We can't sit on our hands and wait for the little buses to go

 I have spent time the past week creating three maps and collecting data. I have a love of buses which goes back to my childhood and is something I have written about a good many times throughout my adult life, some of it published. I've never collected bus numbers and could tell you little about bus makes and their names, but I can tell you where they go and how often they run. I have been travelling on my own on buses since I was 4 (a long time ago). What follows is for you to ponder. The issue of what happens to the the little LocalLink L10 and L11 buses which run past the end of my road is of great concern to me. They are a lifeline at times — it's as simple as that! 

Living with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis I manage well compared to many fellow sufferers but I am mindful of the fact that one slip on my part, when it comes to how and what I do, could kill me (in a couple of weeks if I'm lucky, as I don't fancy taking a year to die as my lungs give up on me). In other words I am someone who has been able to use the little buses which serve places I might not otherwise reach except by car, and, yes, we are lucky enough to have one of them, but  I've spent  a life preferring the bus to a car, so at 77 (in May) I'm not about to change the habit of a lifetime (lockdown has meant only one bus ride in a year, when last August my wife Susan and I caught the L10 to town and back (by 'town' I mean Nottingham city centre).

Go into Beeston or the Nottingham city centre by car and you have to make your way back to it. By bus or tram you can get off and get on where you want. Arguably, this has to be to the advantage of local shops and cafes etc. Get off an L10 or L11 on Wollaton Road at Denison Street, walk down the hill past shops, then onto Albion Street and along Villa Sreet to the High Road, ending up at the Interchange and bussing back up Wollaton Road and home. This an aspect of bus use I’ve yet to see any bus operator or bus authority exploit.

I don't believe the L10 and L11 LocalLink bus routes can be saved, so it is up to users like me to come up with a possible alternative and the maps and draft leaflets which follow are intended to argue for action and discussion without political point scoring, like the Liberal councillor for my ward has been indulging in. I want the Labour Party to say is that we need an open discussion about the future of local subsidised bus services in and around Beeston but, more immediately, we need the County Council to temporarily fund my version of the route and talk to CT4N to see if there is any mileage in the possibility of incorporating my suggestion into their existing route 18 hourly short working (see below for detail):

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:

Where do all the cars on Wollaton Road come from, especially Friday and Saturday mornings?

First, a fun pic of sorts of the little wool / knitting shop on Wollaton Road close to The Cricketers pub by the traffic lights at the road's junction with Albion Street.

Today has been Broxtowe Borough Council's 'Small Business Day' and I love the KnitBits Wool shop simple seasonal display. Having been in a few times with Susan I know that the owners are friendly and helpful — which, in my now considerable experience, is typical of Beeston's many fine small shops.

Below is an extract from my 2018 Beeston map showing you where KnitBits is:

This morning was wet, cold and miserable but I still had to go shopping for a few odds and ends. I try to avoid supermarket shopping on Fridays and Saturdays and I can't remember a Saturday when Wollaton Road from Wollaton Crescent down into Beeston has not been a solid line of traffic. Most times I usually beat the cars but today I had an L10 as my marker. It met me as I turned out of the Crescent onto Wollaton Road and only passed me for the last time as I turned onto Albion Street. I took this two pics:

Here the L10 has stopped outside the Thistle Teahouse. In some ways it has to be one of the best ways to begin a visit to Beeston. Off the L10 or L11, a cup of tea or coffee, then a leisurely walk into town.

And here it is again, front view this time, as I overtake it by the Abbey Road / Wollaton Road pedestrian crossing. This poor L10 was trapped in a solid line of traffic the whole time we were together and the driver had yet to negotiate the Station Road / Middle Street traffic lights which, because of the tram, can catch this little bus for ages. I have long been of the view that buses should have priority at traffic lights just like the tram. The L10 rarely leaves Beeston on time and I know this fact well because it is the bus Susan and I use most times we travel into Nottingham and it is rarely on time. The reasons for this are another story for another day.

