Thursday 2nd May 2024
A few weeks ago a partnership between Arriva and Stagecoach was announced. It’s part of the Leicestershire Enhanced Bus Partnership and has seen the two bus companies amend timetables of their respective hourly routes (X3 and X7) between Market Harborough and Leicester so there’s a more even half hourly frequency from either end on Mondays to Saturdays.
In the grand scheme of things it’s not exactly ‘ground breaking’ or ‘world beating’ but for passengers using the bus on this busy inter-urban corridor it’s a very welcome timely development in every sense of that word.
The new arrangement also includes mutual acceptance of each other’s day, weekly and monthly tickets for adults and young people but strangely not for student tickets.
Stagecoach’s X7 is limited stop observing 14 bus stops along the route whereas Arriva’s X3 is an all stopper.
Arriva deploys three single deck buses on its route X3 which shuttles between Market Harborough and Leicester, deviating off the A6 to serve Kibworth and Great Glen. The timetable gives an end to end journey time of 63 minutes southbound and 66 minutes northbound making for a rather slack schedule with 47 minutes stand time at Leicester and only four minutes in Market Harborough.
Stagecoach ‘s longer route X7 originates in Northampton with Market Harborough being the halfway point on the journey to Leicester. This route also serves Kibworth but omits Great Glen making for a reduced journey time of 43 minutes northbound and 46 minutes southbound. Stagecoach operates four buses with a fifth in peak periods when a half hourly frequency is provided from Northampton meaning three buses an hour between Market Harborough and Leicester.
Southbound departures from Leicester are at 07 (X7) and 37 (X3) minutes past the off-peak hour but northbound from Market Harborough are 44 (X3) and 18 (X7) minutes past the hour. It’s a shame an exact half hour gap wasn’t achieved in the northbound direction although it’s very close.
I made a return journey from Market Harborough to Leicester sampling both routes a couple of weeks ago and found impressively well used buses on both trips as well as observing all the other buses we passed being equally busy.
The 11:44 X3 from Market Harborough left its terminus stop immediately outside the town’s Market Hall with only five on board but 14 more boarded at the next stop, The Square, just up the road and another one at St Luke’s Hospital as we headed north.
Nineteen minutes later, arriving in Kibworth, five alighted and six boarded and back on the A6 we lost four more but gained three with two more leaving us in Great Glen. Heading towards Oadby, on the outskirts of Leicester, we gained six more and three alighted and as we crossed the city boundary one alighted and three boarded while we waited time for three minutes which was good going as we’d left Market Harborough two minutes late. Five alighted at Leicester rail station with one boarding and at two more city centre stops approaching Haymarket bus station five and three alighted with 11 left on board who got off at the bus station making for total passengers on the journey of 39.
We arrived five minutes early at 12:45 so with the aforementioned five minutes saved, we didn’t need ten minutes of the allotted 66 minutes running time.
I’d planned to catch the next departure back from Leicester to Market Harborough which is the 13:07 Stagecoach operated X7. The bus was due in at 13:01 giving six minutes stand time – whereas the Arriva X3 wouldn’t leave until 13:37 enjoying its 47 minutes layover.
At 13:07 I spotted a yellow liveried bus in the distance heading towards Haymarket bus station and guessed this was my steed and sure enough it pulled into stand HJ with a good number of alighting passengers.
After the driver had a well deserved short break for a few vape puffs standing outside the bus station he got all 29 of us, patiently waiting. on board and we left just six minutes down at 13:13 with three more boarding at the rail station and four more in Oadby making for an impressive tally of 36.
It was a spirited run back down to Market Harborough with four alighting and two boarding in Kibworth and three alighting as we approached The Square and 10 getting off at that stop with ten more boarding. We arrived at The Square at 13:56 maintaining the lateness at six minutes and you can see that a 43 minute journey compared to Arriva’s actual wheel turning northbound time from The Square of 54 minutes meaning the Great Glen deviation, and being an all stopper, costs eight minutes journey time.
It’s good to see bus companies working with the County Council to promote coordinated frequencies and a shout out to Stagecoach which, in the spirit of partnership, promotes both Arriva’s X3 along with its own X7 times in its timetable….
… whereas Arriva just promotes its own X3 (and a peak X31).
And it’s a pity Leicestershire County Council doesn’t provide coordinated departure lists at bus stops as Leicester City Council does. For example, here’s the display at Haymarket bus station in the city.
And here’s The Square Market Harborough.
Where there’s a timetable case showing Stagecoach departures on X7 (together with its local route 33A)…
…and in the other timetable case are Arriva departures on X3.
The bus stop plates are also a complete hotch-potch with a Leicester city logo appearing at The Square in Kibworth (which is well south of the city)…
… and some stops are just showing Stagecoach X7 but where Arriva’s X3 also stops…
…and some stops showing Sapphire branding.
