View Full Version : The Public Transport System
I don't normally take buses as they are normally choker full of muggers, expensive, slow and smell of urine. However, I just threw caution to the wind and took one home. Two of us got on and it cost £2.60.
For that distance I could have got a "proper lift" in a taxi which would have cost about a fiver and would have took about an eigth of the time.
Prat prescott & team could do better than, when not in one of his jags etc, to calmly reflect on what we want here - a profit making utility or a public service
STONEISLAND
31-05-2005, 10:28
Buses waste of time I drive every where the goverment will have to do a lot to get me out of my car.
Since it's "public" transport the state of the bus is often a good indication of the type of people using it ;)
I use public transport here quite often and on some routes the busses are terrible as the school kids use them to get to school, on other routes the busses are nice and clean as they are used more by the elderly to get into the town center etc.
£1.30 seems a lot of money but here we pay one fare no matter how far round the route we travel so you pay the same ammount for sitting on the bus 2 mins as you do for sitting on it 40 mins. £1.20 here can take you 5 or 6 miles down the road on some routes :)
Yes the public transport infrastructure needs improving but then so does the public use of it, busses don't smell of urine unless someone has taken it upon themselves to go for a **** on the bus.
zoombini
31-05-2005, 10:52
I'll echo what Paul said.
It's the public that abuse the busses that make them stink.
However, some companies do not clean them properly anyway.
There is a bus company near me that has filthy & old busses that sometimes scare the crap out of you when on them.
The noises that some busses make are really scary when you get the constant banging etc & what's worse, they are still using the same bus the next day without repairing it.
Routes are dissapearing on a regular basis, perhaps replaced by the cheaper company that has older busses who then double the fare (compared to similar more popular routes) and halve the timetable.
It now costs me less to use the car to get to/from work & only takes 7 minutes instead of 45. Which means I get an extra 40 minutes in bed & my tea a lot earlier.
Top gear made me laugh the other day. It was about the Greenpeace handcuffing themselves to Land rovers in a protest at 4x4s.
They decided to join in, and handcuff themselves to large, over polluting vehicles that take up too much space in London, and only have 1 person on board. They handcuffed themselves to buses.
I doubt i'll ever get on a night bus again, especially as my route from central London to my house goes through east London which is notorious for crime. It isn't worth it.
Some buses are kept in a reasonable condition. The ones round here are reasonably clean anyway. Its just the scrotes that ride them, that worries me.
It'll take a HUGE incentive to get me out of my car. Right now, public transport doesn't offer me one.
it's the old story! some numpty jobsworth sitting with an excel speadsheet in an office (we all know them, the type of sneaky telltale ntl bloke you instinctively want to punch for no apparent reason) wokring out how to 'reduce costs'.
They should never have got rid of the conductors (like they did here) as they were a sort of lawmaker on the bus and companion to the driver.
So what we see now, like we see on the trains, is less people using them and the costs going up to compensate for the lack use
Please don't copy and paste any pratprescottlike statistics to "prove me wrong"
Mr_love_monkey
31-05-2005, 11:09
hang on, hang on......
we have a public transport system??? you learn something everyday... I thought we had a collection of mobile public toilets, driven by madmen, that seem to charge stupid sums of money for a 15 minute journey that would take 10 if you walked, and 5 if you drove yourself.
Of course you can only do the journey one way, since whilst on there, someone will either a) have picked your pocket, or b) mugged you, so you don't have any money to get back with
ian@huth
31-05-2005, 11:14
it's the old story! some numpty jobsworth sitting with an excel speadsheet in an office (we all know them, the type of sneaky telltale ntl bloke you instinctively want to punch for no apparent reason) wokring out how to 'reduce costs'.
They should never have got rid of the conductors (like they did here) as they were a sort of lawmaker on the bus and companion to the driver.
So what we see now, like we see on the trains, is less people using them and the costs going up to compensate for the lack use
Please don't copy and paste any pratprescottlike statistics to "prove me wrong"Every company has, or should have, someone working on minimising costs and increasing profitability. Same thing applies for your home as well with someone keeping track of outgoings and trying to minimise them.
I don't know how NTL and violence have crept into this thread, there is no justification at all for that comment. :disturbd:
Every company has, or should have, someone working on minimising costs and increasing profitability. Same thing applies for your home as well with someone keeping track of outgoings and trying to minimise them.
