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First Greater Glasgow

Glasgowbusguy

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To be fair considering how frequent the trains are along with the subway Partick is probably overbused if anything. It's one of those areas that's unavoidable really because of the places the buses go to.

There's the 2, 3, M4, 8, 16, 77 and 90 plus Mcgills have the 17 and 141 too and Avondale have the 400. It's crowded
The main reason I went via partick is the interchange and that it allows routing via the hospital as pollok only has the colchri service
 
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tbtc

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If you want to provide an east-south link, what about linking the 43 to the southern side of the 90 to provide a half hourly Easterhouse - Parkhead - Govan - QE Hospital - Braehead service, ticking a few boxes for "leisure" destinations (even extend it to the Fort)?

Apologies if one or both of the services is tendered, I don't know what is/isn't these days, but you could then combine the northern half of the 90 with the 8 and market it as a co-ordinated orbital service from Partick to Parkhead, linking with the various radial services in northern Glasgow.

Agreed about the 3 needing a time somewhere like - it's over four hours for a round trip - Google Maps tells me it's an hour faster to *walk* from Drumchapel to Govan and back than it is to sit on a bus - there are other services that provide faster links instead of going round the houses (e.g. the 34 from Shawlands to Govan)
 

PaulMc7

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Was thinking of some route combinations that could balance length where possible or remove some sets of recovery time off of the map as well as creating some new links. The 8 is one I struggled with though as I don't know where you could split that. Will post any others if I come up with anything

31/64 combination-Carmunnock to Parkhead
90-Partick to Carmyle
43/90-Easterhouse to Braehead

60/60A-Summerston-Easterhouse
61-Sandyhills-Clydebank/Milngavie

Keep the 34A as it is but then do this with the 3/34 using Minard Road/Dinmont Road as there's no right turn onto Langside Avenue at Pollokshaws Road as the route switch:

3-Drumchapel to Govan via City Centre, Shawlands, Mosspark, Bellahouston, Halfway, Cardonald
34-Castlemilk to Govan via Battlefield, Shawlands, Riverford Road, Silverburn, Crookston, Kingsland Drive

1B/206- 1B becomes Glasgow to Dumbarton
206/206A- 206 every 30 mins-Haldane to Helensburgh via Castlehill, 206A-Haldane to Westcliff via 1B route between Dumbarton and Westcliff

227/229- Little Earnock to Whitehill/Eddlewood hourly each

9/9A/87/88-Paisley/Braehead/Penilee-Auchinairn/Harestanes

6A/41-Drumchapel-Easterhouse

10/19-Easterhouse-Silverburn
 

kez19

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Was thinking of some route combinations that could balance length where possible or remove some sets of recovery time off of the map as well as creating some new links. The 8 is one I struggled with though as I don't know where you could split that. Will post any others if I come up with anything

31/64 combination-Carmunnock to Parkhead
90-Partick to Carmyle
43/90-Easterhouse to Braehead

60/60A-Summerston-Easterhouse
61-Sandyhills-Clydebank/Milngavie

Keep the 34A as it is but then do this with the 3/34 using Minard Road/Dinmont Road as there's no right turn onto Langside Avenue at Pollokshaws Road as the route switch:

3-Drumchapel to Govan via City Centre, Shawlands, Mosspark, Bellahouston, Halfway, Cardonald
34-Castlemilk to Govan via Battlefield, Shawlands, Riverford Road, Silverburn, Crookston, Kingsland Drive

1B/206- 1B becomes Glasgow to Dumbarton
206/206A- 206 every 30 mins-Haldane to Helensburgh via Castlehill, 206A-Haldane to Westcliff via 1B route between Dumbarton and Westcliff

227/229- Little Earnock to Whitehill/Eddlewood hourly each

9/9A/87/88-Paisley/Braehead/Penilee-Auchinairn/Harestanes

6A/41-Drumchapel-Easterhouse

10/19-Easterhouse-Silverburn

I’m not from Glasgow here but I do remember First running the 9 to Linwood (I know McGills mostly runs out to Linwood), any idea what was the reason behind it to no longer run to Linwood (sorry if it’s a bit off topic but have always wondered)
 

