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SPT Tendered Routes

overthewater

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Was there really no one using this service even to North Motherwell?
 
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paisleytrans

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31 May 2024
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Glenburn
Was there really no one using this service even to North Motherwell?
Back in 2021 the route was temporarily changed to terminate just short of North Motherwell due to attacks and vandalism on buses. I suspect that has turned a lot of people away from using the service as it is about a 1 mile walk to the scheme, which as you can guess at that time of night in the dark can be frightening for older people.

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Another Craig’s of Cumbernauld service bites the dust. Think that just leaves the 72/178 which are both in the same SPT contract.
And that contract is also up for renewal this year so we'll see if he even keeps that on
 

318266

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S&W of Alexander Dennis, N&E of Wrightbus
SPT Services 1, 2, 2A operated by McGill's are cancelled from the 1st February due to Johnstone Community Area Transport running a Quarriers Village - Johnstone service commercially. The 1A will still run between Kilmacolm and Johnstone via Houston but no longer via Quarriers Village.

And before then they are subject to restriction to prevent abstraction of passengers from the Johnstone and Area Community Transport new route 9. Although when I went on the route on Monday (on a legal journey) it didn't seem to be enforced at all...
 

sannox

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1 Mar 2016
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And before then they are subject to restriction to prevent abstraction of passengers from the Johnstone and Area Community Transport new route 9. Although when I went on the route on Monday (on a legal journey) it didn't seem to be enforced at all...

I understand it to be no travel between Johnstone/Brookfield/and Bridge of Weir on the McGill's services. Hard work for the drivers to enforce and it seems strange to have such an overlap but there you go. Usual grumbles on social media about it and also cost of new buses and changing now.

I know they are not for profit but hard area to make work.
 

Stan Drews

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5 Jun 2013
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I understand it to be no travel between Johnstone/Brookfield/and Bridge of Weir on the McGill's services. Hard work for the drivers to enforce and it seems strange to have such an overlap but there you go. Usual grumbles on social media about it and also cost of new buses and changing now.

I know they are not for profit but hard area to make work.
The ‘ban’ is unenforceable without a registration change, so in practice nobody should actually be turned away.
 

sannox

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1 Mar 2016
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649
The ‘ban’ is unenforceable without a registration change, so in practice nobody should actually be turned away.

Doesn't seem to match what is happening on the ground at least according to people on social media
 

gnolife

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Johnstone
Honestly, I'm surprised that they thought the Johnstone - Kilmacolm link was important enough to keep, given that between Kilmacolm and Linwood, the only difference between the 1A and the X7 is that the 1A serves Erskinefauld Road
 

Stan Drews

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5 Jun 2013
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The agenda and papers for the latest Operations Committee are now on the SPT website at the following link.

The two most relevant reports are the following pair which provide details of the first round of recommended awards.

Apologies for not being able to copy and paste the tables from these pdfs. I’m not sure if/how that can be done, but if it can I’m sure someone on here will now how!
 

voidwxrranty

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21 Oct 2022
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Glasgow
The agenda and papers for the latest Operations Committee are now on the SPT website at the following link.

The two most relevant reports are the following pair which provide details of the first round of recommended awards.

Apologies for not being able to copy and paste the tables from these pdfs. I’m not sure if/how that can be done, but if it can I’m sure someone on here will now how!
it appears SPT has locked them, as I can't either.
 

sannox

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The 72/172 is interesting. The 'increased links to Falkirk, Kilsyth and Banton suggest it's being run and combined with the Midland Bluebird 35.
 

KGGXXXY

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4 Aug 2017
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Glasgow
A lot of reductions due to low demand, but I see we still have anomalies such as the Sunday service 49 Silverburn to Shawlands (Via South park Village).

A service which does not run during the week or covered by another service, as the 49 runs South Park Village to Govan (via Silverburn) during the week.
 

markymark2000

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A lot of reductions due to low demand, but I see we still have anomalies such as the Sunday service 49 Silverburn to Shawlands (Via South park Village).

A service which does not run during the week or covered by another service, as the 49 runs South Park Village to Govan (via Silverburn) during the week.
Doing things like that would require common sense. Something that SPT seem to struggle with with their tenders. Tendered network is more of a mess than an toddler with a can of spaghetti.
 

sannox

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1 Mar 2016
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A lot of reductions due to low demand, but I see we still have anomalies such as the Sunday service 49 Silverburn to Shawlands (Via South park Village).

A service which does not run during the week or covered by another service, as the 49 runs South Park Village to Govan (via Silverburn) during the week.

They do get a lot of political pressure so very often services are a sop to that.

The 49 is a strange one on a Sunday and I can't figure it out either -not sure why it runs to Shawlands when the rest of the time it stops at B&Q in Darnley. Equally - the 153 which on a Sunday during the day covers for the north part of the 49 but runs to Cessnock during the day - why not just run it to Govan as a 49? The evening 153 makes sense as it is covering the X8 stopping early..
 

markymark2000

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They do get a lot of political pressure so very often services are a sop to that.

