Scottish BRDG Success and failures

[overthewater]

Around 20 years the Scottish Government had the BRDG: AKA Scottish bus route development grant. Alas it was water down badly when SNP come into power in 2007 and thus died a death of a 1000 cuts. How good was the scheme did it really do it's job or did it come up short? These are the one I can remember off the top of my head, but there is plenty more..

Success:

* No747: West Fife to Airport. New route: Started in 2006 every 30mins, the service is still running to this day every 20mins.
* NoX42: Kirkcaldy - Dundee. New route: The section between Glenrothes and Dundee still lives on to this day.
* X62 Galashiels to Edinburgh. Service is improved from every 60mins to every 30mins: and is still running to this day.
* Nearly of the route Lothian buses have been successful since there were given funding.

Failures:
* X5 Irvine coaches Hamilton - East Kilbride. No replacement.
* 205 Irvine coaches Hamilton - East Kilbride. Now a SPT tender.
* X16 Stagecoach Ayr to Hamilton. Gone.
* X38: Midland bluebird Linlithgow to Edinburgh improved to every 15mins. To bar fair I think it should have been held back.
* X95: Galashiels to Edinburgh, Service is improved from every 60mins to every 30mins. The service is now every 2 hours partly because of the new train service.
* 29/30 Jedburgh – Edinburgh via A68 corridor Munro’s of Jedburgh, improved from every 2 hours to every hour. The service is every 90mins now and no longer serves Jedburgh
* 501/502: Blackridge to Livingston corridor. Davidson Buses. The company closed down? Passenger travel took the route over but quickly disappear then Blue bus tried and that also failed mainly because First were running 800 from Blackridge to Livingston via Bathgate and blue bus kept to the Harthill to Livingston section.
* 555/777: Livingston to Edinburgh Airport circular. Waste of time, Maybe the should have given the contract to Lothian?

Can anyone remember any other routes which were either successful or failures

 

[ajrm]

Success:

*99 Dundee to St Andrews. The BRDG bid in 2006 upped the frequency of the existing service to 4 buses an hour and introduced new vehicles for the first time. Since then it's had three frequency upgrades with new vehicle investment each time, with a fourth upgrade about to happen (albeit with a recent marginal reduction in off-peak frequency).

Failure:

*X City Direct in Dundee. Two new orbital routes, Strathtay 13 and Xplore Dundee 14, with new Optare Solos for the former and imported Volvo B6LEs from West Midlands for the latter. Both routes sank without trace pretty quickly, though one of the Strathtay Solos is now preserved with the original route branding recreated.

Meanwhile, Appendix 1 of this paper has a list of the March and November 2005 Scottish awards.

 

[JKP]

The X95 has been restored to being hourly between Galashiels and Edinburgh. This route failed at a 30 minute frequency due to the opening of the Borders Railway 10 years ago this month. Rather unexpectedly it did not achieve the passenger growth expected pre railway, unlike the X62. The X62 ran every 20 minutes for a while and terminated at Waterloo Place, Edinburgh. There was a campaign led by Christine Grahame MSP to restore the route to the Bus Station. As a result, running time increased and the frequency dropped back to 30 minutes.

The 29/30 Jedburgh/Kelso to Edinburgh renumbered 51/52 to not confuse passengers with Lothian 29/30 never saw sufficient passenger growth. Increased congestion at the Edinburgh end, connection difficulties at St Boswells with the 67/68 due to late running and the high average speed required to maintain the timetable has post Covid seen this route fade away.

 

[Stan Drews]

Success:

*99 Dundee to St Andrews. The BRDG bid in 2006 upped the frequency of the existing service to 4 buses an hour and introduced new vehicles for the first time. Since then it's had three frequency upgrades with new vehicle investment each time, with a fourth upgrade about to happen (albeit with a recent marginal reduction in off-peak frequency).

Failure:

*X City Direct in Dundee. Two new orbital routes, Strathtay 13 and Xplore Dundee 14, with new Optare Solos for the former and imported Volvo B6LEs from West Midlands for the latter. Both routes sank without trace pretty quickly, though one of the Strathtay Solos is now preserved with the original route branding recreated.

Meanwhile, Appendix 1 of this paper has a list of the March and November 2005 Scottish awards.