I don't know how NTL and violence have crept into this thread, there is no justification at all for that comment. :disturbd:
Like I said earlier - its a public service or a profit making company -and never the twain shall meet
it's the old story! some numpty jobsworth sitting with an excel speadsheet in an office (we all know them, the type of sneaky telltale ntl bloke you instinctively want to punch for no apparent reason) wokring out how to 'reduce costs'.
What would you rather have? A good, free, bus service that you pay through the nose for in taxes (the money has to come from somewhere), or a service where they try and control costs? I don't think privatisation has really worked on public transport, but do think the bus and train companies can be run efficiently under public ownership (look at the South Eastern Rail company for proof of this - clean trains, fairly reliable and fast and the lowest government subsidy in the industry)
They should never have got rid of the conductors (like they did here) as they were a sort of lawmaker on the bus and companion to the driver.
Having said all that.
Agreed.
So what we see now, like we see on the trains, is less people using them and the costs going up to compensate for the lack use
I really *wish* fewer people would use the train I do in the morning. I might get a seat then. Seriously, I can't comment for the rest of the country, but I believe that in London, public transport usage is rising. This may be due to investment in the infrastructure (bus companies buying new buses, train companies buying new trains and rebuilding lines).
Having said all that. All is not rosy. When I do get on buses I do find that people have often used them as a rubbish dump, or have urinated. The companies should be cleaning their vehicles, but the public also need to clean up their act as well. It's not difficult. If you have rubbish, take it with you and find a bin. If you need a P, then wait until you get home.
I only know about my own area really - ie south wales. A couple of years back I got a train into Cardiff saturday morning (there was a rugby match on - international) so the train arrives from the Rhymney valley was and it consists of one car! we are all crammed in like sardines and going the other way is a train consisting of three cars with about two or three guys on.
To top it all, I got to Cardiff queen street station and no one is taking tickets ( presumably long since sacked by an excel spreasheeet crazed 'cost cutter') - so i didn't end up paying for the journey anyway
Public transport in London is improving- increased frequency of buses, lower costs, cleaner and oyster means more convenient as well :)
London is the only place where i would live and consider selling my car... everywhere else i have been the public transport is poo!
A good, free, bus service that you pay through the nose for in taxes
what do we pay for then - other than for jumped up civil service demigods to retire early with 'sickness' and indexed linked pensions
A good, free, bus service that you pay through the nose for in taxes
what do we pay for then - other than for jumped up civil service demigods to retire early with 'sickness' and indexed linked pensions
Well there's a sweeping comment that isn't quite correct :erm: not all civil servants are in a position to retire early on a very good pension. I know a number of people who have just been told that their age of retirement has been increased and the value of their pensions decreased.
Well there's a sweeping comment that isn't quite correct :erm: not all civil servants are in a position to retire early on a very good pension. I know a number of people who have just been told that their age of retirement has been increased and the value of their pensions decreased.
yeah - but I'll wager that those people are not in the civil service (and if they are there'll be the 'Sir Humphries' that will remain unaffected). Same old story.
SMHarman
31-05-2005, 11:44
<snip>Seriously, I can't comment for the rest of the country, but I believe that in London, public transport usage is rising. This may be due to investment in the infrastructure (bus companies buying new buses, train companies buying new trains and rebuilding lines).
<snip>London also has the Livingstone effect, Millions of £ÃÆ ’‚£Ãà¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ of taxpayers money spent on the bus fleet. Usage is rising, but not as fast as cost.
Well there's a sweeping comment that isn't quite correct :erm: not all civil servants are in a position to retire early on a very good pension. I know a number of people who have just been told that their age of retirement has been increased and the value of their pensions decreased.
yeah - but I'll wager that those people are not in the civil service (and if they are there'll be the 'Sir Humphries' that will remain unaffected). Same old story.
Actually, if Paul is referring to the person I think he is, this person definately *isn't* a sir humphry type.
Bear in mind a *lot* of civil servants have nothing to do with Whitehall and are not well paid.
Well there's a sweeping comment that isn't quite correct :erm: not all civil servants are in a position to retire early on a very good pension. I know a number of people who have just been told that their age of retirement has been increased and the value of their pensions decreased.
yeah - but I'll wager that those people are not in the civil service (and if they are there'll be the 'Sir Humphries' that will remain unaffected). Same old story.
Yes they are in civil service and no they aren't being left unaffected ;) But this isn't exactly on topic. Not all civil servants are paid excessive wages and do little or no work. Some of them are actually paid less as a civil servant than they would earn in the private sector.
