Every route 100. 23 of 26.

Saturday 9th November 2024

This route 100 is the only one operated by First Bus as well as the only one of that number in the whole of East Anglia now the summer only Wherry Line 100 in Great Yarmouth has ended. It’s actually mainly in the Thurrock local authority area with less than 20% of the mileage in Essex.

The route links Basildon, Corringham, Stanford-le-Hope and Grays with Lakeside shopping centre and is one of the more frequent route 100s, running three times an hour on Mondays to Saturdays daytimes increasing to four in the peaks and reducing to hourly in the evenings. There’s a twice an hour service during Sunday daytimes.

Inevitably the timetable has succumbed to First’s fad for AI intervention which basically means departures from some of the bus stops en route are 19 and 21 minutes apart rather than a straight every 20 minutes confirming the ridiculousness of the process although thankfully departures from both Basildon and Lakeside are on an even 20 minute headway outside of the peaks.

Not many years ago First Bus operated branded Hybrid Volvo 7900 single deck buses on the route…

… but it’s now the preserve of double deck E400s which I found in both the old First corporate livery and the more recent smarter green version bespoke to Essex which sadly will be replaced by the new corporate livery when buses are next repainted.

I was aiming to travel on the 11:15 from Basildon to Lakeside and noted there were two buses screened up for route 100 on stand R (the correct stand) and the adjacent stand P with a queue of 15 passengers for the former.

The driver didn’t appear until after 11:15 and by the time everyone was on board it was 11:20 – so much for AI – and I decided to wait for the next departure at 11:35 and see what time that left.

The driver climbed aboard that bus on stand P where another queue of around a dozen passengers had formed at 11:25. He spent a long time sorting the cab out to his liking letting passengers on board five minutes later and we left at 11:34.

The first main stop at 11:40 is at Basildon University Hospital where six passengers alighted and eight boarded.

Five minutes later we crossed the boundary between Essex and Thurrock and ten minutes after that passed through the community of Corringham where we set down five and picked up three passengers at various stops in a very Essex (Thurrock) like housing estate.

Five minutes later. at midday. we reached Stanford-le-Hope…

… getting caught at the level crossing…

… but I’m sure AI had that all in hand as we set down five and picked up one passenger.

At 12:15 we reached Little Thurrock on the eastern flank of Grays and entered Ensignbus territory, now also part of First Bus, so no question of abstracting revenue from another company as we picked seven more passenger heading towards Grays bus station…

… which we reached on time at 12:26 and where most passengers alighted.

Two passengers alighted as we continued on to Lakeside…

… arriving there with four on board at 12:37, four minutes ahead of the scheduled arrival time not needing the generous 15 minutes AI allows from Grays to Lakeside.

There was no timetable information on the departure stand at Lakeside bus station…

… but details of up coming departures were displayed on the electronic board.

Lakeside is an obvious draw for passengers living in Basildon and along the route and makes for a strong destination beyond Grays to give the western end of the route a boost. I suspect it’s one of First’s best revenue earning routes in Essex/Thurrock and deserves its 20 minute frequency and double deckers.

Roger French

Did you catch the other twenty-two ‘Every route 100’ blogs so far? Here’s 1 of 26 (Stevenage-Hitchin) 2 of 26 (Crawley-Redhill), 3 of 26 (Lincoln-Scunthorpe), 4 of 26 (Glasgow-Riverside Museum), 5 of 26 (Campbeltown local), 6 of 26 (Guildford’s Onslow Park & Ride), 7 of 26 (Warrington-Manchester), 8 of 26 Chatham-St Mary’s Island, 9 of 26 St Paul’s-Wapping, 10 of 26 Syston-Melton Mowbray, 11 of 26 Wellington-Telford Sutton Hill, 12 of 26 Hanley-Stone, 13 of 26 Burgess Hill-Horsham, 14 of 26 Aylesbury-Milton Keynes, 15 Pontypridd-Royal Glamorgan Hospital, 16 Barry circular, 17 Farringdon Park-Larches (Preston), 18 Hastings Conquest Hospital-New Romney, 19 Morecambe-Lancaster University, 20 Wakefield-Eastmoor, 21 Clydebank Parkhall-Linnvale, 22 Airlink Edinburgh Airport-Edinburgh Waverley.

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19 thoughts on “Every route 100. 23 of 26.”

  1. AI can factor in the likelihood of being held up at the level crossing

    Where they seem to have a problem is at Basildon bus station with the buses departing late

    One would assume the drivers should be loading up the bus a few minutes before the departure time but that appears to be not the case

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    1. How can AI “factor in the likelihood of being held up at the level crossing”?

      Naturally, a timetable could provide generous time for a section that includes a level crossing, but then an human scheduler could do that just as effectively!

      Are we, perhaps, crediting AI with abilities that it doesn’t actually have, and probably never will?