The question I want to ask right now is 'Do Broxtowe and Nottinghamshire councils know where all the cars pouring into Beeston via Wollaton Road come from, especially on Saturdays?

I ask because with modern number plate reading technology it should be easy enough to plot where all these vehicles come from and if, as I suspect, this is mostly local traffic, why can't we have a more frequent bus service along Wollaton Road to reduce the need for car use?

On wet, cold, miserable days like today I understand why folk use their cars, but if we want people to get the bus habit then you have to provide high frequency daily bus services throughout the Beeston area. Once upon a time Wollaton Road and Dennis Avenue both had frequent bus routes and lost them for reasons not to do with lack of use. Again another story for another day. Right now I want to flag up the need for a traffic survey mapping where all the Wollaton Road traffic comes from, then for new or revised bus routes to be introduced which take account of where road users actually live.

Finally, consider this fact. If it wasn't for Nottingham City Council Wollaton Road and Dennis Avenue wouldn't have the limited Monday–Saturday daytime buses they presently enjoy — another good reason why I'm a fan of Beeston joining with Nottingham and not the county should the Conservatives retain control of Broxtowe come next May's borough council elections and support the borough becoming part of a unitary county council.

And as I walked back home up Wollaton Road, having done my shopping, this L11 was sitting in traffic waiting to have its photograph taken. It was already close to mid-day and running late. It had come all the way from Arnold and kept good time only to end up late because of all the cars on Wollaton Road.

The tram was created to serve a network of long-stay car parks around Nottingham for the benefit of drivers and their passengers (if they have any) whilst those who rely on buses are left standing in the rain and wind waiting for buses made late by other road users. There is something wrong with a logic that says it was worth spending hundreds of millions on a tram when the same money could have created a low fare, high frequency 24/7 bus network across our conurbation to the advantage of all. We have the tram, so we should make the best use of it we can. The same people who argued for the tram argue for HS2 and the arguments are as spurious now as they were then.

In the meantime bus routes are axed and services reduced. Next week a story from 1947 when the old Beeston and Stapleford Urban District Council was busy complaining about bus services in Beeston and along Wollaton Road among others.

Beeston Worm Map update

I have it in mind to extend my worm map to include the University and QMC Hospital bus and tram links. As a first step I have updated my original Beeston Worm Map dated 2016. You can see both maps on my Beeston Warm Map page to which you can find a link in the right-hand column.

Ten days with a sting in the tail, more Relish, plus a 'Home from home' on the High Road and a Tram epitaph from someone who should know!

My chest infection persists, so I have yet to venture out on my own, and the only two occasions (Friday and Sunday just gone) so far have been to accompany Susan to the City Hospital's Breast Institute. Close friends went with her on Wednesday because I was still too poorly and on medication.

10 days ago Susan's visit to The Ropewalk for a mammogram was 'routine', except by Saturday just gone we knew there was nothing routine about it. Susan had breast cancer again, the last time being in 2006. The worst part of the process is the days of not knowing. You go 'with the flow'. It is what it is.

Over the next couple of weeks at least we have two more hospital visits, then Susan will get a date for the operation, which will be 'before Christmas' — that quick. Susan feels fine in herself — a bit like I did with my lungs and heart. No symptoms, no discomfort — just a life-threatening physical condition if left untreated.

In the real world I had another Henderson's Relish moment the week before last in Skipton, where we went on a day out to collect a small table we had bought on e-bay. It was a glorious day and enjoyable. Where we are today not even a speck of dust on the horizon.

I asked the waitress in the Skipton fish & chip restaurant we were in (Bizzie Lizzie's) if they had any Worcester Sauce or Henderson's Relish. She said 'no' to the former, but 'yes' to the Relish, adding 'We use in the kitchen to make chilli. No one's ever asked me before' and here we were in Yorkshire — the home of Henderson's Relish.