PaulMc7

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I’m not from Glasgow here but I do remember First running the 9 to Linwood (I know McGills mostly runs out to Linwood), any idea what was the reason behind it to no longer run to Linwood (sorry if it’s a bit off topic but have always wondered)

I'd imagine it was passenger numbers because of the fact Mcgills have every bus service in the area and their Linwood bus was very frequent
 

Glasgowbusguy

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I think part of any changes has to be hospitsl links as for example if you live in maryhill your local hospital is the Royal yet the only direct link in a bit of a mystery tour that is the 8/90
Pollok which is the queen Elizabeth only linked by colchri
Other changes that could be made inc
Inter working the x10 and x8 as these were inter worked years ago
The 19/10 is a good shout
Would like to see the 89/90 inner outer back all day and not just at night
 

route101

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I'd imagine it was passenger numbers because of the fact Mcgills have every bus service in the area and their Linwood bus was very frequent

First still run the 9 to Paisley, surprised they still do. Might be because of McGills they still want a fight.

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To be fair considering how frequent the trains are along with the subway Partick is probably overbused if anything. It's one of those areas that's unavoidable really because of the places the buses go to.

There's the 2, 3, M4, 8, 16, 77 and 90 plus Mcgills have the 17 and 141 too and Avondale have the 400. It's crowded

Sometimes if im in a rush to get back to city, i used to get train despite having an all day ticket.From Partick.With railcard it was cheap.
 

92002

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First still run the 9 to Paisley, surprised they still do. Might be because of McGills they still want a fight.

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Sometimes if im in a rush to get back to city, i used to get train despite having an all day ticket.From Partick.With railcard it was cheap.
No doubt when the bridge from Renfrew to Clydebank is built somebody will put a service on to shorten the current round trip from Paisley to the City. It could even use the expressway. They could even replace the airport 757 to Clydebank with a less time mystery tour of Erskine.
 

PaulMc7

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No doubt when the bridge from Renfrew to Clydebank is built somebody will put a service on to shorten the current round trip from Paisley to the City. It could even use the expressway. They could even replace the airport 757 to Clydebank with a less time mystery tour of Erskine.

That bridge will open up options tbh. Always a potential route for a Clydebank to Braehead or Paisley service through Renfrew or another airport service from Clydebank etc although I would question the viability of that if it ever happened. The Erskine part of the 757 isn't as bad as it used to be tbh. Always wonder if First would compete with Mcgills in Erskine but I doubt it tbh. Seemed like everyone had cars the last time I was through there
 

Bus Lightyear

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Another day, another whole lot of crazy route ideas.

3-Drumchapel to Govan via City Centre, Shawlands, Mosspark, Bellahouston, Halfway, Cardonald
34-Castlemilk to Govan via Battlefield, Shawlands, Riverford Road, Silverburn, Crookston, Kingsland Drive
There's absolutely no logic in this and will only prolong folks journeys.

9/9A/87/88-Paisley/Braehead/Penilee-Auchinairn/Harestanes
Not so long ago the 10 ran cross-town to Woodhill via Springburn. The reason for splitting and the new 87 I assume is due to traffic bottlenecks at Kingston and the Springburn Expressway off-slip at Royston Road. They are best kept the way they are.

60/60A-Summerston-Easterhouse
61-Sandyhills-Clydebank/Milngavie
Change for change's sake.

6A/41-Drumchapel-Easterhouse

The 41 did this years ago and was split I assume for reliability.
 

PaulMc7

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Another day, another whole lot of crazy route ideas.


There's absolutely no logic in this and will only prolong folks journeys.


Not so long ago the 10 ran cross-town to Woodhill via Springburn. The reason for splitting and the new 87 I assume is due to traffic bottlenecks at Kingston and the Springburn Expressway off-slip at Royston Road. They are best kept the way they are.


