Friday 30th August 2024
Welcome to an extra unscheduled bonus blog which I promised all the regulars on Carlone’s Thursday only route 525 I’d write and upload when I took a ride on the route yesterday.
It was the very last journey ever of this much loved and well used once-a-week shoppers’ bus that’s been connecting people living in the Surrey Hills’ villages of Albury, Chilworth and the hamlet of Smithwood Common for their weekly shop in the delightful market town of Cranleigh.
Route 525 is one of ten off-peak shopper once/twice-a-week rural routes being axed by Surrey County Council this week in the misguided belief its range of Surrey Connect branded DRT zones are suitable replacements.
I just wish those politicians, council officers and profit hungry tech geeks (as well as DfT mandarins) who swear by DRT as the way forward could have joined the nine of us on board the last ever 11:30 return journey to Albury from Cranleigh yesterday morning,
They’d have had their ears burnt, that’s for sure.
Sitting in their offices (or more likely, working from home) watching slick PowerPoint presentations on Zoom about how wonderful DRT is with hypothetical projections of potential users being picked up at their chosen times at ‘virtual bus stops’ just doesn’t cut it compared to getting out there and travelling on buses, listening to passengers making real journeys full of trepidation about their future travel arrangements.
Mind you, it’s an even better job they didn’t attempt to travel on Thursday last week as one of the regulars, Anne, was telling me the 16 seater Carlone minibus was full up. “it was so nice to see; such a wonderful social atmosphere on board” she explained.
As passengers boarded in Cranleigh, laden with shopping for one last time yesterday morning, Anne was regaling how she’d received an email from someone at Surrey County Council explaining “something about being in a different zone …. but I don’t know anything about zones” she added. “I just want to catch a bus”.
The telling point Anne made, having tried to tell Surrey County Council how she and fellow passengers don’t want to be done with “booking a bus”, was it felt “as if we don’t exist”.
The sadness on board as passengers alighted was palpable. “Hope to see you around”; “You’ve got my phone number – get in touch if you need anything”; “I’ll probably see you on the 32” accompanied the farewell wishes as they alighted.
The 32 is the Compass Bus hourly route between Redhill, Dorking and Guildford which passes through Albury and Chilworth. There was a distinct feeling the 525 regulars would transfer their allegiance to the 32 and shop in Guildford rather than be bothered with any “booking a bus nonsense”.
One on board (with his wife) told me he has a car so will be using that for journeys into Cranleigh in the future. He was concerned for those living in Smithwood Common who had no alternative. Yesterday, that included two passengers who alighted with the help of driver Sandra unloading their heavy shopping bags into a waiting trolley.
If they don’t mind booking a bus, residents of this hamlet will be able to use the established DRT in the Cranleigh zone…
… but those in Albury fall into Central Surrey’s two zones with the north zone taking them to Leatherhead…
… and the south zone to Dorking.
But not Cranleigh. That’s a different zone, as Anne was told. There are no DRT options for the four passengers who alighted in Chilworth; it’ll be the 32 or nothing for them. Visiting Cranleigh is also off the agenda.
You can see why there was such a sombre atmosphere on yesterday’s final journey as this weekly social gathering with residents from the three communities of Smithwood Commin, Chilworth and Albury would be no more. They’ll have to make their shopping expeditions separately to different destinations in future.
Sandra will continue to drive the minibus for Carlone as its schedule includes a school journey in the morning and afternoon but there’ll be no shopping journeys to take up the off peak slack at marginal cost.
Sandra thought her new look duty might include journeys on route 442 between Staines and Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 which Carlone also operates but sadly it’s unlikely there’ll be passengers she knows by name, sees every week and are kind enough to ask after her mother.
That’s progress for you.
Here’s a full list of Surrey County Council’s ten rural shopper bus routes axed from today:
503 MWF Guildford – Hambledon; 504 TTh Beacon Hill – Hasllemere/Shottermill; 505 TTh Shottermill – Haslemere/Northchapel; 520 MWF Aldershot – Guildford/Woking; 523 TTh Guildford – Milford Hospital; 525 Th Albury – Cranleigh; 533 T Ewhurst – Dorking/Ranmore; 538 TF Burpham – Stoughton; 545 W Walliswood – Guildford; 599 Hombury St Mary – Cranleigh (Th)/ Guildford (F).
These have been operated by Stagecoach (503/520/523/538), Carlone (525/533/545/599) and Waverley Hoppa (504/505).
