Tuesday 3rd October 2023 Transport Focus has just published its interim report on this year’s ongoing research into bus passenger satisfaction while the report by the University of the West of England commissioned by the DfT into DRT schemes funded by the Rural Mobility Fund is also now available. I’ve had a read of both... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 26th September 2023 It was back in 1986 the 56 year old system of bus route licensing and regulation outside London came to an end heralding in a new market led deregulated era of bus provision. GM Buses was sold to the private sector eight years later. The new deregulated system immediately attracted vocal... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th September 2023 The Public Transport North 2023 conference held in Manchester on Tuesday and Wednesday included some fascinating presentations. Tuesday was devoted to rail with bus on Wednesday for this second joint conference initiative from Modern Railways and Buses magazines published by Key Publishing. The first conference of this kind was held in... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th September 2023 Leisure travel is booming, so it's good to see enterprising entrepreneurs promoting bus and train travel on the internet to encouraging people to forgo their cars and use public transport to enjoy some amazing journeys as well as reach visitor attractions without the hassle of parking by going car-free. Here are... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th September 2023 I’ve been in Manchester over the last couple of days attending the Public Transport in the North of England conference organised by Modern Railways and Buses magazines both part of Key Publishing and before that, Ian Allan. I’ll write about the conference itself on Saturday but for now I just want... Continue Reading →
Thursday 7th September 2023 End of the line: Uckfield We must keep investing in our railway infrastructure to stand a chance of meeting net zero targets. Motorists aren't going to be persuaded to leave the car at home if rail isn't offering capacity and convenience and an effective alternative to driving. Despite the Governments recently... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd September 2023 1. Tickets “not available“ Passengers using LNER’s website to book rail tickets will be familiar with the “not available” indicator on certain journeys when tickets have allegedly sold out. You might be forgiven for wondering how can that be, on what is supposed to be a walk-up-and-travel railway? Because it’s not... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th August 2023 The UK’s highest earning bus gate reportedly responsible for a third of all the country’s bus lane fines brought in over £1.5 million in revenue for Brighton & Hove City Council last year. Around 38,500 fines were issued to motorists for violating the regulations working out at just over 100 infringements... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th July 2023 TfL began the roll out of its Superloop brand on Saturday so I thought I'd take a look and see how it's bedding in. The first thing that bugs me about this whole Superloop business is over the last couple of months TfL have spent £30,000 of its own scarce funds... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th July 2023 Along with some bus industry colleagues I recently paid a visit to Belfast hosted by the team at Translink which included a look at three interesting public transport developments in the city. Translink employs 4,000 staff making it one of Northern Ireland's largest employers. It runs 1,400 buses and trains across... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th July 2023 OK, let's clear one thing up from the start. Walthamstow is NOT a village and no amount of village-washing and slick branding is going to change that. It's a busy suburb of north east London in the London Borough of Waltham Forest served by the Victoria Line, two Overground lines and... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th July 2023 The delusional Rail Delivery Group reckon it'll be better than ever. Moving staff from somewhere everyone knows where to find them (ie something called a 'ticket office') to "out of ticket offices and onto station platforms and concourses to support better, face-to-face interactions" is not only plain daft, it's illogical. New... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th June 2023 As another month has the finishing line within sight it's time for a recap on some of the things that have caught my eye while travelling around over the last few weeks which are not worthy of a full blown blog (with apologies to Twitter followers who may already have seen... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th June 2023 It's been a strange few weeks for bus and train passengers using Oxford's railway station. Not only has a long planned closure of busy Botley Road necessitated bus passengers from west of the city alighting short of the station and enduring a seven to ten minute walk under the railway bridge... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th May 2023 Last Wednesday and Thursday saw another successful Young Bus Managers’ conference which once again I had the pleasure to jointly host with Martijn Gilbert and imbibe the energy, enthusiasm and positivity not only of the attendees who came from a wide range of different size companies from all over the country... Continue Reading →
Sunday 21st May 2023 Readers nay recall a gloom laden blog I posted back in January 2022 warning that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was drawing up proposals to end Day Travelcards as part of funding negotiations at that time for continued financial support from Government. Sure enough, 16 months later on 18th April, TfL launched... Continue Reading →