Change for change's sake.



The 41 did this years ago and was split I assume for reliability.

I mean if you're going to have a go at me for making ideas and explaining why i made them then at least bring your own to the table
 

Bus Lightyear

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If you want to provide an east-south link, what about linking the 43 to the southern side of the 90 to provide a half hourly Easterhouse - Parkhead - Govan - QE Hospital - Braehead service, ticking a few boxes for "leisure" destinations (even extend it to the Fort)?
Not the worst idea in the world but there's probably a reluctance to meddle too much with the 90 as it offers a number of links to Glasgow Royal Infirmary and other hospitals of course.

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I mean if you're going to have a go at me for making ideas and explaining why i made them then at least bring your own to the table
I won't because I don't think playing musical chairs with the bus network will solve the issues in Glasgow. I'd be more annoyed at our useless politicians and their lack of foresight and the resistance to push for improved bus priority and I don't believe bus operators should continue to carry the can for it. The same issues apply to number of towns and cities throughout the UK.
 
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Robert cusick

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Don’t you think that First Glasgow No 1 and First Glasgow No 2 should be on separate forums as No 1 is mainly routes “if not all” within Glasgow whilst the majority of No 2’s routes don’t go to Glasgow at least not from Lanarkshire although I admit that I don’t know about services from Dumbarton
 

PaulMc7

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Not the worst idea in the world but there's probably a reluctance to meddle too much with the 90 as it offers a number of links to Glasgow Royal Infirmary and other hospitals of course.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==


I won't because I don't think playing musical chairs with the bus network will solve the issues in Glasgow. I'd be more annoyed at our useless politicians and their lack of foresight and the resistance to push for improved bus priority and I don't believe bus operators should continue to carry the can for it. The same issues apply to number of towns and cities throughout the UK.

I tend to agree with you on that regarding politicians but a stale network doesn't help either hence why I post ideas. Nothing I post will ever be changes for the sake of it either hence why I started off explaining why I'd make the changes before mentioning what I'd change.
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
Don’t you think that First Glasgow No 1 and First Glasgow No 2 should be on separate forums as No 1 is mainly routes “if not all” within Glasgow whilst the majority of No 2’s routes don’t go to Glasgow at least not from Lanarkshire although I admit that I don’t know about services from Dumbarton

Both the routes for No 1 and No 2 all appear on the Greater Glasgow section of the First Bus website, therefore I am happy for both No 1 and No 2 discussions to be all in the one thread.
 

Glasgowbusguy

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Cuts are coming we all accept that so longer more complex routes are probly the future so that areas maintain a service thats still profitable
Now a easy cut is to merge services that terminate in town espically the bus station as the use of the station costs money
And yes I agree some of these will make journeys longer but needs must i also think some services like the 90 , 3 are already long enough and could either but shortened if other services are merged or more likely left as they are as there fairly busy
 

PaulMc7

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Don’t you think that First Glasgow No 1 and First Glasgow No 2 should be on separate forums as No 1 is mainly routes “if not all” within Glasgow whilst the majority of No 2’s routes don’t go to Glasgow at least not from Lanarkshire although I admit that I don’t know about services from Dumbarton

Tbh the Dumbarton network is pretty small. It's only the 1/1A/1B/1E and then 206 and 208. As for making 2 forum threads instead of 1 I wouldn't personally. There's been a lot of transfers between depots because of Covid and it wouldn't be ideal discussing it twice depending on what depot received buses. Also for financial results discussion it's much easier to have 1 thread over 2
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
I think part of any changes has to be hospitsl links as for example if you live in maryhill your local hospital is the Royal yet the only direct link in a bit of a mystery tour that is the 8/90
Pollok which is the queen Elizabeth only linked by colchri
Other changes that could be made inc
Inter working the x10 and x8 as these were inter worked years ago
The 19/10 is a good shout
Would like to see the 89/90 inner outer back all day and not just at night

Regarding the Inner Circle, I remember that the circle was broken because according to First Bus, it was getting harder and harder to keep that route to time as the buses are continually in orbit (similar to the 1949-2009 incarnation of London Underground's Circle Line), even with huge dollops of running time added. Since then, there already is an 89 that runs along Springburn Road, which is the remnants of the Lambert based 24 and 27 that used to run to Falkirk and Stirling via Kilsyth, which the 89 covers as far as Kilsyth now.