Yes they are in civil service and no they aren't being left unaffected ;) But this isn't exactly on topic. Not all civil servants are paid excessive wages and do little or no work. Some of them are actually paid less as a civil servant than they would earn in the private sector.
I'll vouch for that - when I worked in the Civil Service, I was on a very low wage. As soon as I left (and joined a private company), my wages increased quite a bit.
<snip>Seriously, I can't comment for the rest of the country, but I believe that in London, public transport usage is rising. This may be due to investment in the infrastructure (bus companies buying new buses, train companies buying new trains and rebuilding lines).
<snip>London also has the Livingstone effect, Millions of £ÃÆ ’‚£Ãà¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ of taxpayers money spent on the bus fleet. Usage is rising, but not as fast as cost.
I think a lot of the cost comes because both this government and previous governments) have invested nowhere near enough money in maintaining the infrastructure (vehicles, roads, tracks etc).
In general I think we need to invest more money, countrywide, in public transport. Having said that, IIRC, the Intercity Railway lines are more heavily subsidised now than they were under BR. We also need to ensure any subsidies go to actually improving the network.
I have to go on public transport everywhere :( I am thinking of learning to drive this summer, but that means full time work to pay for it, and then would i have the time to learn if im working full time, lol. Dilemma :disturbd:
Because bournemouth is a tourist-y place it has a lot of public transport but its very expensive, if you take the trains the stations are a good half and hour walk from whereevere you want to go and cost over £3 for an 8 minute journey, and the buses are plentiful and packed to the point of bursting and will cost you a small fortune!
To go to college it costs me £2.60 a day for a 10 minute car drive, which when you go on a bus takes an hour or more! I cant get a return ticket because im on the bus before 9am and you have to stand most days or sit next to old people that smell like they've just wet themselves :( Yuck yuck yuck . Lots of old people down here, if you ever come on holiday try to avoid them, they're VERY dangerous (and smelly)! :Yikes:
bmxbandit
31-05-2005, 12:05
buses in nottingham are actually pretty good... a lot of the trent barton ones are quite new, very clean and run more or less on time. despite having a car, a lot of the time i walk or take the bus...
so long as you want to get into/out of town, you're laughing. the routes aren't so good, otherwise.
buses in nottingham are actually pretty good... a lot of the trent barton ones are quite new, very clean and run more or less on time. despite having a car, a lot of the time i walk or take the bus...
so long as you want to get into/out of town, you're laughing. the routes aren't so good, otherwise.
I used to get the bus from ashby to nottingham, there was two a day, one at 10am and one at 2pm, there was two going back too, one at 2pm and one at 6pm. So you had to stay until 6pm or go round all the shops very quickly to catch the 2pm bus! :disturbd:
That was a few years ago, so its probably not the same now, i used to love going to nottingham shopping. :)
Funnily enough I had to take a bus from Swansea to Port Talbot this morning, and that was enough to convince me I'll be sticking to my car for the forseeable future.
The journey is approximately 8 miles, I bought a return ticket. I left Port Talbot at 1pm and didn't get to Swansea until 1:45 and they charged me £3.50 for the privilage. The return journey involved similar times.
Compare that to when I take my car. It takes me 12 minutes. Distance-by-cost would equate to about £1.
I'll take my car, thanks.
SMHarman
31-05-2005, 21:11
8 * 30p per mile = £2.40 each way. 30p as all in running cost of car.
Last time I went on a bus it broke down :(
It's not too bad in Nottm, except all bus routes lead to the city centre :mad:
As I'm still learning to drive :( I use the buses if I want to go somewhere and can't scally a lift, not too bad, all major routes have about 5-10 minute regular services for most of the day.
carlingman
01-06-2005, 00:08
I only know about my own area really - ie south wales. A couple of years back I got a train into Cardiff saturday morning (there was a rugby match on - international) so the train arrives from the Rhymney valley was and it consists of one car! we are all crammed in like sardines and going the other way is a train consisting of three cars with about two or three guys on.
To top it all, I got to Cardiff queen street station and no one is taking tickets ( presumably long since sacked by an excel spreasheeet crazed 'cost cutter') - so i didn't end up paying for the journey anyway
Thats the trouble with the Cardiff area too many Bridges and you know what lives under Bridges.
:D
Raistlin
01-06-2005, 00:10
Yes they are in civil service and no they aren't being left unaffected ;) But this isn't exactly on topic. Not all civil servants are paid excessive wages and do little or no work. Some of them are actually paid less as a civil servant than they would earn in the private sector.