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with Summer Su extras including the last on Sunday for this summer, before reverting back to the winter blogging timetable.
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 
it’s such a shame that SCC is doing this and diving headfirst done the DRT rabbit hole, there was a post about the Mole Valley area one (I think) requiring going back to a mix of proper and virtual stops to offer a better service removing door to door and possibly bookings
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We will have to wait and see what happens when the money runs out for these DRT schemes. The track record with them to date has been failure
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Well said. And I bet the price for the school contract will increase when it next comes out to tender as the DRT bus will no doubt be operating as someone’s highly subsidised personal taxi at school times, whereas Carlone will have to put the whole of the cost of their minibus against the school contract
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Why most DRT/Micro-Transits fail – What the survivors tell us about progress
This paper reviews DRT/MT systems performance with particular focus on failure rates. Results show DRT is very failure prone; 50% last less than 7 years, 40% last less than 3 years, and about a quarter fail within 2 years. In the UK, 67% of DRTs have failed, and in Australasia, 54%. Results identify and explore three distinct phases of global DRT development since the 1970s; recent MT are most failure prone (50% fail within 2 years).
Results show a strong link between failure and higher costs. Specialist DRT services for disabled people were relatively cheaper while MT was found to have higher and increasing costs. Results imply simpler (e.g., many-to-few or route deviation) operations had lower failure rates compared to more complex many-to-many services.results.
Conclusions suggests that despite 40 years of experience, the high failure rate of DRTs suggest they are still a high cost, experimental, uncertain and unreliable solution for cities. The paper explores policy implications of these findings and areas for future research.conclusion.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0739885920300937
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Depressing, but as usual not surprising
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I have to admit that I’m surprised at how spectacularly these schemes have failed. When I lived in Harlow (1994 to 2004) there were a number of rural routes which ranged in frequency from 3 times a day to once a week and I would have imagined that the ability to travel at almost any time would be so much more attractive than being confined by such a limited timetable and a predetermined amount time in the town.
Reading this blog I have place a lot of the blame on the tech not being especially good and not really the right way to reach the typical demographic of the routes being replaced.
Looking forward, with Mr Hendy now in Government, should we expect a rethink of how best to spend public money and hence a halt to funding these schemes, new ones at least?
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I’m surprised that you’re surprised. Let’s look at the facts. These DRT schemes are often (but not always) based in intensely rural areas. Even in more urban environments, they’ve been used to replace tendered bus services so passengers are at a premium.
The obvious thing to do is to have fixed bus services/times so that you can aggregate whatever few passengers there are. The theory, and it’s flawed, is that you can generate all sorts of journeys and aggregate them, growing the market. However, the “faff factor” is a disincentive for many of the existing passengers (few are tech savvy, silver surfers) whilst “new” passengers don’t outweigh this loss.
Aside from journeys that (in reality) act as a school runs, load factors are seldom reaching 3 pax. A scheme that I’m aware of is good for the operator (guaranteed income) but will never be sustainable with revenue not even covering the management and admin, let alone the direct operating costs. Better that Sprinters are used on rural routes (not urban) and wrapped around schools to provide an efficient days’ work – which is what Surrey are scrapping!
An anonymous senior commercial manager
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I realise that you have a great day of experience in this area. However I have to say that you haven’t explained your points very clearly. What’s a “sprinter” I thought it was a kind of train?!
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Andy, “Sprinter” as in Mercedes Sprinter van based minibus.
Peter Brown
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Think about how important that weekly shoppers bus is to the wellbeing of the elderly passengers. I expect that is the main event of their week. Taking it away and giving them a DRT with associated tech faff is cruel. It amounts to digital exclusion.
The supposed possibility of the availability of more destinations will never attract the core users due to the faff and uncertainty surrounding DRT. How may times has Roger had to use his professional knowledge about the foibles of DRT booking via apps, and does anyone think the average user will be savvy enough to do the same?
I wonder what the KPIs for this are. How will they know if the outcomes are better than the weekly shopper buses.
Perhaps they could of built the DRT to operate around the weekly fixed route shopper buses and school runs. That way they would keep the core users and focus on attracting additional younger users who are at home with apps.
Peter Brown
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That’s a really good idea in your last para! Keep what works (daily / weekly fixed route shopping buses) and add enhancements (using marginal costing) where vehicles are available (eg early morning, evenings)
Stephen
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Great point about maintaining shoppers options; I see that some trips are still available as a weekly fixed route into Guildford. Which is great news. And passengers still have the option of travelling every day should they wish. Brilliant new service IMO.