‘Work in progress’ is the the most charitable description of this pioneering partnership.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.
BusAndTrainUser 
Pre covid both routes ran every 30 minutes and Arriva used double deckers on X3. Both routes used to be very busy. Not surprising that with a reduction of 50% in services buses are busy.
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Another example of Arriva reducing capacity on a busy service. It was an avowed policy at one time to always replace a double-deck working if humanly possible, but seemed to at least be set aside in Merseyside/North Wales, Derby, Leicester (the X3 was always DD) and even the Medway Towns at some point in the past. But I see countless examples, particularly in their Shires operations, of passengers enduring uncomfortable journeys in over-crowded vehicles.
The Stagecoach X7 was also often double-deck, but a small route change a few years ago around Kibworth put paid to that too. As there were often four buses an hour working this road in the not so distant past, the current co-ordination, whilst welcome, is more a case of making the best out of a deteriorating situation.
Terence Uden
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re Arrival Merseyside/North Wales. There was a period when all new buses were singles, but there were constant complaints on some Liverpool routes of buses being too busy
Along came a new MD and double decks were being ordered in large numbers to the extent that newer single decks were being replaced and cascaded out of the area.
TW
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This report reminds me of a Birthday jaunt on 28/08/1996. UCOC ruled the roads between Northampton and Leicester. Route X61. Buses: 660 (K660UNH) and 622 (F622MSL) refer. The Managers at the Leicester “Wetherspoon” were friends, so stood me my drinks as it was my birthday. They used to work in Walton-on-Thames. Paper bus return ticket bought at Northampton Bus Station using a credit card.
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Around that time I recall a weird Friday-only evening extension of the X61 which gave a through service from Northampton via Leicester to Nottingham.
Ian McNeil
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Going back into ancient history, i.e. the years leading up to deregulation, the Leicester – Market Harborough route was primarily served by Midland Red East/Fox’s 610-614 local stopping services which meandered round the villages. I have memories of an evening run from Market Harborough to Leicester on an ex-LT DMS which the driver was throwing around like a wannabe-Formula 1 entrant, albeit with the honourable intention (from my point of view) of getting teenage me to Leicester for the last motorway express to Birmingham…
The X61 was introduced by Midland Fox and United Counties as a joint operation Northampton – Leicester – Loughborough – Nottingham, with (if my memory is right) about 50% of journeys running the whole route.
Unfortunately Leicester – Nottingham has long been poor through-bus territory, whether via Loughborough or via Keyworth as Barton’s 12 ran, and I didn’t think it wasn’t very long until the section north of Leicester was reduced to FSu only for the student market – but the 1997 GBTT on the timetable world site shows an unbalanced 4 trips M-S north of Leicester (table F547) and hourly joint south of Leicester (F579), so obviously I ‘thought wrong’.
A. Nony Mouse
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Looks a good way to visit Kibworth, which featured in a fascinating TV series tracing its history a few years ago. Graham L.
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This aspect of the Leicester partnership (which goes back to last year, if not further) also covers the 148/158 to Hinckley and Nuneaton. It’s also probably why Stagecoach have tap-on tap-off / PAYG enabled on the X7 & 148, which isn’t the case for any of their other English bus routes at present.
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(Outside of franchised areas, anyway.)
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The 148/158 are my local routes and this has made travel much easier. Many of the Stagecoach operated 148s continue to Coventry, restoring a through service that was previously split at Nuneaton several years ago. Certainly within the Warwickshire boundary, the bus stop timetables have coordinated departure lists and unlike Roger’s experience above, the Arriva timetables also display the Stagecoach service, but make no mention of the extension to Coventry, presumably because of Arriva’s own, but more limited coach operated limited stop X6 which also operates between Leicester and Coventry via Hinckley.
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Good to see operators working together for the benefit of everyone without having to worry about the competition authorities.
What does strike me as odd is the way Stagecoach allocate their coach seated vehicles. These seem to be put on any route, rather than on longer and/or limited stop routes. This lack of attention to detail is just another example of how they are heading towards Arriva and First. Since Souter and a generation of long serving managers retired there has been a deterioration; I think there is a correlation between the speed that an operation has their vehicles repainted and the quality. Pockets have kept the successful Gold branding and this is generally an indicator of a better operation focused on providing good service whereas others have prioritised repaints as their focus is on keeping head office happy.
Gareth Cheeseman
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The 148 from Leicester to Nuneaton/Coventry is very consistently operated with the coach seated MMC200s. You do see the occasional substitution and you do occasionally see them on Nuneaton town services or on the other Nuneaton to Coventry services, but some of the latter are interworked with the 148.