Never a more true word spoken. :tu:
I can personally vouch for the low pay that Civil Servants receive, compared to their private sector counterparts.
I take a train into work. A 20 minute train ride each way, at about £2.50 return. Trains are punctual, clean (mostly), and run 4 times an hour. Beats sitting in a traffic jam imo...
I take a train into work. A 20 minute train ride each way, at about £2.50 return. Trains are punctual, clean (mostly), and run 4 times an hour. Beats sitting in a traffic jam imo...Oh to listen to the radio without having to carry a walkman, oh to be in a nice warm car in January when it's chucking it down, oh to not worry about the bus/train not turning up and having to wait for the next one. ;)
I don't not drive, I use the bus :)
But it's still cheaper than a car, when you take into account mot, repairs, petrol etc... ;)
Oh to listen to the radio without having to carry a walkman, oh to be in a nice warm car in January when it's chucking it down, oh to not worry about the bus/train not turning up and having to wait for the next one. ;)
I don't not drive, I use the bus :)
But it's still cheaper than a car, when you take into account mot, repairs, petrol etc... ;)
I can see you points, and I can't justify the cost of a second car against the £55 I spend on a monthly ticket.
And there's no road rage, incompetent drivers, traffic lights etc to deal with. Sit back, and read a book/magazine if you like (or listen to your walkman/mp3 player).
I can see you points, and I can't justify the cost of a second car against the £55 I spend on a monthly ticket.
And there's no road rage, incompetent drivers, traffic lights etc to deal with. Sit back, and read a book/magazine if you like (or listen to your walkman/mp3 player).I do actually agree with you. :) I was just putting the negative.
I don't drive. I can't justify the expense of having to learn how to drive, buy the car and then pay for fuel and repairs against £64pm (unlimited bus/tram travel).
I do actually agree with you. :) I was just putting the negative.
I don't drive. I can't justify the expense of having to learn how to drive, buy the car and then pay for fuel and repairs against £64pm (unlimited bus/tram travel).
Actually, I don't have a license myself :) The gf does though, so I have my personal chauffeur. I paid for the car though :(
I really have to learn to drive one of these decades...
They decided to join in, and handcuff themselves to large, over polluting vehicles that take up too much space in London, and only have 1 person on board. They handcuffed themselves to buses.
Buses only have one person on board? In London (Hammersmith Bus Station, in fact, which is an excellent example of transport integration)? Yeah, right. We had to sneak our baby onto a bus the other day because it already had the regulation two buggies on board and was generally heaving. This was way off-peak as well.
The point isn't that buses are the cleanest form of transport around (although a modern diesel bus or gas-powered bus is pretty clean), it's that they're a *much* more efficient use of city road space than everyone having their own car and are thus cleaner, as the traffic actually *moves*. There's nothing more environmentally unfriendly than a city traffic jam, after all. Well, a nuclear core meltdown, possibly.
If Top Gear or Greenpeace *really* wanted to chain themselves to something large and over polluting that doesn't pay proper taxes, go to Heathrow Airport and sneak onto the tarmac and chain yourself to a jumbo.
Like I said earlier - its a public service or a profit making company -and never the twain shall meet
Bus deregulation in the 1980s means that in most of the country the 'best' (i.e. cheapest) bid gets the route, whereupon they cut costs and raise fares to pay for it. In London there's a quality requirement as well, which is why the buses are so much better here than elsewhere. Simple, really, just forget the stupid free market politics when it comes to transport and make them a proper alternative - frequency, reliability and cleanliness.
So what we see now, like we see on the trains, is less people using them and the costs going up to compensate for the lack use
Please don't copy and paste any pratprescottlike statistics to "prove me wrong"
Well, you are partly wrong, so I'm going to. Costs are indeed going up on the railways (£6.4bn subsidy per year) but this is due to the daft free market inspired privatisation, whic results in a lot of that money falling straight through into the pockets of shareholders and banks (who own most of the trains now, knowing easy money when they see it). Ridership (and thus money from fares) is actually up a lot, particularly in London and other booming parts of the country, and there are 2500 more trains daily.
Some lines are doing better than others, Virgin in particular suffers a lot from the overambitious rebuilding of the WCML which put a lot of people off travelling, plus the effect of low cost airlines on their core routes to Liverpool and Glasgow. GNER and Chiltern are doing a lot better (the latter particularly, I had the pleasure of their service on Saturday and it was excellent as usual).