The one thing I have never quite got about fish and chips north of London (even though work took me to Birmingham in 1969, then Mansfield in 1975) is how the choice of fish is limited to cod (or haddock if you're lucky). No plaice or rock salmon (dogfish). The highlight of our all too rare visits to my sister in Hastings are paddles in the sea and battered rock salmon, mushy peas and chips. I buy it very occasionally when I see it in Hallam's. You will never taste a sweeter fish.

The view from our table in Bizzie Lizzie's. Skipton is a 150 minute drive including a 30 minute break about half-way.

Our destination. A small plant nursery on the side of a hill overlooking Airedale, just south of Skipton. The ducks and geese were all birds saved from slaughter.

Because I have been unwell I missed the opening of the Bendigo Lounge, but Emma, the Community Manager in the Bristol HQ, kindly sent me some photographs. I'm looking forward to my first visit.

It looks very impressive from the outside. It seems a bit pricey, but they must have a segment of the market they are after. Rye may have to respond.

The interior is light and airy and I like that.

When the sun goes down Bendigo's looks a lot different. The large windows will draw in the customers of that I am sure.

And just in case you're not sure where Bendigo's is here is a close-up from my Beeston Map. I wish them well.

I will end with a reference to The Tram and its future development.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I firmly believe there will be no more street tram lines in Greater Nottingham and that what extensions there are will be minimal (from Toton Lane to the HS2 station whenever that is constructed and opens will be it).

Bus technology and changing public transport patterns have made The Tram outdated already. In terms of cost it has been as wasteful as HS2 will be.

I'm not alone. Others are of the same mind. In the December 2017 edition of Buses magazine this new item appears quoting Jeff Counsell, the Managing Director of Trent Barton buses:

(large text my addition)

Just in case you don't know, or have forgotten, Trent Barton is owned by the Wellglade, who also operate the NET (Nottingham Tram). If the MD of their largest company is saying The Tram is not the future, then we should all take note.

Trent Barton believe the future is electric buses, bus lanes and traffic lights which favour all public transport and not just The Tram. The way we use public transport is changing, even here in Beeston. Back in January this year I argued the case for looking at creating a Beeston Buggy Bus Network, rethinking the way we use (and subsidise) community buses.

At some point Nottingham City Transport will have to invest in more comfortable buses — as Trent Barton have been doing for sometime. Buses can compete with The Tram in Nottingham on so many fronts. If roads and traffic lights gave priority to buses as well as The Tram, and all public transport in the conurbation was cashless, then bus journey times would be become better.

The future of public transport in the Nottingham conurbation is not The Tram — it is the bus in guises yet to be realised as we adapt to a world in which public transport is more personalised — you might say 'taxified' at a price we can all afford.

Hail the Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus (mobility scooters too) – rethinking community transport

Click on map to enlarge.

'Community buses' are not a new idea. They have been around for ages, some succeeded, others failed, but, as far as I know, the idea has yet to be tried in Beeston and Bramcote.

A community bus should not be confused with local council subsidised routes like Nottingham City Council's L10 and L11 routes, which serve part of the area covered by the above map and the County Council's subsidised routes 510 and 536. Why? Because they serve fixed routes and have timetables. Community buses are hail and ride services, with the flexibility to be door-to-door.

If you question their feasibility, then also ask why Uber are investing in such networks? 

Here are a couple of links to press reports:

Uber launches… a very small bus (The Guardian).

Uberville… one small town at a time (The Verge).

From the latter report this wonderful illustration:

A Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus would not be cheaper than existing bus routes, but it would be more flexible in terms of it goes and frequency. I see this as a daily 8am–10pm community bus, in time it could start earlier and finish later. It could pick up outside schools in the morning and then drop parents off mid-afternoon when schools close. It might have to serve schools on a rota system at first with a fixed pick up/drop off point in Beeston (the Interchange and Lace Street behind The Cricketers pub on Wollaton Road).