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Those e300s have been pretty standard on the X7 since 2012, Gareth. Not certain why they felt the need to paint them yellow on what is a fairly standard bus service but there you go.
BW2
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only disappointment is the lack.of double deckers for such a busy corridor both operators need to sort that out a year or so ago the X3 was Double decked
X7 far to busy to be using SIngle Decks picks up large numbers of passengers at both ends leaving standing room only makes travel less attractive to regular travellers having to stand
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Isn’t there a low bridge in Kibworth that historically precluded the use of double deckers on the X7? I think the X3 used to run a different route into Kibworth on a double run avoiding the New Road bridge but sounds like both routes follow the same routing?
So it may be the case that you might benefit from having more capacity but then not be able to serve half of the large settlement en route.
BW2
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You are correct that both routes now run under the low bridge at Kibworth requiring the use of single-deckers whereas previously at least the Arriva ones did a double run from the A6 to avoid it but meant they only served a small part of Kibworth. This is one of the those routes where two things have been done affecting capacity and doing either one singly wouldn’t have been an issue but both together has created a slight issue. The X3 never really needed the deckers when it was half-hourly most of the time but I think it ran from a depot that only had deckers so that was what it got so dropping to singles, which happened initially pre-COVID though not universally as deckers were still regular, didn’t produce too big an issue but with the recent frequency reduction it has got more noticeable.
I think there is a County Council display, with a town map, inside the shelter however given their unreliability and general slowness in updating publicity I wouldn’t like to claim that the timetables would actually be up to date, I didn’t check when I was last there, and generally means most local operators have their own timetables on display in their own cases as well.
Dwarfer
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Great to see you out and about on my network Roger, I wish you’d tell me when you’re in the area as it’d be great to catch up for a coffee.
Coordinating the timetable wasn’t straightforward, with the nuances of subtly different routings and some significant school movements to cater for. Essentially the peaks are dictated by these big flows, with X3 then fitting around X7 so that we didn’t need to alter the existing Stagecoach timetable at the Northampton end.
In reality buses get far more than 4 minutes turnaround in Market Harborough, the running time from The Square to Market Hall and vice versa being more than generous. As you noted, The Square is the principal boarding point although the Market Hall is important to some shoppers and is a useful location for the driver to access public conveniences.
There is intentionally a bit of slack in our timetable to cater for the unpredictability of the A6, and it’s a careful balance between giving a journey that flows smoothly vs one where punctuality is a problem. Our punctuality on X3 was 90% in April 2024, compared to 57% this time last year – a significant improvement for customers following a lot of hard work from my team and the depot.
The layover in Leicester, incidentally, is earmarked for another project later in the year as a result of some creative interworking. We will have to ensure we don’t fall into the same trap as X7 where the incoming bus arrives late and the driver gets off to smoke before boarding intending customers and setting off late again for a ‘spirited’ run out of town.
Displaying the other operator’s timetable on our website is a known challenge on our QA corridors; we can do this as a static PDF when there’s a news item for a service change, but the main architecture of the website essentially looks the timetable up from the TransXChange database that powers our tracking and realtime. There is some development work to do on preventing unmatched journeys and ghost buses should we load the Stagecoach TXC into the database, but I’ve picked up again with our team today for an update.
Bus stops are a bit of a mess in Leicestershire (as distinct from Leicester City) if we’re honest, and are something we’re working with the LTA to improve through Enhanced Partnership. The suggestion is they will all be renewed with operator-agnostic flags in a similar manner to those in the City, the ongoing discussion being about brand and how that can be achieved where there are corridors like Skylink in the north of the County.
Roadside timetable should be much easier however, and we are waiting for Stagecoach to come back to us on a MoU for us to provide multi-operator departure lists in Leicestershire with them picking up Warwickshire as a reciprocal arrangement. Again, you’ve prompted me to follow up with our mutual friend there.
Obviously I can’t go into the financials, but contrary to the view held by some of those commenting the pre-Covid frequency was barely sustainable in 2019 and would not be commercially viable today; as other commentators note the big education movements meant buses were busy in the peaks and then very lightly loaded through the rest of the day with far too much resource employed.
The next logical step is to look at double-deckers again, although this would necessitate a change of route in Kibworth to avoid the low bridge. One of the motivators for moving away from the previous routing was the need to double-back along the Church Road dogleg which can be narrow with parked cars, and we have had some early dialogue with the County Council and the local MP on the potential for double yellow lines to alleviate this.
Give me a shout when you’re next in the area.
Toby @ Arriva
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Many thanks for all the information and explanations Toby.
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Toby@Arriva Midlands
If an ordinary-but-interested passenger can butt in for a moment, Arriva at UK Bus level (not just locally) really do need to look at the readability of the PDF timetables.