Prescott doesn't have any responsibility for the railways, btw, under the Railways Act 2005 the DfT (under Alastair Darling) replaces the SRA as the Government body which sets the size and cost of the railway that the industry then has to deliver. This is highly dangerous, as effectively the Treasury (run by Darling's mate Gordon Brown) can cut the subsidy at will now, and the DfT lacks the political will to reform the industry efficiently. All very ironic, when you consider that the point of privatisation was to remove the 'dead hand' of the Treasury and replace it with thrusting private enterpreneurs. These gentlemen proceeded to run the thing into the ground and then cheekily demanded state handouts, which Labour cravenly gave them, eventually acting on Railtrack when it was too late. Since then performance has got a lot better, which should make the privatisation cheerleaders (i.e. the Conservative Party) shut up, but hasn't.
The 2005 Act also removed the local rail user groups and abolished the 1993 duty on Government to promote the use of the railways. Beeching Mk.2 seems just around the corner.
I did the calculations for a trip to Edinburgh for the festival (my gf's sister has a flat there). Rail was £136 return each for a total of £272 plus about ten quid to get to King's Cross and say a fiver at the other end (she lives half a mile south of Waverley) - £287
Air (BMI) was £36 each one way plus £101 in taxes for a total of £245 plus say £25 for a taxi to Heathrow (public transport is rather hard from here) and £15 for a taxi into Edinburgh - £285
Driving at 30p per mile for 809 miles (according to the RAC) would be £242. So the difference is a few tens of pounds. Alternatively I reckon you could hire an efficient car and pay the diesel and it would come in about the same, without the depreciation etc. on your own car.
Air is obviously much quicker than the other two at about three hours.
Driving would be 7 hours or so in a small car with a baby. Fun.
Train would be 4h 20 plus the time allowance to get to KX, say 90 minutes for a total of 5h 50 and drops you in the centre at the other end.
Personally I think the rail fare is extortionate, but being a private company they'll obviously gouge the hell out of you in August.
Never a more true word spoken. :tu:
I can personally vouch for the low pay that Civil Servants receive, compared to their private sector counterparts.
As can I
The point isn't that buses are the cleanest form of transport around (although a modern diesel bus or gas-powered bus is pretty clean), it's that they're a *much* more efficient use of city road space than everyone having their own car and are thus cleaner, as the traffic actually *moves*. There's nothing more environmentally unfriendly than a city traffic jam, after all.
Hardly a viable incentive to get people like me out of our cars for the daily journey to work. Car pooling is not an option and the studio is out in the sticks, no train stations nearby and it's within a mile of junction 47 off the M4 - which option do you think I'm going to take?
Also I know they are trying to make public transport easier for disabled people to use but a lot of the time it drops you off too far away for you to walk to were you are going
Yeah, some of the drivers have just discovered the variable height suspension on the newer London Buses (put there so the buses can drop down to kerb height at stops - thus making wheelchair access easier). It's great fun going down the road bouncing (which some drivers seem to love to).
the studio is out in the sticks
I was replying to punky's point about Top Gear, whose stunt took place at Hammersmith Bus Station, i.e. in the middle of a major city. I also mentioned 'city traffic jams' - quite obviously out in the sticks (where I grew up, in fact) there isn't really an alternative to cars and congestion isn't the issue it is round here.
Also I know they are trying to make public transport easier for disabled people to use but a lot of the time it drops you off too far away for you to walk to were you are going
How lazy. Walking does you good :) I run sometimes!
ian@huth
01-06-2005, 23:28
How lazy. Walking does you good :) I run sometimes!What a stupid comment to make in response to someone talking about disabled people. Walking definitely does not do me any good and the same goes for many other people. :disturbd:
How lazy. Walking does you good :) I run sometimes!What a stupid comment to make in response to someone talking about disabled people. Walking definitely does not do me any good and the same goes for many other people. :disturbd:
Bleh. Should have read it properly :( oops
zoombini
02-06-2005, 09:14
Lack of parking facilities is also causing a problem for car users.
What we need are more good park & ride schemes (not ones that don't run when you need them).
Then people can do the main commute by car to get to the edge of the town they are going to & then bus within the town.
Like the MEtro links... oh no - forgot they canned extensions to that didnt they.
Bleh. Should have read it properly :( oops
Thats ok it is easy done :)
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