From memory, I don’t think the 99 ever actually claimed any funding (or if it did, it was minimal), as the way the BRDG scheme was set up it only paid out if their was a gap between the additional costs and the revenue being generated, and the 99 was always profitable …by some margin!

 

[ajrm]

From memory, I don’t think the 99 ever actually claimed any funding (or if it did, it was minimal), as the way the BRDG scheme was set up it only paid out if their was a gap between the additional costs and the revenue being generated, and the 99 was always profitable …by some margin!

Very interesting, thanks!

 

[overthewater]

Does anyone have the list of the 2006 grants which were handed out?

 

[DunsBus]

The X95 has been restored to being hourly between Galashiels and Edinburgh. This route failed at a 30 minute frequency due to the opening of the Borders Railway 10 years ago this month. Rather unexpectedly it did not achieve the passenger growth expected pre railway, unlike the X62. The X62 ran every 20 minutes for a while and terminated at Waterloo Place, Edinburgh. There was a campaign led by Christine Grahame MSP to restore the route to the Bus Station. As a result, running time increased and the frequency dropped back to 30 minutes.

The 29/30 Jedburgh/Kelso to Edinburgh renumbered 51/52 to not confuse passengers with Lothian 29/30 never saw sufficient passenger growth. Increased congestion at the Edinburgh end, connection difficulties at St Boswells with the 67/68 due to late running and the high average speed required to maintain the timetable has post Covid seen this route fade away.

The current mess with the 51 is largely due to cuts in funding from Scottish Borders Council which saw the 52 disappear completely at lockdown and the route curtailed to run Edinburgh-St Boswells (it has since been extended from there to Galashiels).
Coupled with a frequency reduction and no evening service to or from Edinburgh - again, a consequence of funding cuts - it's hardly surprising that the 51 is withering away.

 

[overthewater]

Scottish travel had two routes which fell under this banner

* X22 Greenock to Cyldebank: Alas its now a SPT contract with most journeys now only operating from Port Glasgow to Clydebank
* X23 Greenock to Silverburn: Can anyone remember this service?

 

[DunsBus]

The 555/777 West Lothian - Edinburgh Airport circulars were one of the biggest failures of BSIP. Launched with great fanfare and good intentions, they never really caught on and even a later rejigging wasn't enough to save them from the inevitable axe.

 

[overthewater]

The 555/777 West Lothian - Edinburgh Airport circulars were one of the biggest failures of BSIP. Launched with great fanfare and good intentions, they never really caught on and even a later rejigging wasn't enough to save them from the inevitable axe.

A good amount of the money was spent on 4 brand new double deckers with private reg Plates, talk about wasting money. Worse still the Horsburgh drivers kept going the wrong way and ended up all over the place in Livingston to try and grab local passengers, which was not the reason for its operations.

The later rejig saw the route extended to Whitburn which meant it was no longer a circular, then it went back to a circular but was only ever 90mins 7am - 5pm Monday to Friday, hardly useful for the Airport.

Just imagine what could have been if First or even Lothian have been given the routes.

 

[DunsBus]

A good amount of the money was spent on 4 brand new double deckers with private reg Plates, talk about wasting money. Worse still the Horsburgh drivers kept going the wrong way and ended up all over the place in Livingston to try and grab local passengers, which was not the reason for its operations.

The later rejig saw the route extended to Whitburn which meant it was no longer a circular, then it went back to a circular but was only ever 90mins 7am - 5pm Monday to Friday, hardly useful for the Airport.

Just imagine what could have been if First or even Lothian have been given the routes.

I think the idea was to encourage people living in West Lothian and working in west Edinburgh or heading to the airport to ditch the car and use the bus instead.

However, they overlooked one vital thing - the M8.

No-one in their right minds were going to give up their cars for an unofficial tour of West Lothian when they could jump in their cars, drive down the M8 and get to where they needed to be a lot quicker.

 

[318266]

Scottish travel had two routes which fell under this banner

* X22 Greenock to Cyldebank: Alas its now a SPT contract with most journeys now only operating from Port Glasgow to Clydebank
* X23 Greenock to Silverburn: Can anyone remember this service?

X23 seems a bit silly, especially given the 908/Braehead Express were both essentially competing at the time.

 

[paravostok]

I think the idea was to encourage people living in West Lothian and working in west Edinburgh or heading to the airport to ditch the car and use the bus instead.