There would also be room for mobility scooters on these little buses. Living in Lenton I used the little L5 Nottingham City Council LocalLink service. A small, comfortable flat-floored bus a bit like Dr Who's Tardis. Very roomy on the inside. If you re-arranged the seats Underground train style and they were all fold-up you could probably get six buggies onto one of these little Optare Alero buses (they date from 2009, so there are more modern versions now).

Photograph from Stuart's World of Buses website. 

Anyone who remembers what is what like to use a bus in Beeston twenty years ago will know that Trent-Barton buses used to run along Abbey Road and Central Avenue. It was only with the coming of the tram that Imperial Road lost its bus terminus bay, then there was the wonderfully numbered 2000 which served Beeston Marina, Wollaton Road before headin off to Stapleford and sandiacre. The 1997 County Council bus map below shows twenty-two bus routes serving Beeston! Now there are ten and with the Y36 being withdrawn of 12 February, there will be nine Bus routes plus the tram.

The world of local public transport is about to change beyond recognition and the people of Beeston can either let companies like Uber take over or they can make sure that they have a community bus network which keeps the money local.

Seems to me this is the way forward for community transport in towns like Beeston is to bring buses and taxis together to form a flexible, but no more expensive, network in which you pay a premium to have a taxis to yourself and pay less if you are willing to share.

The Knoxville, Texas, approach seems sensible. You cap journey charges in overlapping designated areas and as you move into another area or across it you pay a further, albeit lower, charge.

It doesn't have to be Uber calling the shots, but they will if bus operators and local communities and their councils don't start working together!

To understand the economics of all this, simply read the article in The Verge about what is happening in one small town in America. 

YourBus to ditch Y36 in February

Last month I posted a blog asking how long it would be before the Y36 was withdrawn by Yourbus?

Yesterday I got my answer from the Nottinghamshire County Council webpage which publishes a monthly list of forthcoming changes to bus servives in the county. YourBus are withdrawing the Y36 as from 12 February 2017 and introducing a 'revised route' for their Y5 service from the same date. I suspect the change will be through Beeston. As yet there are no details of how the route will be 'revised'.

There can be no doubt that the arrival of the Y36 in 2010 made both Nottingham City Transport and Trent-Barton improve their services, especially in the case of the former (remember the often overcrowded single-deckers which we used to have on the 36?). We will have to wait a few weeks to find out how the going of the Y36 will effect the Y5 and, in time the 36 and Indigo services through Beeston.

I believe urban public transport services should be frequent and operate every day of the year. Rural services should run at least hourly. If you want people to use public transport it has to reliable, frequent, modern, cheap and if you make a profit doing this, then you should regard it as a bonus.

I will be sorry to see the end of the Y36 because YourBus has made a big contribution to the fact that we enjoy good bus services in Lenton, Beeston and Chilwell.  

Changing times for the Y36

Below are three Y36 timetables, showing weekday journeys from Victoria Centre to Beeston and Chilwell for 2013, today and from this coming Monday (21 November), but first some background.

I admit to having a love-hate relationship with YourBus. They originally took advantage of de-regulation to offer a bus service in competition with Nottingham City Transport's route 36 between Nottingham Victoria Centra and Chilwell via Lenton, the QMC and Beeston c2010. At the time NCT were operating a crap service with single deckers, often full and with passengers standing for long parts of the journey. I know. It happened to me often enough. Their arrival on the scene also affected Trent-Barton.

How YourBus chop and change timings and routes is something I have written about before (see here for a post I made in May 2015)

Some readers might remember the first buses, branded 'yourcity', with orange fronts and destination displays saying 'Orange Line 36'. I took the above picture in 2010. NCT quickly took action and got this sharp practice stopped and the buses changed colour, branding and became the Y36.

Both NCT and Trent-Barton responded after a few months, introducing better buses and more buses per hour.  YourBus then got new Citaro single deckers, which they still use and I think are the best buses in Nottingham for comfort and quality of ride. Being a bus nerd, I also like the throaty sound of the engine.

YourBus were also the first Nottingham bus operator to introduce a Boxing Day bus service after an absence of a good few decades (I took the above picture on Boxing Day 2013). 