For a particularly poor example, take a look at North East’s X93/94 timetable (Scarborough – Whitby – Guisborough – Middlesbrough, ‘connecting’ at each of those locations). It’s appallingly difficult for an average person to follow through a run from end-to-end. Compare and contrast with the Stagecoach PDF for the 685 Newcastle – Hexham – Brampton – Carlisle…
Even without the issues thrown up by the 50km malarkey, the presentation of Arriva’s PDFs compared to Stagecoach’s – or even First’s where they’ve gone for a route timetable rather than just a map – is simply unattractive. It doesn’t make you wish to travel or feel that your custom is wanted.
Now that Arriva UK Bus have escaped from the dead hand of DB’s bureaucrats, maybe some attention could be paid to the basic levels of marketing?
A. Nony Mouse
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I am sure that the services and co-ordination would be even better if branded as Midland Red (or Leicester Transport ) and United Counties.
Meanwhile as a suggestion on the bus stop flags – depending on existing type of flag (I still rather like the old “EU” Bus pictogram) could vynals be used if needed Square for Authority (City, County whatever) with the same sized “marketing” horizontal straps, then route squares under them if needed where other services (schools/other routes) serve the relevant stops. some thought perhaps per TfL stop name / txt number and “towards .. local destination.. main destination.. any other destination” I am used in some places for Operator Timetables for individual routes , and then a replicated “summary timetable” where there are overlapping services on a reasonable common section.
JBC Prestatyn
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One thing I’m noticing a lot these days is that, for some strange reason, timetables do not give general locations on the left, just specific streets. In the first timetable above, in the bottom row, there is “North Gate.” There is more than enough room to at least include the word “Northampton.”
Some online timetables are even worse in this regard….
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Have you heard of NaPTAN?
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NaPTAN is software. Software can be reprogrammed to alter the output if the current output is unsuitable.
That neither the industry nor the governmental authorities involved feel it necessary to do so is telling.
A. Nony Mouse
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Actually, NapTAN is a database…..
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As always a great article.
Forgive the question but I have rarely sees analysis in the enthusiast press of the break even economics and cost structure of running bus services such as these. My guess (as an accountant) is that the profit and loss is very finely balanced. Even just covering the purely mileage related variable costs of the driver and diesel requires a certain number of passengers per hour. Then the overhead costs of depots, vehicle investment and so forth add to the challenges.
Realise that industry managers such as Toby (above) cannot go into this but an article with some insight on this topic would be very educational and help us understand the real world trade offs better. I suspect you are an expert on these. None of it strikes me as easy.
Apologies if I have missed an obviously accessible reference on this. Or anyone please point me to it!
Thanks,
Stephen
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To answer Stephen …. there is never one clear answer!!
When costing out timetables, I work on around £15ph for drivers (more at weekends), plus 20% “on-costs” for holiday pay; NI and pension contribution.
For diesel assume pump prices, and 8mpg for singles; 6 mpg for deckers.
For maintenance assume £10k pa per bus.
Spare buses at 10% of PVR or part thereof.
For revenue … I work on 25-30 pax per service hour; around £4 single fare for a 30 minute journey; a return would be around £6.50. Assume ENCTS payments will be around 50% of the single fare!! This usually comes within 4 weeks of operation.
There is also BSOG income at around 34p per litre, although this is usually paid 3 months after operation … it’s still income!!
This is real “fag packet” stuff, mind you. Regional variations will obviously apply, and there’s still ticket machines (£4k pa??), overheads and all sorts of sundries to be paid for …. but you get the idea.
If there is an obvious source …. then I’ve yet to find it!!!!
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Thanks. Precisely what I had in mind – the rules of thumb that are used.
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Probably a minor point in the scheme of things, but a source of confusion (at least to my father, who lives on the route) is that the X3 and the X7 obey different stops in Leicester City, and in Oadby – the X7 omits most, the X3 omits some and the ‘local’ 31 stops everywhere. Although the bus stop flags are accurate it’s not always easy to remember where the bus you’re already on will let you off. It would be useful if this could be standardised for the X3 and X7. And it would also help if the buses were branded inside with the right route number instead of as 158s (Arriva) or Northampton route 2 (Stagecoach). Mind you, when the Midland Red 610-4 buses ran the route donkeys years ago they had completely different stops inside the city boundary from the Leicester city buses, and you weren’t even allowed to get off until the bus crossed the boundary, beyond which Leicester’s buses were strictly forbidden to venture.
My recent experience of these routes has been very good – Arriva seem to have mostly got beyond a very sticky patch post-Covid. Seems to be about the right level of service for the traffic, though school times perhaps need a bit more capacity? I hope the laudable new arrangement grows some more custom.
Ricky
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Has Arriva escaped the dead hand of DB bureaucrats? The I Squared acquisition seems to have gone quiet?
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