Oxford Tube

[LexyBoy]

The Tube is certainly popular with students, tourists and daytrippers - it is well puublicised, frequent and stops in convenient places. The X90 is slightly more “serious” but also busy (I preferred it as it’s quicker, more reliable*, not run by Stagecoach and doesn’t use offensively huge and noisy coaches). I think that to some extent the frequent, 24 hour service has created a lot of demand which I don’t think is going to disappear with a better rail service.

Travelling at quiet times – during the middle of the day or after 8pm – the journey time is quite competitive considering the location of Oxford and Paddington stations, and fares are slightly cheaper than the train. In the morning/afternoon the journey time is well over 2h, 3h is not unusual (having used it to commute for a while from London).

What I think is interesting is that the Oxford Tube is the exception – there are surely many more candidates for a high frequency, express bus service. The key IMO is a high enough frequency, and long enough operating hours, for it to be seen as sufficiently convenient to tempt people out of their cars. (Reading-London would be one example where I’m sure a coach could compete! But there are many others where a coach link would genuinely add to the public transport options).

* Are there still always Oxford Tubes on the hard shoulder of the M40? When I was in Oxford loads of friends would say “I’ll never travel on the Tube again, it’s so unreliable”. I’ve certainly been on an X90 which has stopped to pick up stranded Tube passengers more than once.

 

[radamfi]

* Are there still always Oxford Tubes on the hard shoulder of the M40? When I was in Oxford loads of friends would say “I’ll never travel on the Tube again, it’s so unreliable”. I’ve certainly been on an X90 which has stopped to pick up stranded Tube passengers more than once.

Are you talking about the old Neoplan Skyliners? They were notoriously unreliable and so were dispensed with as soon as possible. The newer Van Hool double deckers are much more reliable.

Reading Transport used to run a regular Reading to London service but it wasn't particularly cheap and obviously no match in speed to the frequent HSTs.

 

[LexyBoy]

Crossrail is not currently intended to go near Oxford, preferring to terminate at low population centres either side of the capital, to ensure it makes huge losses. One day they may send it to where the people are, and there's no (real) reason why it can't include fast or semi-fast trains, so long as they stop at all stations between Padd and LStreet - At the very least, the Heathrow Express should be routed direct to the city (duh!). Similarly, the very situation you describe would guarantee a huge ridership from Oxford. But they don't call the ministry DaFT for nothing!

The Chiltern Line 'evergreen' extensions have historically been good value for money to build, and (almost unique) have mostly been built within budget, with most delays due to extraordinary circumstances, rather than the usual c***ups. The services normally offer fares some way below their "intercity" rivals (WC & GW).

There are very good reasons Crossrail will be strictly an all-stations affair, mainly that to maintain a ~20tph frequency through the core requires the absolute minimum chance of delays creeping in.

And whilst I hope that Chiltern's Evergreen extension to Oxford does go ahead, I'd not be so certain that the fares will be very competitive. Currently, Bicester-London (Chiltern) is £25 Super Off Peak Return, and Oxford-London (FGW) is £23.50 Off Peak Return...

 

[Statto]

I agree with you.

Interesting to see how much better Stagecoach are at these kind of coach routes (the Fife expresses, Ayrshire, the "Varsity" X5) whilst Arriva/ First seem to struggle (notable exception of the X1 from Norwich to Peterborough)

I think having a competing service helps in keeping Stagecoach on it's toes, as they know if they let standards slip passengers will use the other company.

 

[dzug2]

Even the current rail option can be very cheap with the advance fares that are offered from £1 each way

Though the megabus deal on the Oxford tube is similar.......

 

[dk1]

Always makes me think of the late 80s BR manager who replied to critics wanting to know why there where up to 6 coaches an hour from Oxford to London as opposed to just 1 train. His reply was "Network SouthEast run 9 coaches an hour. It's just that ours are all joined together".

 

[al355]

Having been a commuter to London from Oxford for 3 years on both the train and coach, the main difference is the price. Train is £4500 annually, coach is £1000 (held for 3 years running). Competition is what has done that to the price, the choice is easy for me

 

[Blindtraveler]

as someone who is self employed, with fingers in quite frankly too many pies the things that stagecoach are doing to the longdistance market are attractive to me. I can find myself in several places in a week and always needing to keep on top of work and find more, a tough job given what I do and the tube, megabus or stagecoach express offering of wifi,0often plugs and maybe even a few nice extras like leather seats, plus good friendly drivers and other staff and the budget prices are making me use them much much more over the train as often0the pickup points are better too and on busy rail routes or indeed those with too many voyagers the option of a seat when working is0an attractive one!

As others have said ariva and first dont seam to be any good at this and shouldnt be trying and as also pointed out the reliabilitty issues that stagecoach had with there skyliners are long gone, a fact proven by my having only had 1 failure in the last 60 stagecoach express, megabus or NX tube journeys

 

[notadriver]

IMO a good bus is better than a crappy train! I would rather have an Oxford Tube coach than a Pacer, for example.

One problem with coaches (and buses) is that unfortunately you can get a bad driver. On a recent rail rover trip I used a coach between Inverness and Fort William. The driver pushed the coach so hard that it overheated and we were forced to adopt a 'brace' position for over 2 hours, such was the speed around bends and sudden harsh braking. That doesn't happen on trains.

 

[Blindtraveler]

One problem with coaches (and buses) is that unfortunately you can get a bad driver. On a recent rail rover trip I used a coach between Inverness and Fort William. The driver pushed the coach so hard that it overheated and we were forced to adopt a 'brace' position for over 2 hours, such was the speed around bends and sudden harsh braking. That doesn't happen on trains.

the running time on that route is an issue and a similar experience was had by me last year. Not sure if there choice in vehicles (profiles) when I did it is ideal for that particular run. Dont get me wrong though they are good buses

 

[radamfi]

One problem with coaches (and buses) is that unfortunately you can get a bad driver. On a recent rail rover trip I used a coach between Inverness and Fort William. The driver pushed the coach so hard that it overheated and we were forced to adopt a 'brace' position for over 2 hours, such was the speed around bends and sudden harsh braking. That doesn't happen on trains.

There is no technical reason why this should be so. Train drivers earn much more money and have far more training than bus drivers but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Bus drivers in the UK only have a few weeks training before they are out on the road. From discussions I had a few years ago with some Dutch bus enthusiasts, bus drivers in the Netherlands have many months of training and earn a decent wage.

In addition, there is now satellite tracking and software that monitors driver behaviour, which should make bus driving more uniform.