For a while they were such a threat to NCT's 36 that NCT positioned staff at the Victoria Centre terminus outside John Lewis to chase away Y36 bus drivers if they arrived too early or overstayed their departure time. When this didn't work, they got the bus stop arrangements changed, so that the NCT 36 and YourBus Y36 used different stops (as they still do and the same has happened at the Beeston Interchange).

YourBus have always indulged in sharp practices, timing their buses to run within a couple of minutes of NCT 36s. Instead of buses every five minutes, we got two buses coming together most of the time (bus 'headway' allows buses, when running on time, without obvious holdups, to run two minutes either side of their timetable times, if I understand the regulations correctly). At first YourBus were content to cream off day-time passengers, then they introduced evening and late-evening journeys.

YourBus tried to challenge NCT and Trent-Barton on other routes and failed, with the exception of the Y36 and Y5. The latter follows the same route as Trent-Barton's Indigo service, except for a small section in Beeston (the Indigo goes via Broadgate and the Y5 via Queens Road). I could go on, but this a Beeston blog and a good few of you will know about these things already.

The point of this blog post is to share extracts from Y36 timetables for 2013, the present timetable and from the new timetable which begins on Sunday.

Click on the timetable and you will enlarge enough to read the times of Y36s Monday–Friday:

2013: 0502–0010

Today: 0500–2130

From Monday: 705–1815.

YourBus is no longer competing with NCT. It is just trying to cream off day-time passengers. In August it withdrew buses between Beeston and Chilwell (Bramcote Lane, Inham Nook and Field Lane loop), diverting the route to run in a one-way loop around Beeston via Wollaton Road, Broughton Street, Park Street, Cator Lane and Chilwell Road to Beeston Interchange. 

This is a case of history repeating itself, especially if you use the YourBus routes Y28 and Y4 as recent examples. NCT and Trent-Barton learnt the lesson from failing to tackle the first Y36 incarnation and immediately upped the competition and this year saw the demise of both the Y28 and Y4. All the evidence suggest the Y36 (and probably the Y5) will go the same way.

Now I should say that I am in favour of bus regulation and have had articles about Nottingham public transport published in Buses and Nottingham Post, plus my own blog of course. I love the fact that NCT is Britain's second largest municipally owned bus company (only Edinburgh is larger), and believe that we need London style public transport controls in Greater Nottingham (ideally the entire joint Derby-Nottingham conurbation), with public funding to match.

I'll leave it to you to make up your mind about YourBus. All I would ask you to do is to look at their Y36s and Y5s as they run through Beeston and the number of passengers you see on their buses. You do not have to be a genius to ask the question 'How long?'

Beeston travel times comparing buses with the tram — a new map

Sitting in Mason & Mason's Tearoom at the eastern end of Beeston High Road or Jo's Local not global deli on Chilwell Road, as I do several late-mornings a month, I am well placed to observe the buses which pass by and in the case of Chilwell Road, the tram as well.

The buses are not as busy as they used to be, nor are the trams as full as I expected them to be. I am not sure where the passengers have gone? Now it may be that the arrival of the tram has changed how and when people travel. I am sure it has.

What I do know is that the bus is still the best way to go into Nottingham city centre. I am assured a seat, more legroom and it will take me closer to most city centre locations. The tram wins out when it comes to the east side; Hockley, the Lace Market and the Market Square. Otherwise, bus is best and, importantly, quicker! — as my map below clearly shows.

The other disadvantage of the tram is that it serves a narrow corridor and it is relatively slow, despite the phasing of traffic lights in its favour. We hear a lot about how many people are within 800 metres of a tram stop. I am in the 'tram corridor' at the top of Wollaton Road, but this is a practical nonsense. It takes me 10 minutes to walk to Beeston Interchange and then I may have to wait another 10 minutes for a tram if I have just missed one, add on 23 minutes to the Royal Centre and a 5 minute walk to the Victoria Centre and I have a personal journey time of 48 minutes. I may also have to stand all the way on the tram and the chances of Susan and me being able to sit together are very slim.