I would be in favour of splitting the present day 90 and the 8 (renumber the 8 as there are two that run along Maryhill Road - this would not be allowed in London with 2 different routes having the same number), but not sure how other than what has been suggested above.
 

Jordan Adam

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Don’t you think that First Glasgow No 1 and First Glasgow No 2 should be on separate forums as No 1 is mainly routes “if not all” within Glasgow whilst the majority of No 2’s routes don’t go to Glasgow at least not from Lanarkshire although I admit that I don’t know about services from Dumbarton

No, doing so would not only be pointless but also clutter the main "Buses & Coaches" page and lead to duplicate posts in both threads. Although the legal names are different No1 and No2 are effectively the same company and are managed as one division of FirstBus, in the same way "First Scotland East Ltd" (West Lothian) and "Midland Bluebird Ltd" (Falkirk, Stirling & Balfron) are both managed as one and trade as the "First Scotland East" division within FirstBus.
 

PaulMc7

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Regarding the Inner Circle, I remember that the circle was broken because according to First Bus, it was getting harder and harder to keep that route to time as the buses are continually in orbit (similar to the 1949-2009 incarnation of London Underground's Circle Line), even with huge dollops of running time added. Since then, there already is an 89 that runs along Springburn Road, which is the remnants of the Lambert based 24 and 27 that used to run to Falkirk and Stirling via Kilsyth, which the 89 covers as far as Kilsyth now.

I would be in favour of splitting the present day 90 and the 8 (renumber the 8 as there are two that run along Maryhill Road - this would not be allowed in London with 2 different routes having the same number), but not sure how other than what has been suggested above.

Never understood why First chose to number the 89 in the way they did given that the other is an SPT service. Could easily have gone with the 86 and it would still fit the pattern they have with the 87 and 88. My guess is that it made the 90 more included in the pattern so it's 87/88/89/90.

The problem with the inner circle 89/90 was the Clyde tunnel I think. There tended to be a build up of congestion through it from 3pm onwards from what I've seen a lot. Used to cause bother for the 1s too because of everyone trying to dive into the cut off for it or out of the lane onto the expressway. Don't think Byres Road or getting in and out of Ruchill Street helps the 90 either. Got stuck for 15 mins on one trying to turn onto Maryhill Road before too due to traffic. Its a nightmare.

The 8 could maybe split at Robroyston Asda and operate around Glendale and Briarcroft to cover the X2 loss but other than that I don't know where else really
 

XAM2175

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Cross city routes helps reduce PVR and congestion as you don't have buses terminating and overlapping in the city centre.
They're bad news for resilience and reliability though, as they allow even minor delays to propagate through the network.

Never understood why First chose to number the 89 in the way they did given that the other is an SPT service.
I feel that there's no excuse for coming anywhere near duplicating route numbers within the same general area of operations - same with the First and McGills 38s. Plus there's the fact that the First Scotland East 10A/B10/C10/X10 (and so on) have nothing to do with First Glasgow's 10.

The problem with the inner circle 89/90 was the Clyde tunnel ... [also] getting in and out of Ruchill Street ...
The whole section around the Royal heading anti-clockwise is bad news in the afternoon peak too. Pre-Covid it could easily take 20-odd minutes to make the right turn from Alexandra Parade into Castle Street, then the left into Baird Street, then eventually the right onto the slip-road for Springburn Road. I put up with it for trips out Maryhill way all the same because it was still preferable to a 38+60/61 trip through town.
 
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Jordan Adam

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They're bad news for resilience and reliability though, as they allow even minor delays to propagate through the network.