      RC169

      Liked by 2 people

      2. In an ideal world both trains and buses run to fixed timetables! So factoring in level crossing delays shouldn’t be terribly difficult. A computer fed with the data should be handy for spotting potential clashes, but I doubt that there’s a bespoke programme for doing that. However, there’s sure to be a nerd somewhere who could derive level crossing shutting times and set up a website/app for every single one on the network!

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  2. The 100 used to operate through to Chelmsford but got split at Basildon a few years ago, no doubt because of reliability issues, with Basildon-Chelmsford section being renumbered to 300

    SM

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  3. How can AI factor in the likelihood of being held up by a train?? For sure, the timetables can be co-ordinated, but a half-way decent scheduler can do that!!

    If the train is delayed by even 1 minute, then no AI can predict that. The generous 15 minutes from Grays would likely only be necessary at opening time at Lakeside to allow for car-park queues.

    AI might be fine for high-frequency (untimetabled) routes …. but for anything else it’s simply wrong …. and the drivers will soon suss it out and do their own thing.

    A timetable is a basis …. nothing more, and trying to perfect it is pointless.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I can’t speak for Lakeside but my experience of retail parks and “malls” is that queues can develop fairly randomly at any time of day, so it’s going to be as difficult for AI to predict when they will happen as it will be for said AI to allow for trains being slightly delayed. Especially as it seems that train scheduling is now done by AI which understands nothing about train operations.

      There’s much to be said for AI creating a basic plan to take that element of the workload off human shoulders, but as with everything else it needs a real human with experience and understanding to then smooth it out into something usable.

      And, of course, a regulatory regime which understands that we operate in the real world and no plan survives contact with the enemy. In that respect AI scheduling is, as far as I can tell, just another attempt to placate the authorities with their current rigid insistence that maximum-5-minutes-late is achievable in every circumstance and that every possible incident can be foreseen (and therefore planned for) 70 days ahead.

      Not in the real world.

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  5. Just wonder do Ensignbus and First Essex under the same management team now? It seems the Ensignbus still looks better maintained and had a better look

    KS

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  6. There are some changes on the Ensignbus web site now, with the route map and timetable looks more alike to the First style, but retaining the corporate color of Ensignbus. While First 100/200 are shown on the timetable booklet routemap, the timetable was not.

    KS

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  7. Back in October 2023 I had a ride on the 200 between the same two points. That was a Streetlite that vibrated it’s way along the route.

    On that occasion everyone boarding in Basildon bus station got a free ride. The driver arrived late to takeover and what appeared to be a bus station supervisor gave authority for the free rides.

    Don’t recall if the bus maintained the schedule but it was very busy with standing passengers at most points along the rest of the route. Perhaps it should have been a double deck working too?

    Richard Warwick

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  8. 100 used to be a great route many moons ago labelled “Premier 100” with exclusive liveried Plaxton Darts running all the way to Chelmsford,then the wrights then the 7900s but I think just before COVID it was split into two halves with drivers covering one half and the bus continuing through then split into two routes both numbered 100 funnily enough , then the decision came to renumber the Chelmsford half 300 I guess the days of long all stops routes are gone

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  11. The rather futuristic Volvo hybrids may have looked very 21st century, but recall some very uncomfortable and crowded journeys as people will all stand at the front on single-deckers. Thus any route going double-deck is an improvement regardless of vehicle age. So long as it does the job, does it matter?

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  12. I understand a few years ago, Ensign staff at Lakeside noticed the last First 100 to Basildon had failed to appear one night, and promptly covered the journey themselves at cost to Ensign. I wonder if that spirit still exists any longer at Purfleet?

    Terence Uden

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    1. | I wonder if that spirit still exists any longer at Purfleet?

      Depends who the local managers are now, I suppose, and what pressures they’re under from higher up the chain.

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  13. I would have first visited Lakeside by bus when the 372 became a TfL route. As to the 370, I certainly used this before it became a TfL route under very peculiar circumstances. Oyster Cards were certainly prohibited along the whole of route 370, at this time, but as this was the only non-TfL route in the area drivers were unofficially accepting Oyster Cards “on sight” as their ticket machines did not have card readers.  As to route X80 I used this mid-afternoon on a weekday. What surprised me was that there were schoolchildren on the X80 going home from Kent into Thurrock. Thurrock parents were obviously trusting Kent to educate their children better that their own local authority! What I thought odd was that because of the bridge and the tunnel being liable to closure school absences would transpire or late arrivals. We must all have seen on television or endured the bridge being gridlocked. The driver of that X80 was not too much fussed if ENCTS passes were validated on the Ticketr or not. He was accepting them largely “on sight”!  

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  14. Very interesting. I used to drive a local Hoppa-style service in Harpenden near St Albans and at the terminus I’d always open the doors as soon as I got into the bus and then ask the passengers to come forward when I was ready to leave. In that way they were able to wait inside the bus out of the rain and much more dignified. This was in the 70s and I only had a Setright ticket machine which, I guess, was simpler to set up.

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