I was left stranded in a West Sussex village

Sunday 3rd September 2023

West Sussex County Council’s Book-A-Bus DRT gained a second zone three weeks ago covering villages north of Petworth. It’s been given route number ‘98 Flex’ to compliment route 99 (south of Petworth) which I blogged about at the beginning of last month.

98 Flex is a fully flexible DRT funded by the County Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan, operated for West Sussex with a Mercedes minibus by Community Transport Sussex. The rural area covered (shown in green on the above online map but much more clearly in the printed leaflet below) stretches from Haslemere (in the north west corner) down to Midhurst (south west), Petworth (south) and almost to Billingshurst (east). Whilst those first first three locations are accessed, passengers wanting Billingshurst have to use something called ‘Billilinks’ – a shared taxi service operated by Jake’s Cars covering the east of the area.

Confusingly Billingshurst is shown with a purple coloured dot on the online map (above), indicating rail connections, so I’m not sure if it’s included in Book-a-Bus or not. The key on the online map is also confusing as it doesn’t mention route 98 Flex, but does refer to route 99.

I booked a journey four days ahead of travel last Sunday to take me from the village of Kirdford to Petworth. My journey request for a departure at 14:30 on Thursday was accepted and I received the confirmation “Your ride is booked!” but also the rather unreassuring message “We will begin searching a ride for you 30 mins before your scheduled pick-up” adding “Please note that pre-booked requests are not guaranteed and depend on vehicle availability”.

Noting that caveat and with my extensive DRT travelling experience, I reckoned the phrase “Your ride is booked!” is as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot. What would be more accurate is to say: “thanks for letting us know the journey you want to make in four days time but you might as well try again 30 minutes before you want to depart as that’s when the algorithm looks to see if the one bus which covers the vast rural area north of Petworth can get to you and take you where you want to go.”

If it turns out my neighbour booked the bus to take her to Haslemere station say 15 minutes before I want to leave to go to a doctor’s appointment in Petworth, then tough – I’ll have to make alternative arrangements at just half an hour’s notice. Try getting a taxi to reach you in an isolated village in that time.

Back to my actual booking …. Kirdford is a rather lovely village located five and a half miles west of Billingshurst. It’s been something of a bus desert having just a single off peak return shopping journey to Worthing on TF (route 69) and Horsham on MTh (route 64), both operated by Compass Bus.

The Thursday journey back from Horsham arrives in the village at 14:06 on its way to Loxwood which I planned to catch, so a pick up at 14:30 on the 98 Flex was ideal.

I commented last time on some inconsistencies with the Pingo app for Book-a-Bus and I see they’re still around.

Serious of all is the options it gives to use conventional bus and train services for your requested journey which appear above the Book-a-Bus option. For example when I booked my Kirdford to Petworth journey on Sunday morning at 09:14 it was showing a range of options including first up using the morning departures to Worthing or Horsham on shopping routes 64 and 69 implying I could catch those journeys on Sunday morning (note the “leave now”).

Nowhere does it explain this option only runs on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday – the algorithm journey planner completely ignores that and assumes the journeys run daily.

Another shortcoming is having booked a ride, the confirmation in the app only states your destination, not your origin so you need to make sure you remember what it is – particularly pertinent when travelling back from somewhere to home, as you might forget where you’d booked the pick up.

Just to confuse things the time given alongside the destination you’re travelling to is your departure time from your origin point, which isn’t made clear.

I arrived at Horsham’s bus station on Thursday in good time and was impressed that 18 passengers, many with loaded shopping trolleys, boarded the 64 and we left spot on time at 13:25.

It’s a lovely rural ride through this part of West Sussex and we dropped many off as we passed through villages until there were about seven left on board when I alighted in Kirdford, soon after 14:00 to wait for my Book-a-Bus route 98 Flex pick up.

I’d been reassured my booking was going to happen by receiving two notifications, one after the other, at 14:00 advising firstly they’re “working on my request” (not very helpful) …

… followed more helpfully by confirmation my “pre-booked Pingo ride has been assigned”. Luckily I know what Pingo is, but it rather takes away from the Book-a-Bus branding to be told it’s a “Pingo ride”, and also what does “pre-booked” mean?

So with around half an hour to wait and the weather rather drizzly I sat in the bus shelter at the bus stop where the 64 had dropped me off heading towards Loxwood and it dawned on me no passengers ever board here and use the shelter as the four journeys a week bus heads towards a dead end type terminus from where you can’t return the same day.

However for me, on Thursday afternoon, it was a handy place to wait…… for one and a half hours. Let me explain.

As I was heading towards Kirdford on the 64 the map on the Pingo app helpfully showed me the minibus’s current location (just south of Fernhurst) and I guessed I’d soon see it move closer to me over the next 32 minutes.

But I got a surprise next time I checked at 14:10 – the bus hadn’t moved at all, but the pick up was showing as being “in 1 minute”.

That intrigued me and bearing in mind the mobile signal was a bit dodgy with only one bar showing, I just concluded the map hadn’t updated and somehow the bus had got to me quicker than originally envisaged.