Yes and no, they speed up journey time as you have less buses clogging up the city centre particularly at bus stops plus they offer cross city connections. With adequate running time and layover at either end they can be just as reliable.
 

PaulMc7

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The whole setup around the Royal Infirmary is questionable tbh. Duke St can be extremely busy, that right turn off of Alexandra Parade is one of the worst set of lights in Glasgow for traffic hold up not to mention Castle Street because of traffic trying to get onto the motorway. No idea how you fix it though
 

Robert cusick

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Going by your reckoning First Glasgow No 2 shouldn’t exist and that First Glasgow be only one company or be more precise regioanal office of First bus although I personally believe that some depots probably need to move IE moving the Overtown depot (as it’s probably to small as it was built for the Hutchison bus company who only operated services between Motherwell and Wishaw) to either Ravenscraig or Eurocentre allow I personally feel that the Eurocentre is the better of the two
 
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kez19

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I'd imagine it was passenger numbers because of the fact Mcgills have every bus service in the area and their Linwood bus was very frequent

aah ok, I knew (this is going back in the 00s) that First we’re in the area and someone else, I was surprised awhile back I knew Firsts number 9 ran out to there and then next it wasn’t but only knew about McGills running to Linwood

thank you for that info (did think passenger numbers but seems McGills are doing ok in that neck of the woods)

on Glasgow routes, I got on one that was from Clydebank to East Kilbride (number 6) but I had to get off in Clarkston began to get a sore bottom on the bus...that bus is a trek!

I seem to remember another route I got on again this was in the 00s was the 55 as far as I remember it ran from Buchanan Bus Station to Braehead(?), at the time I remember on one of their older buses possibly Olympians they displayed the number than destination
 
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sannox

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I'd imagine it was passenger numbers because of the fact Mcgills have every bus service in the area and their Linwood bus was very frequent

They ran a lot further, but competition was severe. They ended up cutting to Linwood where Arriva didn't really run to. I think once McGill's started running to Linwood and once First had stopped the X6/7 to Glasgow people shifted to McGill'.
 

PaulMc7

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They ran a lot further, but competition was severe. They ended up cutting to Linwood where Arriva didn't really run to. I think once McGill's started running to Linwood and once First had stopped the X6/7 to Glasgow people shifted to McGill'.

Yeah I remember First had a bus to Bridge of Weir at some point. Wonder if anyone would ever shift back to First from Mcgills given that First are probably now the lesser of two evils going by general opinion around online and from what I've heard while out on my travels
 

sannox

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Yeah I remember First had a bus to Bridge of Weir at some point. Wonder if anyone would ever shift back to First from Mcgills given that First are probably now the lesser of two evils going by general opinion around online and from what I've heard while out on my travels

People moan about all bus operators. First and McGill's are largely fine.

First would be wasting their time going back into Linwood. The 9 isn't busy to Paisley in my eyes and McGill's have regular buses to Paisley and the express services and SPT subsidised routes too.
 

PaulMc7

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People moan about all bus operators. First and McGill's are largely fine.

First would be wasting their time going back into Linwood. The 9 isn't busy to Paisley in my eyes and McGill's have regular buses to Paisley and the express services and SPT subsidised routes too.

Yeah I think the 9 still goes to Paisley based on stubbornness more than anything. Mcgills overkill it with the 38 too so both are probably cost themselves resources
 

Jordan Adam

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Going by your reckoning First Glasgow No 2 shouldn’t exist and that First Glasgow be only one company or be more precise regioanal office of First bus although I personally believe that some depots probably need to move IE moving the Overtown depot (as it’s probably to small as it was built for the Hutchison bus company who only operated services between Motherwell and Wishaw) to either Ravenscraig or Eurocentre allow I personally feel that the Eurocentre is the better of the two

The reason for the separate companies is down to wages and contract terms with drivers. Moving depots is expensive and unlikely to happen, especially given that most of the current sites have seen significant investment.
 

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