Jarvis and his team from Caledonia depot in Glasgow.

The joint management for First Aberdeen & Scotland East are based at Larbert. Glasgow is managed out of Caledonia. They all just share the same managing director.

No I didn't misunderstand you. I wondered if the Firstgroup HQ was still based in Aberdeen as it's certainly not on Glasgow. Over the years, going by numerous articles I've read, there have been decisions forced upon the local bus ops from the guys at the top particularly of a financial nature like theyre being ruled with an iron fist. Something you're not as likely to get with Stagecoach or Go-ahead.

The proposed Aberdeen service changes from October are a prime example of this, it's pretty evident following the loss of contracts at coach hire that upper management have told them to cut costs and as such they're pretty much reversing all the improvements made in the last few years without filling the gaps. As such the public reaction has been poor. It does give the impression they've given up in Aberdeen.
 

JumpinTrainz

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30 Jul 2018
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1,930
I feel like in order for any operator to survive there has to be implementations introduced in order to encourage people to use the bus in favour of their car. Even the train is cheaper for a return into town from where I stay.

The bus structure of the City Centre has to be looked at in my opinion. The route to get through town should be simplified with bus only streets, bus lanes and easier access through the town centre. Argyle Street should be reopened as a road to allow buses to go straight through and easily on to Buchanan Street, with some taking the Queen Street route and others taking the road through St Enoch to prevent the long bunched up line of buses.

Travel is very expensive with fares creeping up left right and centre. First need to try and look at their costing. They will blame rise in fuel costs etc, however I remember years ago £2 returns were a thing and they were extremely popular. That’s very cheap in today’s age but little bargains would lure people back on to the buses and perhaps put faith back in our transport system.

Last but probably most important would be - the fleet itself has to be modern, clean and presentable. The public are a lot to do with this with people not clearing up after themselves/vandalism however First play a part when placing old bone rattlers on routes with thread bare seats and the floors look like they haven’t been cleaned in decades. The plug sockets and wifi were a good touch IMO, however the E300s don’t have this facility and they run on some of the most popular routes on the network so that may be something to look at too.
 

CM

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Joined
28 Dec 2010
Messages
667
I feel like in order for any operator to survive there has to be implementations introduced in order to encourage people to use the bus in favour of their car. Even the train is cheaper for a return into town from where I stay.

The bus structure of the City Centre has to be looked at in my opinion. The route to get through town should be simplified with bus only streets, bus lanes and easier access through the town centre. Argyle Street should be reopened as a road to allow buses to go straight through and easily on to Buchanan Street, with some taking the Queen Street route and others taking the road through St Enoch to prevent the long bunched up line of buses.

Travel is very expensive with fares creeping up left right and centre. First need to try and look at their costing. They will blame rise in fuel costs etc, however I remember years ago £2 returns were a thing and they were extremely popular. That’s very cheap in today’s age but little bargains would lure people back on to the buses and perhaps put faith back in our transport system.

Last but probably most important would be - the fleet itself has to be modern, clean and presentable. The public are a lot to do with this with people not clearing up after themselves/vandalism however First play a part when placing old bone rattlers on routes with thread bare seats and the floors look like they haven’t been cleaned in decades. The plug sockets and wifi were a good touch IMO, however the E300s don’t have this facility and they run on some of the most popular routes on the network so that may be something to look at too.

They should never have made Argyle Street one way and they should have kept the junction with Osborne Street opened as well. This, along with shutting the bus stances at St. Enoch was probably one of the worst decisions made by the Council.
 

smtglasgow

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15 Feb 2011
Messages
503
Location
Glasgow & London
I’d agree that journey times through the city centre are dire, but unfortunately people want to be taken as close to their destination as possible. I used to commute on the 240/255 and there’s a case to be made that terminating at say Osbourne Street would make them more reliable, but at the rush hour most buses are full by the bottom of Union St and in the mornings at least 10-20 people stay on to the bus station for Glasgow Cally and the offices nearby. Same goes for the 6 – it picks up a lot at Renfrew St heading south. Agree about Argyle St, but the worst thing is the multiple traffic lights, none of which seem to be co-ordinated, so the bus just stutters along from light to light.
 