Compare this with the minute it takes me to get to the L10 bus stop on Wollaton Road close to my home and, even allowing for it being a few minutes late (which it frequently is, but that's another story for another day), it will usually take c35 minutes at most to reach the Victoria Centre, as it is able to make up for lost time along most of its route. In other words it usually takes me 40 minutes at most by bus to do a journey which by tram would take me 48 minutes!

And so it is for countless others living in Beeston and Chilwell, but somehow there is a myth about that travelling by bus is second best, when you can be seen on a tram. Ignore the fact that your journey will take longer and, in terms of seating, be less enjoyable. There is just one tram route to the city centre from Beeston Interchange, whereas there are six bus routes, albeit two of them, my little L10 and Trent-Barton's 18 go around the houses. This still leaves four direct bus routes totalling 23 buses and hour between them (Monday–Saturday daytime), all doing the journey as quick as the tram, quicker if you take walking distances into account.

The only drawback when it comes to the buses is that there are four operators, all with their own ticketing and travel discount cards. The 'universal' Kangaroo ticket and its companion Robin Hood travelcard come at a premium price and does not (as at today) include YourBus.

The bus companies are missing a trick by failing to co-operate, but then Trent-Barton's parent company, Wellglade, has a stake in the tram, so they are hardly in competition with the tram.

For all the hype, public transport in and around Beeston and Chilwell is complicated. This is topic I have been writing about for years and I make no apologies for doing so. Public transport is a utility, like communications, energy, health, housing and water. All should be under public control. It is very easy to forget that all these things were once owned and managed by local government in many parts of England Wales and Scotland.

An excellent report, Building a world-class bus system for Britain, published last week argues for the municipalisation of public transport, saying that in its absence what we need is London style 'contracting' arrangement to remove wasteful and expensive competition. In one of several mentions of Nottinghgam, the report points out that bus companies like Trent-Barton make huge profits at our expense. I will come back to the report in a future blog. Right now I would like you to look at my map and see for yourself why the bus, despite all the tram hype, remains Beeston's most important and valuable form of public transport. Simply click on the map to enlarge.

After reading Building a world-class bus system for Britain, I revisited a report in my possession from 2011 (which you can still find on the web) arguing the 'full business case' for the tram extensions to Beeston and Clifton. It makes interesting reading and in a good few respects the vision offered is very different to the reality delivered.

Media reports all tell us that the new Chilwell and Clifton tram lines (known as 'Phase 2') cost £570 million to complete (then there are the interest payments over the next thirty years). A high-frequency bus network across the whole county could have been in place by now for a fraction of £570 million. The quality of road surfaces and reserved roadways could all have helped to improve the quality of our 'bus-ride' (a commonly cited reason for preferring the tram over the bus — the smoothness of the ride).

Again, as I have said on many occasions before, I did not oppose the tram. I bought into the arguments about park and ride, getting motorists out of their cars, reducing road congestion, that men see the tram as 'more sexy' than the bus and all too many will not abandon their cars for the latter. I can't see it myself. Such men have obviously never experienced the delights of the back bench seat on a bus, especially a late-night double-decker!

And on with that thought in my head and I will go and do Sunday lunch...

Busting the Nottingham tram myth — bus and tram journey times in and around Nottingham

As I have admitted in my last two postings, I have a bee in my bonnet about the Nottingham tram and all the claims which are made on its behalf. Today, the Nottingham Post is at it again. This time it is actually pointing out that the Nottingham tram is down on its performance targets. Given that the network has doubled in size, it seems logical to expect more problems — simply because there are now more opportunities for delays, accidents etc.

I keep tweaking my map showing bus and tram journey times in and around Nottingham and surprise myself. A few who have seen the map have questioned its accuracy, because they find it hard to believe that the bus still has a quicker running time than the tram to Beeston, the QMC and Hucknall for example, and that the City Hospital is just a 11 minute bus ride from the city centre (Milton Street).