The 49 is a strange one on a Sunday and I can't figure it out either -not sure why it runs to Shawlands when the rest of the time it stops at B&Q in Darnley. Equally - the 153 which on a Sunday during the day covers for the north part of the 49 but runs to Cessnock during the day - why not just run it to Govan as a 49? The evening 153 makes sense as it is covering the X8 stopping early..
The evening 153s don't make any sense either. It's duplicated for most of the journey by many buses along Paisley Road and from Glasgow all the way to Corkerhill Road it's duplicated by the First 10. For 24 minutes of its 34 minute journey, it's duplicated by a core service. The 153 should be replaced by X8s or 49s. X8s may be more difficult because then taxpayers would be funding the fast bus to kind of compete and remove pax from the commercial routes but would likely be busier. 49 would keep the links from Pollock estates to Paisley Road for other buses to Glasgow and provide evening links up to Govan to connect onto the subway. Either way, significantly better use of resources than the silly 153.
 

paisleytrans

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Glenburn
The 72/172 is interesting. The 'increased links to Falkirk, Kilsyth and Banton suggest it's being run and combined with the Midland Bluebird 35.
This will be going back a bit but I wonder it will use the same route the first bus X86 & 27 used to go years ago. Also if the 72/178 goes to McGills that'll be Craigs cumbernauld lost all his routes.
 

voidwxrranty

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Glasgow
This will be going back a bit but I wonder it will use the same route the first bus X86 & 27 used to go years ago. Also if the 72/178 goes to McGills that'll be Craigs cumbernauld lost all his routes.
Yes, it was going to happen eventually that Craigs would finally go under.
 

sannox

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1 Mar 2016
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The evening 153s don't make any sense either. It's duplicated for most of the journey by many buses along Paisley Road and from Glasgow all the way to Corkerhill Road it's duplicated by the First 10. For 24 minutes of its 34 minute journey, it's duplicated by a core service. The 153 should be replaced by X8s or 49s. X8s may be more difficult because then taxpayers would be funding the fast bus to kind of compete and remove pax from the commercial routes but would likely be busier. 49 would keep the links from Pollock estates to Paisley Road for other buses to Glasgow and provide evening links up to Govan to connect onto the subway. Either way, significantly better use of resources than the silly 153.
I can see the logic of the 153 - it's trying to be an evening Glasgow service for North Pollok once the X8 is off and cover the 49 to an extent. The Sunday runs to Cessnock are bizarre.
 

voidwxrranty

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I can see the logic of the 153 - it's trying to be an evening Glasgow service for North Pollok once the X8 is off and cover the 49 to an extent. The Sunday runs to Cessnock are bizarre.
they have been there since the 153 was originated with WCM (at the time Glasgow Citybus), was a bit of a pain.

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He has service 310.
no he doesn't. he lost service 310 due to poor performance. Same with the 245 and 117A.
 

Glasgowbusguy

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they have been there since the 153 was originated with WCM (at the time Glasgow Citybus), was a bit of a pain.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==


no he doesn't. he lost service 310 due to poor performance. Same with the 245 and 117A.
Sorry I had misread the document
 

Stan Drews

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An internal update to McGill’s staff today about the recent SPT tendering round, advised that they are also cancelling the 121 service between Govan and Govanhill/Victoria Hospital at the end of March.
 

voidwxrranty

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An internal update to McGill’s staff today about the recent SPT tendering round, advised that they are also cancelling the 121 service between Govan and Govanhill/Victoria Hospital at the end of March.
That’s quite the shame to be honest. Myself and my auntie use the service often.
 

sannox

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1 Mar 2016
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I guess in the era of cuts it makes sense. First 90 largely duplicates the route from Govan to Pollokshields West area - it is very slightly different in Ibrox (Copeland Road rather than Broomloan) and missing Maxwell Drive in Pollokshields, but most connections are retained. The east Govanhill section is the only bit that lacks replacement but not exactly cut off.

Timetable for the 121 is increasingly tight being a 1 bus operation - if Rangers are playing forget doing the whole route!
 

Observer

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3 Nov 2014
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A recent update. There are quite a lot of changes for McColl's routes from the 16th February with journey reductions on all of their services if you compare their old timetables to the new ones.
Looking at them it seems that the main purpose has been to put lunch breaks into the timetable so they don't need to have them be covered by other drivers.
 
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Buzby

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Looking at them it seems that the main purpose has been to put lunch breaks into the timetable so they don't need to have them be covered by other drivers.
That explains a lot - Canavan’s 447 service has a single ‘hole’ at lunchtime on their usual hourly service….
 

Stan Drews

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That explains a lot - Canavan’s 447 service has a single ‘hole’ at lunchtime on their usual hourly service….
Yes, it’s becoming increasingly common, especially on one bus contracts. Build the timetable so that one driver can do the whole thing with an appropriately timed break and it becomes very efficient in terms of driver costs.
SPT are desperate to find budget savings, so if you can get maybe £10-15k of the annual cost of 10 such contracts you’ve found over £100k of savings.
 

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