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So depressing. Why is it is that those who plan this replacement “service” can’t see that it is real people who have been using the buses? If you have to change things it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of a council employee to arrange a person(s) to travel on the bus on its last journey to offer to explain how passengers might travel in future. Awful.
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Very sad. Surrey has/had a good network of shoppers services running on odd days of the week and all seemed, from my observation anyway, to be well used and, as you’ve highlighted, great little communities on wheels. DRT is wonderful in theory: but does anybody actually understand what it is or how to use it? I like to think I understand public transport but I don’t really understand what DRT is or how to use it. I thought I’d cracked it with an excellent, if somewhat circuitous trip on Fflecsi in Pembrokeshire. Next time I tried the same thing I just got ‘no journey available’ with no suggestion of an alternative. You are quite right about people in Ivory Towers thinking it’s the best thing since sliced bread: but then I’ve always found sliced bread to be highly overrated…!
Stephen Morris
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It’s Surrey County Council’s way. They relaunched the DRT in East Surrey last year. Doesn’t go to as many places as the one it replaced.
Surrey CC also promised it wouldn’t replace any existing services, at the same time the 540 from Woldingham to Caterham was quietly buried. So quietly that timetables for the route still exist on bus stops
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Although they are losing the weekly shopper, people from Albury and Chilworth can get to Craneigh quite easily with a change at Shalford. Both legs of this journey have services seven days a week.
I am interested to see whether the new DRT services will generate any journeys from Farley Green. This settlement is much bigger than Smithwood Common. Its bus service was replaced by a semi-secret taxi share scheme several years ago.
Craneigh people get upset if you refer to their home as a town. They will proudly tell you that it is Surrey’s largest village.
Steven Salmon
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They’ll probably also be upset if you leave the “l” out of Cranleigh.
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Wise words Roger French. Dorset and Lincolnshire come to mind in their different ways (but alas probably seven years too late for the former).
countrybus
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Rare to see a blog where absolutely everyone agrees, so no surprise to see it regarding the folly of DRT. Enjoyed my last ever ride to Ranmore Common and Ewhurst (533) a few weeks ago with Sandra, and was dismayed to learn that the school contract which Carlone works either side of these lovely services was still in place! All weekly rural services in the UK are built around such operations, and thus costs are marginal, so need we say more……..?
Terence Uden
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Further to my previous comments, it may have been noticed by some who study routes and services rather than what lies under the vehicle bonnet, that with the collapse of the main DRT provider in Essex, several DaRT routes have returned to fixed operations. Remarkably, the former F315 (Halstead-Sudbury) which was to be withdrawn altogether and was a part fixed/part DRT, returns not only as a fixed service albeit slightly less frequently, but gets a sensible extension to Braintree. A cursory glance appears to show several other routes coming into the same category.
One can but hope some County Councils are listening to their passengers more than Others.
Terence Uden
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I think that Terence may have been misled by information on the Internet regarding a replacement for the F315. I believe that it was intended to introduce a Braintree-Halstead-Sudbury service but subsequent events have changed that. I will be in Braintree on Monday just in case it does materialise .
Nigel Turner
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I don’t believe it has anything to do with the F315, It seems to be a separate Flagfinder commercial operation. It is shown as a 2 hourly service and runs on school days only., It is shown on their website, Starts on 2nd September
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Service 60 is confirmed, It will also replace the current service 223 Marks Farm to Sibble Hedingham
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Sadly, we over in north Guildford said goodbye to our 538 today too, despite a concerted campaign by the users to get SCC to reverse their decision to withdraw it.
Many of the users will no longer be able to shop at the big Sainsbury’s at Burpham because of the ending of the service as they are unable to book the DDRT online, or simply do not want the faff of having to phone up and book every time they wanted to go to Sainsbury’s. They’d much rather just be able to go to a bus stop at a scheduled time and get a normal bus.
As for the local SCC Cllrs for the affected areas, they’ve been utterly useless and unsupportive. Likewise, our new MP seems to have promised little and done even less about it.
I’m going to give the DDRT a try next week, but I’ll be interested to see how the vehicle access suits a fully loaded and heavy (30-40kg) shopping trolley and a bloke with wonky legs (but not needing a wheelchair).