I have amended my Ruddington times from the city centre. Instead of the Victoria Centre, I have used the Angel Row timing point instead. This reduces the journey times. I have also changed the Ruddington Business/Country Park time to the hourly Kinchbus route 9.

I have printed off copies of all the timetables I have used and added a list detailing the routes etc. in the sidebar on their own page in the next few days.

The point is that all my journey times start in the city centre and the tram only shows the Old Market Square on its timetable downloadable as a pdf file.

Whatever way you look at it, the tram does not out-perform the bus in a number of ways: the bus is actually quicker (and you get a seat) going to Beeston, Hucknall and the QMC Derby Road entrance (the tram takes you direct to the QMC Treatment Centre on the south side of the QMC).

City Transport routes 68/69 from Bulwell may take 3 minutes longer to reach the city centre, but like the 36 and Y36 from Beeston, it stops right outside the Victoria Centre. Add on tram walking time (and factor in bad weather conditions on some days), the bus is simply a better option.

My page in the Post on Saturday explains why buses still have many advantages over the tram in Nottingham.

I could go on, but the aim of my unique map is to get you considering the facts for yourself, to check your own journey times and to look beyond the hype which surrounds the tram.

I believe there will be no more tram lines running along Nottingham streets. The long-term disruption in Beeston and Chilwell caused by tram construction work have soured attitudes towards new street tram lines. The future has to be with converting some existing railway lines to light-rail 'tram-trains' and there are plenty of opportunities for this (something I wrote about in the Nottingham Post in July 2013*). Here is the map I produced at the time:

As I always say, simply click on the map to enlarge and I do have pdf versions at 300dpi.

I could go on, but I think my maps speak for me and I have yet to see any comparable Nottingham public transport related maps.

The Robin Hood travelcard and Kangaroo ticket should cover the whole of the Nottingham travel to work area and this includes parts of Derbyshire and the City Council's efforts in this direction should be supported by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire county councils. If or when we get a 'combined authority' including the Derby–Nottingham conurbation, the first task of the elected mayor should be the creation of a 'twin-city' public transport authority (PTA) to ensure we have just one universal travelcard like in London. It's quite simple if you have the will and commitment.

We shall see

NOTE: * Couldn't get link to story on Post website to work - sorry.

Another look at bus journey times around Nottingham

I admit to having a bee in my bonnet about the new City Council Robin Hood 'oyster style' travelcard, which has not got off to a very good start, but I think the politicians know this and want to show willing.

I also think the County Council should be in there with the City, supporting them with money, to make sure the Robin Hood card is the success it can be. 

Not all the bus companies are taking part and I suspect that those who are, are calling the tune, making the card more expensive and geographically restrictive.

I hope the map below is self-explanatory. The usual rule applies. Click on the map to enlarge it.

On Friday 8 January the Nottingham Post ran a front page story about how the tram had reduced bus services in Beeston by '25%'. The story contained a number of errors, including a reference to the 17, which stopped running between Beeston and Toton before the tram started. Its demise came as no surprise to me, but this is not ‘Beeston’ news by any stretch of the imagination — which is why I ignored it. See my blog post from a year ago: http://beestonweek.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/beestons-flying-dutchman-bus-and.html

The Derby Road service (Stapleford Club Class), may have been cut, but Trent-Barton have doubled the frequency of the i4 and YourBus have started the Y4 (following the same route as the i4), so there are now many more buses running along the Derby Road between the Priory and Bramcote islands than there were. How this can be interpreted as ‘a cut’ is beyond me, nor is it really Beeston. It is too far out of the town centre.

The 510 change will be seen positively by folk living on Queens Road, who can now catch a bus direct into Beeston again, after the 36 returned to it original route, once Chilwell Road re-opened. For some this is a good news story. I actually chopped a paragraph from my piece about the 510.

