Weekend only National Express workings

[Martin1988]

Can anyone think of any weekend only journeys on National Express routes (eg ones which operate between Friday and Sunday) for which there would most likely be demand 7 days per week?

One observation is that if you went back about 10 years a good number of the weekend extras were contracted to independent operators who didn't have any NX vehicles and used ones from their own fleet.

Nowadays the vast majority seem to be run by full time NX operators and use NX vehicles. This does make me wonder why aren't the vehicles utilised more to provide an increased level of service across 7 days rather than just in some cases only on a sunday?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Can anyone think of any weekend only journeys on National Express routes (eg ones which operate between Friday and Sunday) for which there would most likely be demand 7 days per week?

One observation is that if you went back about 10 years a good number of the weekend extras were contracted to independent operators who didn't have any NX vehicles and used ones from their own fleet.

Nowadays the vast majority seem to be run by full time NX operators and use NX vehicles. This does make me wonder why aren't the vehicles utilised more to provide an increased level of service across 7 days rather than just in some cases only on a sunday?

Because these are either service cars that are spares for planned maintenance during the week or they’re in dealer white with just a fleetname.

 

[D2007wsm]

On Sundays there is generally a 17:10 service 318 departure from Bristol arriving into Birmingham at 19:50 with a return working departing Birmingham at 21:30 arriving into Bristol at 23:45.

Monday to Saturday, there is a gap between 16:00 and 20:00 for departures from Bristol to Birmingham and 16:00 and 19:00 for departures from Birmingham to Bristol. This extra service breaks up a 4 hour gap, plus also provides a later return journey.

 

[Martin1988]

That 318 service used to also run on Fridays but was cut to sundays only about 4-5 years ago. My view is that NX should reinstate that service on Friday at the very least but can't help wonder whether there would be any demand for a 7 day a week service at that time.

At the time the 318 was cut back there were significantly fewer connectional opportunities available from other services in Birmingham but now due to the service being retimed to 2130 more are available on a sunday

 

[deltic]

That 318 service used to also run on Fridays but was cut to sundays only about 4-5 years ago. My view is that NX should reinstate that service on Friday at the very least but can't help wonder whether there would be any demand for a 7 day a week service at that time.

At the time the 318 was cut back there were significantly fewer connectional opportunities available from other services in Birmingham but now due to the service being retimed to 2130 more are available on a sunday

Presumably it was dropped due to lack of demand - why would they reinstate it now?

 

[Mwanesh]

There is no demand .Megabus have an 2010 departure its nearly empty over the weekend except when there is football.If the market was there they could do trial runs to see how it works.

 

[Martin1988]

Presumably it was dropped due to lack of demand - why would they reinstate it now?

I may be wrong but I think there may be a few factors which contributed to the lack of demand before.

Firstly when the service last ran on Friday there were considerably fewer connecting journeys available in Birmingham Digbeth than there are now.

Secondly at the time I suspect demand for travel had declined due to the effects of the recession. I don't know the full story but from what I observed the number of weekend/seasonal journeys seemed to be scaled back from about 2009 onwards as did the number of dupes.

Also my observations at the time was the Sunday service was not always that well used. Remember one occasion when I traveled on there where there was only 15 pasengers maximum and another when it was around the 5 mark. Over the last couple of years usage of the sunday service seems to have picked up. Have been aware of a few occasions where it's actually ended up selling out.

I suspect a factor that has helped with this is the fact NX now offer funfares on the 318 whereas for a long time there always seemed to be a flat rate of £21.30

Interestingly have observed the service loading in Bristol on a few occasions over the last 15 months or so when Funfares haven't been available and there were only around 5 passengers on board