Dave M from Guildford
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Do let us know how you get on Dave; good luck.
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Well I’ve used the DDRT service a few times now and I’d say it’s “ok(ish)”
The crews/drivers on the vehicles have been nice people and have been very helpful.
BUT, three out of four journeys, the bus has been late…once by over 30 minutes.
The access to the bus is more difficult and I’ve needed help on and off with my shopping trolley due to the three steps onto and off the vehicle.
Space inside the vehicle is limited. The gangway is not wide enough to allow my trolley through, So I have to sit on the front seat of the passenger section with it, or strap it to the rails near the door and leave it there.
There are nine passenger seats, but if more than six people got on with trollies or a couple of shopping bags each, it’d be pretty cramped.
Apparently, according to one of the telephone booking staff, we shouldn’t be taking trollies on the vehicle anyway!
Only nine of the 30-odd stops on the designated 538 route are served by the new service.
The booking software has a fault in that it will not allow bookings from designated stops in the new ‘Northwest Territory’ into the ‘Guildford Hub’ area on Saturdays (fault reported over a week ago – not fixed yet and no response from Surrey Connect either.
I’d say that at least 25% possibly 30% of the former users of the 538 are not using the DDRT service, as it’s unsuitable for them, or they can’t get to a designated stop due to disability.
Surrey County Council 5/10…Must Try Harder!
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Further to my last.
Once the Surrey Connect DDRT went live in place of the 538 shopper bus, a benefit was that we were able to use it to travel from the designated stops on the old 538 route, direct from north Guildford to the Royal Surrey Hospital.
This had not been possible for over a year following the withdrawal of the No9 service.
About a week ago, this option was withdrawn and we were told that we could only use the old 538 stops to travel to and from Sainsbury’s.
I queried this with Surrey Connect and the lead county councillor for the scheme, Matt Furniss, and was told that the ability to travel to the hospital was a mistake in the software and despite there being no direct route to the hospital it would not be reinstated.
This means a trip that would’ve taken 15 minutes, will now take an hour each way, using two buses each way.
It also directly contradicts his own statement that the replacement of the 538 with the DDRT service would enable users to travel to destinations other than Sainsbury’s.
Great eh?
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Reading previous blogs on DRT it strikes me as only ever likely to wash its face if somehow all the prospective passengers communicated with each other and came to collective agreements on times and routes which could fit their requirements/flexibilities.
As individuals they are left to make disparate bids in ignorance of when others might be doing the same. There’s a serious probability that passengers who could potentially cooperate are in fact clashing with each other, resulting in one or the other being the loser.
The route Roger took is of particular interest as I grew up in that part of Surrey and regularly used the buses there operating in various guises over the years. I even travelled by train to Cranleigh at least once!
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that’s such an insightful way of seeing this and quite likely to be true!
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I’ve tried to use Surrey Connect several times over the past year connecting with the train at Dorking or Leatherhead around 11:00 to visit the National Trust Polesdon Lacey but always got ‘no journey available’, sometimes with a suggested alternative time of around 14:00 which is not of much use as the House closes at 15:30.
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I wonder how many users of the axed buses will need to change GP’s or use a different pharmacy because their current options are no longer accessible.
Continuous use of the same pharmacist is important if the patient is on a complex combination of drugs for multiple diseases (or even tricky single diseases like Parkinsons) as different providers of nominally the same drug can have different outcomes, which pharmacist who knows the patient can manage when dispensing, and also can dispense other appropriate remedies as needed.
Having to “book” a DRT just to have continuous medical care is another ensh**tification of daily life that mindless council “servants” won’t have taken into account. Use DRT as an add on to regular service (maybe with same vehicles) not a replacement, at least not for many years.
MilesT
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Another point that comes to me from reading the comment stream above, as a form of “malicious” compliance.
what would happen if there was a local campaign to get residents to all make bookings that matched the current bus timetable, every week, as far in advance as possible, and then cancel on the day if they don’t intend to travel. Maybe also on a second day in the week in effect doubling the service frequency.
Of course documenting the outcomes with copius screenshots and frequent “FoI” requests as to cost of service/subsidy compared to current tendered arrangements
MilesT
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Logically DRT can never work as if more than a handful of people use them you cannot book a journey and you can never be sure of getting a journey when you want it or even how long the journey will take as if some else books it can go on a detour and that’s without the very high cost of providing these services
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I may be being naive, but I would hope that this would happen naturally. These services all seem to have regular users making shopping trips at the same time each week, so they are likely to try and book the DRT to match their existing routines. If the system is able to consolidate trips sensibly, these regular users would all be booked on the same journey at their usual time.