Thursday 4th May 2023 Moves are in hand to refresh and regenerate the area outside Aldershot railway station. But in a move that's described as "access improvements to Aldershot station and town centre" the adjacent bus station is about to close. I know, I was puzzled too, so took a wander over to the town... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 29th March 2023 An unscheduled Wednesday Blog Special Mayor Sadiq Khan was out headline grabbing yesterday launching his idea for a Superloop network of limited stop express style bus routes encircling outer London. The vision is for an Overground-come-M25 bus network and is being promoted now to stymie criticism the Mayor isn't doing enough... Continue Reading →
Sunday 26th March 2023 One of the best journeys is Britain's longest bus route - Scottish Citylink's 915/916 Glasgow to Uig where this photo was taken. I had the best of times working in the bus industry throughout my career as I hope I conveyed in yesterday's blog, but it's also been a wonderful first... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th March 2023 The Mayors of Hove and Brighton launch the new look Brighton & Hove in late 1985 (they were two independent towns). I can hardly believe it’s ten years ago this weekend I walked out of Brighton & Hove’s Conway Street, Hove head office for the very last time and entered the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th March 2023 It was 24 years ago my then Operations Director colleague at the Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company, Paul Williams, came up with the idea of adding the names of some of the area’s iconic landmarks to the new fleet of 20 Dennis Trident double deck buses we were about... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 7th March 2023 TfL's Press Office was busy yesterday proclaiming"further new proposals for more than 400,000km increase in buses services in outer London to strengthen alternatives to private cars and maximise benefits of ULEZ". And if you think the grammar doesn't quite sound right in that sentence, don't blame my usual sloppy fat finger... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th February 2023 Welcome to February's compote of miscellany I've encountered on recent travels but first a couple of plugs for two recent publications. UK National Rail Map Alex Nelson and his nationalrail.com website has updated his brilliant map showing every railway station in the UK (yes, it includes Northern Ireland too). If you... Continue Reading →
Saturday 18th February 2023 It's the end of an era for buses in Southampton today as First Bus closes its bus garage doors for good bringing to an end 143 years of bus operation that can be traced back to 1879 when horse bus operation began and in due course Southampton Corporation Transport took over... Continue Reading →
Thursday 9th February 2023 Tuesday's newspapers gave a strong sense of déjà-vu with reports of yet another impending bus cuts cliff edge as post Covid funding for bus services comes to an end on 31st March with registrations for any service withdrawals/amendments from that date due within the next week. We’ve been here twice before,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th January 2023 Listening to Mark Harper, Secretary of State for Transport and Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT doing the media rounds during this week’s strikes brought home the dysfunctional state of Britain’s railways. There seems no hope of an early resolution to the current industrial disputes while a state of paralysis... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th December 2022 Dear Santa I know it's your busiest day and night of the year, but please can you deliver something from my list (I’ve not been naughty this year) …. A network bus map produced by TfL to the style adopted up until 2016 for buses in London in both online and... Continue Reading →
Sunday 18th December 2022 A blog link to a vlog. 100 Bus and Train Events in 2022. 100 clips in 10 minutes. See how many you recognise. A listing of all 100 events is in the comments. Click here for the video. Roger French Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
Saturday 17th December 2022 Photo of the Year: Nicely encapsulating the state of politics and transport in the country in 2022: the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak, promotes a 5p per litre fuel duty cut introduced in one of the many Budgets/Fiscal Events this year (the one in March) notwithstanding the need to cut car use... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th November 2022 After all the hoo-ha in the summer over TfL's proposed severe cuts to central London’s bus routes reflecting its target to reduce mileage by 4%, better match service provision with reduced numbers travelling, simplify the network and reflect strains on TfL's struggling finances, it was announced yesterday almost all the proposals... Continue Reading →
Thursday 3rd November 2022 The Euro Bus EXPO 2022 show is on at the NEC over three days this week (it ends today, Thursday). I popped up for a quick look round on Tuesday’s opening day to check out what’s new since the last exhibition four years ago which I blogged about here. Back in... Continue Reading →