But as I kept my eyes peeled in the distance to spot the bus heading towards me, my confidence rapidly drained away as at 14:16 nothing had changed …

… nor at 14:20 by when the mobile signal had improved to two bars so made it even more odd that nothing was changing – the bus seemingly stuck south of Fernhurst, but still a long way from me, yet arriving in a minute.

And then, a couple of minutes later, this bombshell notification arrived on my home screen….

… which aside from the lie (there was no “high demand”) and the exclamation mark at the end, was somewhat unsettling realising I was now stranded in an isolated West Sussex village with the next bus not departing until 09:36 the following morning. I contemplated walking the five and a half miles to Billingshurst or ordering a shared taxi from Jake’s Cars, but before doing either of those, I reached out to Pingo via the “send us a message” icon on the app.

I didn’t keep a full screen-grab of my message to Pingo but you can see the ending of it and the reply from Guillermo who was probably in the United States.

I then received a phone call at 14:35 from Sam at Pingo who told me the bus was now on its way and would be with me by 15:00. And sure enough the app updated to show an arrival in 36 minutes (making for a 15:14 arrival).

I then received a phone call from Jan of Community Transport Sussex profusely apologising and saying they were on their way.

To cut this long story short …. I kept an eye on the app and for the next 50 minutes the bus seemed to be heading all over the place with expected pick up times varying up and down. It showed all the hallmarks of the Satnav telling the driver “do a u-turn” because the recommended route was not being followed.

In frustration I gave Jan a call back and she reassured me they were definitely on their way.

And the bus finally came into view at 15:31 … an hour and a half after I’d been dropped off by the 64, an hour later than the pick up had originally advised and half an hour after Sam gave me his updated eta.

If I’d had a doctor’s appointment or aiming to catch a train rather than just writing a blog, this experience would have put me off using Book-a-Bus ever again.

In the event Jan and Tim were both so apologetic they made up for the frustration of sitting in a bus shelter for an hour and a half. Both are drivers with Community Transport Sussex along with two other colleague drivers, dedicated to operating the 98 Flex. It was Tim’s first day out and I was going to be his first passenger and ironically Jan had volunteered to continue her shift beyond her scheduled 13:00 finish to make sure all went well for Tim!

Jan explained they were in Fernhurst when my ride request came through at 14:00 but all it stated was a pick up at “Village Hall” – just as that was all my pick up notifications stated (as you can see above). Without any village specified Jan and Tim assumed it meant Fernhurst Village Hall whereas I was sitting outside Kirdford Village Hall. I’m not sure why they didn’t see the tablet was presumably showing the route to take to reach me at Kirdford, but the upshot was they waited in Fernhurst for me and my guess is the software assumed I was a “no show” so the ride got cancelled and I received that notification.

I’m pleased I pursued the matter rather than undertake the walk to Billingshurst or call a taxi. It would certainly have been helpful to have had the name and phone number of the operator (Community Transport Sussex) added to the app so I didn’t need to message someone in the United States who are only able to deal with tech type app issues rather than operational matters and then only between certain hours and a potential wait time of up to 20 minutes for a reply.

Passengers using the app are not aware of the phone number they need to call if there are problems nor the name of the operator unless they have the leaflet. Due to the poor phone signal, connections to the Internet were not good.

I understand Community Transport Sussex have been provided with two minibuses for the 98 Flex with one currently acting as a spare although the Book-a-Bus website states it’s hoped to add another bus to operate in the zone soon, so I assume that will be the second bus.

I hope so, as running one DRT bus across such a large rural area won’t be much good once more people get to know about the service and want a journey to suit their needs “on demand”.

There’s a printed leaflet about the service which I’m guessing (and hope) is being/has been distributed around the area to raise awareness …

… and I also hope details will be added to bus stops in the area …

… and on Parish Council noticeboards.

It took us 15 minutes to reach Petworth and I bade my fond farewells to Jan and Tim being grateful they did finally get to me.

After the last three Sundays of positive DRT blog coverage I’m sorry to conclude on a negative tone, but it’s blatantly clear this is another trial scheme with absolutely no chance of continuing once the BSIP money runs out. Residents and visitors in this new zone need to make use of it while they can and the funding is available. Jan told me of one passenger with a concessionary pass who’s already delighted at saving £20 per journey in taxi fares

One positive to end with … I know both Pingo and West Sussex County Council officers will be reading this report and have told me they aim to make improvements and learn from feedback which is good to hear.

Finally for today, I see the DfT are holding a “Launch of the monitoring and evaluation interim report on the Rural Mobility Fund DRT pilots” in Nottingham on 19th September between 10:00 and 16:00 at which “operators, tech providers, local authorities and community transport operators, third sector and representative bodies will be present”. Interestingly “the passenger” doesn’t seem to get a look in. The report will certainly make for interesting reading – particularly the sections marked “value for money” and “prospects for sustainability”. I look forward to reporting on the report later this month.

In the meantime this concludes my Summer Sunday weekly DRT blog extras but fear not, there’s still more DRT schemes to check out including a new one in West Cheshire which slipped in under the radar last month and another in East Lothian (route 109) as well as two more expected soon in Aylesbury and Shropshire, so the occasional Sunday DRT blog extra will continue through the autumn and winter.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

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