Thames Travel poor reliability?

[NSEFAN]

I am travelling from reading to Harwell each day this week, catching a first great western service to Didcot, and then a Thames travel bus to Harwell campus. On both days so far, the X1/X32 buses have been late (at least 30 minutes behind schedule). Am I just having bad luck, or are they always this unreliable?

 

[Bill Badger]

Don't catch them regularly but my, limited, experience of this serivce is similar to yours I'm afraid,

 

[Wolvercoter]

I imagine that the roadworks on the roundabout near Redbridge Park & Ride in Oxford might be causing some delays to the X1/X2/X32 routes at the moment. There is also Abingdon Fair which would affect X1/X2 on Monday and Tuesday this week.

I caught an X1 from Abingdon to Didcot yesterday (Monday) late morning and it was about 20 mins late.

But, irrespective of the above obstructions, from what I've experienced for myself, the reliability of these routes isn't that great anyway.

 

[CatfordCat]

I've not had a lot to do with Thames Travel lately (they have retreated somewhat from mid Berkshire)

It did appear that they tended to base tenders etc on "highly efficient" schedules - or unrealistic running times and little in the way of recovery time. I'm not sure if or how far things have changed since they passed to Go-Ahead.

Ultimately, bus operators are expected to make best efforts to run to timetables in the light of likely traffic conditions (to put it another way, they can't timetable to expect the consequences of an accident or a car breaking down at just the wrong spot, but the timetable ought to allow for peak hours)

This isn't an exact science, as even peak hours will vary from one day to the next for no obvious reason, apart from more predictable delays depending on whether it's school or college term or both.

And from the passengers' perspective, while buses on time are what people want, people also don't want a timetable where the bus is timetabled to pass their stop at 8.15 on Monday mornings in school term, 8.18 other school days and 8.22 on school holidays...

http://bususers.org/complaints/how-to-make-a-complaint may be worth a look

 

[Busaholic]

I've not had a lot to do with Thames Travel lately (they have retreated somewhat from mid Berkshire)

It did appear that they tended to base tenders etc on "highly efficient" schedules - or unrealistic running times and little in the way of recovery time. I'm not sure if or how far things have changed since they passed to Go-Ahead.

Ultimately, bus operators are expected to make best efforts to run to timetables in the light of likely traffic conditions (to put it another way, they can't timetable to expect the consequences of an accident or a car breaking down at just the wrong spot, but the timetable ought to allow for peak hours)

This isn't an exact science, as even peak hours will vary from one day to the next for no obvious reason, apart from more predictable delays depending on whether it's school or college term or both.

And from the passengers' perspective, while buses on time are what people want, people also don't want a timetable where the bus is timetabled to pass their stop at 8.15 on Monday mornings in school term, 8.18 other school days and 8.22 on school holidays...

http://bususers.org/complaints/how-to-make-a-complaint may be worth a look

I believe Carousel Buses in Bucks, also fairly recently taken over by Go-Ahead ,have had similar scheduling problems and have had to recast their High Wycombe to Uxbridge/Heathrow services a couple of times this year.

 

[W-on-Sea]

I use these routes daily, and I really think the substantial road works on the Oxford Ring Road (and ensuing diversions and delays) are the main cause of the problems now. In general, after some bad times (and a ludicrously over-ambitious timetable that was scrapped as unworkable after a few months last year), I think they have - mostly - got their act together (if anything, under normal conditions, the current timetables for some of the South Oxfordshire routes contain excessive recovery time). And I expect that once the road works are complete (not till the end of November), things will return more or less to normal. Though it will get worse first..as the next phase of the road works, starting later this month, more or less rules out the use of the alternative routes between Oxford and Abingdon that there been using when the A34 has been particularly congested.


That said, the maintenance of some of their buses can leave a certain amount to be desired

 

[NSEFAN]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have been catching earlier trains from Reading and catching an earlier bus from Didcot. Each day the buses to Harwell have been delayed by random amounts. For example, I am currently on an X1 which is about 45 minutes behind schedule, but I will be on time at Harwell so it doesn't matter too much to me.

Those who mentioned the Oxford roadworks must be correct, as the return bus at 1645 from Harwell has been bang on time each day.