Of course, that’s a big ‘if’ – and at least some of the users wouldn’t feel confident trying to use the booking system for the first time.
But of course, we’ll never know as in nearly (?) all these cases you never hear anything about how the scheme has worked out until it ceases when the money runs out.
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Some people in the community will be able to get to the chemist/myriad other destinations six days a week now and anytime between 7am -7pm. Not just once or twice weekly. Wake up and smell the roses. The world is not flat.
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I am shocked to hear about the sudden withdrawal of so many routes
I thought Surrey had been strengthening some routes with evening services, etc.
I had been meaning to use the 520 one day, but we live in Hants so no news as there is a county boundary. between us, although the 520 actually begins in Aldershot
When will these cuts stop?
malcolm Chase, Fleet
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I know it won’t be any consolation to you, but I don’t think there will be any more of this specific kind of cut in Surrey – if only because SCC have now ‘replaced’ practically all of their infrequent shoppers’ services in the 5xx range as well as once a day variations on routes such as Compass 32 and 42 with ‘Surrey Connect’. Of course, that means that other routes will now come under the spotlight next time money needs to be saved !
And yes – Surrey are supporting various frequency improvements and new evening services – but these generally take advantage of some suitable funding pot, be it BSIP, S106 or whatever is available. Improvements to Stagecoach commercial services such as 20 and 34 also help. SCC also seem very good at maintaining roadside publicity, at least in the Camberley area, with new timetables appearing at the stop a couple of days ahead of today’s changes.
Of course, this doesn’t help the dire situation across the border in Hampshire where the ‘other routes under the spotlight’ means anything at all that’s tendered, including regular routes such as the 7. Hopefully ‘something will come up’ before April, even if it’s just a reduced Stagecoach commercial service.
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Myself and a group of friends regularly use the Surrey rural services for a trip to a rural pub for lunch.
So yesterday was our final trip on the 599 from Guildford to Holmbury St Mary. We left Guildford with a full load and indeed some of our party had to catch the regular bus to Cranleigh and join us when space had been freed up by regulars on route.
It was a similar atmosphere to Roger’s experience with passengers swapping numbers and working out how to do trips together in the future. None a convenient as the services being replaced.
We used Surrey Connect for our return journey to Shalford, which worked well, though we’re limited to 9, the capacity of the minibus which the driver suggested was the first time he had ever had a full load!
Also I understand from next week all Surrey Connect services are to be run by a single operator based in Woking. Up until now there have been a number of different companies running different zones. Need to wait and see whether having more resources makes it easier to book, or whether centralisation will reduce flexibility.
Kevin – Farnborough
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I travelled (with some friends) on the 533 from Dorking to Ranmore a couple of years ago. The driver said that it was only used by occasional walkers: there were some locals, but they had grown too old and stopped using it. I can recall a previous occasion (with a different operator) when the driver pulled up at Steers Field car park (on the top of Ranmore) and never made it to the terminus, which really is in the middle of nowhere (presumably because no-one ever boarded there: except I was waiting on that occasion). It really is surprising that this limb, out to Ranmore, hung on for so long, although I believe it is (or was) the last gasp of a service which has run up there for decades.
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I wonder how many of those who set up DRTs:
(1) live in the rural areas affected
(2) use the DRTs they set up?
(3) used the services that got withdrawn?
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(1) 0
(2) 0
(3) 0
Fairly obvious by how dreadful many of the DRT schemes in the country are 🙂
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It should also be noted that the withdrawal of these services also sees a local Mon-Fri route in Guildford altered. Carlone had been running a third journey per day twice a week on route 8 to The Mount, using the shopper bus from the now withdrawn 545/599 (the other two journeys are operated with the 455’s vehicle). This third journey offered a shorter more convenient shopping time in Guildford, where as the rest of the week users were forced to spend 1135-1410 in town.
The 8 now only runs twice per day all week, but Carlone have adjusted the timings from 1110/1410 to 1145/1350 so users now have 1210-1350 in town only. More suitable for a typical shopping trip than what they would have been left with, but less flexibility for a longer trip if desired.
That said, I’d be surprised if the 8 (and possibly their 592/593 too) didn’t end up replaced by Surrey Connect when they’re next up got tender anyway.
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