On Saturday 9 January, the Post published a full page by me about the tram and its impact on local bus services. My take was very different and was something I had been invited to write some days ago. 

The Robin Hood and Kangaroo travel cards fall short

All the maps below can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The first map is the official map for the new all-in-one Robin Hood travelcard issued by Nottingham City Council. Its launch has been surrounded by hyperbole. It does not include YourBus, nor train services, and still costs far more than it should because, as the Council says, the amount card users pay is determined by the participating companies.

In other words they set a rate which encourages bus and tram users to stay loyal to one company because they can't afford the Robin Hood premium. At the moment the card is not more than a day-rate card.

I have long been perplexed by how arbitrary the travelcard boundary points are. They are not related to journey times or miles, which leads me to suspect that they are commercial — a question I will be asking the Robin Hood Network once this post has gone live.

The 'official' map is a classic example of how geography can be distorted. The map above, which I have created with the help of openstreetmap.org, also uses a circle which passes through Chilwell Retail Park. My map does not pass through another travel card boundary point. In terms of distance, Chilwell Retail Park appears to be the furthest away from Nottingham City Centre.

My third map takes the official map's idea of a circle marking boundary points and place Ruddington Business (and Country) Park on the bottom of the circle. It takes 41 minutes to reach this point on a Nottingham City Transport route 10 bus from the City Centre. Chilwell Retail Park is 35 minutes away from the City Centre.

If one 41 minute bus journey can be included in the travelcard scheme, why not all journeys within 41 minutes? Afterall, it cannot cost any more. The 'map' also shows (blue dots) towns within 15 minutes of the present 41 minute limit and lots of places within the 41 minutes excluded from being part of the travelcard scheme.

Bus users in Stapleford have good reason to feel aggrieved at their exclusion because Stapleford is just 26 minutes from the City Centre by bus, whereas Chilwell Retail Park is 35 minutes away. In other words, Stapleford is a whole 9 minutes closer, so why are they excluded? I suspect that this decision has not been been made by Nottingham City Council, but one (or more) of their public transport 'partners'. 

We will know more if they answer my question. Until then I leave you with my evidence that whatever the City Council and their 'partners' say, bus users in Greater Nottingham are being duped.

The situation is not helped by the fact that Nottingham City Council is also between a rock and a hard place. It wants to get shoppers and workers into the city council area, but the same buses and the tram can take people out of the city to other shopping centres like Arnold, Beeston and West Bridgford (but not Eastwood, Ilkeston, Long Eaton or Stapleford). Hucknall can be reached by tram, but not on a bus, even though both run to the town. How crazy is that?

Nottinghamshire County Council also has responsibility for bus services and is, understandably, more interested in helping people reach local centres rather than Nottingham. There is a conflict here which will not be resolved until we have some kind of unified public transport authority for the Derby-Nottingham conurbation — something I have long argued for and will happen if the proposed combined authority is created.

In the December 2015 issue of Buses magazine, Phil Stockley, who works for Trent-Barton, wrote a column, albeit in a personal capacity, headed 'People, not systems' which included references to public transport in and around Nottingham transport, with a photograph of the Beeston Interchange. He is a great champion of letting the market be. He believes in competition and choice.

If you take this view to its logical conclusion, then you withdraw all subsidies, concessions and you don't spent a penny on public transport infrastructure. The market manages itself, but I guess that Mr Stockley is a typical free marketeer in that he wants public investment to help his company make money.

I have no problem with public money going into public transport. I just want there to be public benefits too in terms of fares, concessions, good quality buses and frequent services across the whole conurbation, including its rural hinterlands, and in fairness to Trent-Barton they are a good bus company, but they will leave communities without buses if there are no profits to be made, witness the future of the 18 serving Beeston Rylands, which hangs in the balance.

My response is 'look at my maps'. They show how arbitrary the system is, governed not by community needs, but profits and grand schemes which do little for bus users. 

It is a subject I have been writing about for years and will go to my grave arguing for better public transport everywhere and not just outside my front door!