However, they overlooked one vital thing - the M8.

No-one in their right minds were going to give up their cars for an unofficial tour of West Lothian when they could jump in their cars, drive down the M8 and get to where they needed to be a lot quicker.

I disagree honestly, I think West Lothian still has demand for an airport bus, it's not really "necessary" but currently for most the option is either go to Whitburn Heartlands and get a 902, but it's a bit out of the way and not very fast, so unless you live in Whitburn, not very helpful, or just get an x18 and walk from ingliston-ish area. However I'd imagine a lot of people would drive anyways, or even take the train+tram, but it's one of those things that would be nice to have and make the network feel a lot "fuller" again.

 

[Volvodart]

I disagree honestly, I think West Lothian still has demand for an airport bus, it's not really "necessary" but currently for most the option is either go to Whitburn Heartlands and get a 902, but it's a bit out of the way and not very fast, so unless you live in Whitburn, not very helpful, or just get an x18 and walk from ingliston-ish area. However I'd imagine a lot of people would drive anyways, or even take the train+tram, but it's one of those things that would be nice to have and make the network feel a lot "fuller" again.

Ember will soon have quite a large depot in Livingston, so that might be one of their routes.

 

[paravostok]

Ember will soon have quite a large depot in Livingston, so that might be one of their routes.

Surely that'd be too short distance for Ember though? where would it start/end, not disagreeing and I'd love for it to happen but I can't think of a route, that would make sense

 

[PG]

Surely that'd be too short distance for Ember though?

Ember already run a local service (E10) in Dundee - basically what would otherwise be empty runs between their depot and the city centre.
https://bustimes.org/services/e10-between-dundee-and-dundee

 

[overthewater]

Service 38 extension from Garthamlock – Gartcosh Industrial Park, Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive, First.

What happened to that service? better question what happened to the Industrial park?

 

[route101]

Not sure if these are applicable.

East Kilbride to Silverburn via Newton Mearns Stagecoach service X18 I think. There was an X17 too.

 

[davp]

I disagree honestly, I think West Lothian still has demand for an airport bus, it's not really "necessary" but currently for most the option is either go to Whitburn Heartlands and get a 902, but it's a bit out of the way and not very fast, so unless you live in Whitburn, not very helpful, or just get an x18 and walk from ingliston-ish area. However I'd imagine a lot of people would drive anyways, or even take the train+tram, but it's one of those things that would be nice to have and make the network feel a lot "fuller" again.

We have the 902 already for Livingston and Whitburn. The x18 and x19 stop at Gogar for the tram, the train at Edinburgh Park. That's most of the county covered. A taxi from the nearer part of the county is £30-40. First ran the 21 then the 600 to the airport - neither seemed to work out. Not sure I see the obvious gaps to make another airport service work - after all of the changes with the buses in the last few years it will need to be something special to attract people away from their cars.

 

[overthewater]

Not sure if these are applicable.

East Kilbride to Silverburn via Newton Mearns Stagecoach service X18 I think. There was an X17 too.

I don't think there were BRDG routes, there were very short lived, a bit like X33.

 

[Strathclyder]

* X22 Greenock to Cyldebank: Alas its now a SPT contract with most journeys now only operating from Port Glasgow to Clydebank

As a local at the Clydebank end, the first major sign that this route wasn't doing spectacularly well was the appearence of Mellor Strata Mercedes 'breadvans' in January 2018. They were brand-new yes, but was still a noticable downgrade from the midi-buses that prevailed in the years prior (usually a mix of Cadets & E200s). Full-size singles were also common for a time - namely Scania Omnilinks, E300s and Citaros; have a few pics of Clyde Flyer-branded examples in use - but the X22 has generally always seemed to have a lottery-based allocation system going on most of the time.

Not surprised to learn it's now a SPT-contracted route, what with the frequency being halved (from hourly to 2-hourly) and diverting off Dumbarton Road and going on a tour of Clydebank's new(ish) health centre and the college on the riverfront before reaching Chalmers St.

 

[overthewater]

If the scheme was to come back what routes do you think would be worthy of a kick start aka BRDG money?

 

[JKP]

How about 52 Kelso to Edinburgh via Smailholm to Earlston then straight up the A68 then via the Fort, Sir Harry Lauder Road, Meadowbank, London Road. Need only be 3 journeys a day Mon to Sat.