PaulMc7

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9 Jul 2019
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4,029
The other problem with the city centre is that it's just nowhere near as attractive to shop in as it used to be. If First want to give incentive to bring people back onto their buses they should look towards Braehead, Silverburn and Glasgow Fort. There will only be more city centre shop closures than anything because of the high rent costs
 

route101

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16 May 2010
Messages
12,257
Two E300s on the 31 today , first time for me on route , have these transferred from Scotstoun?
 

route101

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I’d agree that journey times through the city centre are dire, but unfortunately people want to be taken as close to their destination as possible. I used to commute on the 240/255 and there’s a case to be made that terminating at say Osbourne Street would make them more reliable, but at the rush hour most buses are full by the bottom of Union St and in the mornings at least 10-20 people stay on to the bus station for Glasgow Cally and the offices nearby. Same goes for the 6 – it picks up a lot at Renfrew St heading south. Agree about Argyle St, but the worst thing is the multiple traffic lights, none of which seem to be co-ordinated, so the bus just stutters along from light to light.

Plenty use the services going to the bus station from Glassford sT , mostly concession pass holders . Maybe we need a City Cnetre service , loop or free service like Manchester .
 

PaulMc7

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Plenty use the services going to the bus station from Glassford sT , mostly concession pass holders . Maybe we need a City Cnetre service , loop or free service like Manchester .

That would be interesting. Would make the outskirts of the city centre busier though which may cause even more congestion
 
Joined
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1,021
Location
Glasgow
67826 was transferred to Caley a while ago and then 827-832 transferred here last Monday with the changes, also have 877-881 these were transferred from Scotstoun around the end of last year so there's more 13/63 plate E300s, there's only a couple of E300s from Parkhead in Caley with the majority of them being up in Bannockburn now
 
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JumpinTrainz

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30 Jul 2018
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1,930
67826 was transferred to Caley a while ago and then 827-831 transferred here last Monday with the changes, also have 877-881 these were transferred from Scotstoun around the end of last year so there's more 13/63 plate E300s, there's only a couple of E300s from Parkhead in Caley with the majority of them being up in Bannockburn now

Hopefully First think about upgrading the 3 and 2 which would release more E300s to cover the 255 and 263 at Blantyre as well as routes at Caledonia and modernise the single deck fleet.
 

scosutsut

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1 Jan 2019
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scosutsut
Surely the LEZ is driving at some level the desire to cut PVR. The last thing you want to be doing to an operation when you are trying to offload it is to buy it new assets. Lower PVR = more incompliant vehicles can be retired without replacement.
 

Whiteway215

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15 Sep 2015
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2,138
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Bath
31143/46 32225 which have been in Caley paint shop recently reported to have arrived in Bristol.
 

route101

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16 May 2010
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Hopefully First think about upgrading the 3 and 2 which would release more E300s to cover the 255 and 263 at Blantyre as well as routes at Caledonia and modernise the single deck fleet.

For some reason on Sunday , the 255 gets e300s along with the 240 . Was the half branded 201 ones on it .While on the 267 a 240 branded e200mmc was on that route
 

JumpinTrainz

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30 Jul 2018
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For some reason on Sunday , the 255 gets e300s along with the 240 . Was the half branded 201 ones on it .While on the 267 a 240 branded e200mmc was on that route

I’ve noticed that. Recently the 201 branded E300s are showing up on the 240, 255, 263 and 267.
 

PaulMc7

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9 Jul 2019
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And how reliable would these services be

The only way they would be is if traffic lights were completely reworked and resynced. Could have it the way the subway is and just say it's every 10mins etc at a certain time
 

lastbus

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9 Sep 2018
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For some reason on Sunday , the 255 gets e300s along with the 240 . Was the half branded 201 ones on it .While on the 267 a 240 branded e200mmc was on that route
Blantyre operate all these services on a Sunday that’s why. Services also interwork at times on Sundays so maybe that’s why the 240 bus was on the 267. The 201s are not branded yet they only have the fronts done.

On another note Overtown’s 47620 is now in the new livery.
 

SarahDFIG

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9 Jan 2019
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407
Paintshop spitting them out just now in the new livery. Now to wait for one of the 05/56 plate darts to get painted in new colours.
 
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Bristol LH

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6 Aug 2017
Messages
79
67101, 67102 and 67105 have now arrived at First Cymru, upseated and repainted in two-tone blue. They join 67106, which transferred in April, though hasn't been reseated.
 

lastbus

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9 Sep 2018
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Paintshop spitting them out just now in the new livery. Now to wait for one of the 05/56 plate darts to get painted in new colours.
The 56 plate darts were painted when they transferred I believe. More likely for the 05 plates to be scrapped than painted.
 

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