Sunday 23rd October 2022 I had the pleasure of jointly hosting another Young Bus Managers’ Conference last week with Martijn Gilbert. Held in Sheffield it was another inspirational event over brimming with energy and enthusiasm emanating from around 60 keen young people from whom I’m sure senior industry leaders will emerge in the future, bringing... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th October 2022 Last week's announcement that Serco will be ending their franchise for the Caledonian Sleeper next June came as no great surprise. I won't be shedding any tears at the company's departure. Unlike Merseyrail where this giant global monolith of an outsourcing business seems to be doing a good job running the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 25th September 2022 Weekend rail travel is booming. Fortunately for the rail industry the post pandemic reduction in five day week commuting has been offset by huge growth in leisure travel especially at weekends. In my experience trains at the weekends are now the busiest of the week. I recall Sir Peter Hendy opining... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th September 2022 I'm dedicating today's blog to a quite remarkable man I had the privilege to work alongside for over a decade in the early 2000s. Roger Bamber sadly died on Sunday in Brighton’s Royal Sussex County Hospital aged 78. He was the most amazing photographer; one of the most creative perfectionists of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 20th August 2022 Southern and Thameslink seem to be going through a bad patch lately with cancellations and delays for a whole variety of announced reasons including “due to more than the usual number of trains needing repair at the moment”; “due to a shortage of train crew”; “due to a problem under investigation”... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th August 2022 HCT Group, the country's leading social enterprise bus operator, posted an ominous update on its website a few days ago. It announced last Friday community bus route 812 in the Borough of Islington will cease operation after Friday 26th August. Although not a headline grabbing seismic development in the grand scheme... Continue Reading →
Saturday 13th August 2022 Let’s take stock. The battle for TfL is ominously sliding towards a possible nuclear option of bankruptcy and Government "taking back control"…… Rail strikes are continuing with more trains in the sidings than on the tracks today with ASLEF drivers’ turn to stop work and RMT and TSSA members out again... Continue Reading →
Sunday 7th August 2022 Thursday 4th August 2022's stark announcement Bournemouth’s buses dramatically changed colour yesterday following the sad news on Friday 29th July the town’s Yellow Buses had called in the Administrators. The company ceased trading less than a week later at 18:00 on Thursday 4th August leaving the town without its familiar bright... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th July 2022 There have now been 11 deadlines for Government funding support for TfL since the pandemic began in late March 2020. That’s an average of one deadline every 78 days. Or one very two and a half months. Bearing in mind the first funding settlement lasted for six and a half months... Continue Reading →
Sunday 3rd July 2022 Speculation is growing of an imminent announcement of a £2 cap on all bus fares throughout England to apply for six months from October as part of Government plans to help with the cost of living. Such a plan has already been announced by West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor Tracey Brabin... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd July 2022 First Bus has announced a major shake up of the management structure of its subsidiary companies which will cut costs particularly senior managers and overheads. It's a laudable aim as Government Covid financial support comes to an end in a couple of months time and with passenger numbers still 80% of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th June 2022 Extract from Grant Shapps' letter of 23rd June to Sadiq Khan. Dear Grant and Sadiq I was intrigued to be quoted in Thursday’s letter (from you Grant to you Sadiq) so wondered if I could help by acting as a bit of an ‘honest broker’ between the two of you as... Continue Reading →
Thursday 23rd June 2022 Last Saturday Minister of State for Transport Wendy Morton announced “a further £15 million in funding to develop nine Restoring Your Railway schemes across England to reopen disused railway lines, services and stations, including some that were axed in the 1950s and 60s – with one station taken out of use... Continue Reading →
Sunday 19th June 2022 Following yesterday's blog here are some more thoughts on TfL’s proposed central London bus cuts based on my recent travels and observations on the ground. First up let's take a look at a couple more “over capacity” corridors into central London from the north. Firstly Edgware Road which will see the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 19th June 2022 Next week isn't going to be a good week for public transport. As well as strikes on the National Rail network on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with knock on impacts on other days there’s a strike on the London Underground on Tuesday continuing into Wednesday morning and by Friday TfL’s current... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 1st June 2022 A blog post extra. Route 14 will be axed TfL’s much anticipated six week consultation about its "central London's bus review" began today. It’s going to take that long to work out what’s planned if you rely on TfL's website. TfL's consultation portal - and there's more - Equality Impact Assessments... Continue Reading →
Sunday 22nd May 2022 Go-Ahead's Rachel Perkins speaking at the Young Bus Managers' recent Cardiff conference One of the truly gratifying rewards of my involvement with the Young Bus Managers Network is to see a continuing increase in the number of young women entering the bus industry for a management career. Attendances at our conferences... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th May 2022 Running almost four years late and over budget by £4 billion but all the trials and tribulations of this unduly long gestation period will soon be forgotten as today's the day TfL finally launches its programme of bus service changes in south east London centred on Abbey Wood, Greenwich and Lewisham... Continue Reading →
Thursday 28th April 2022 I had an enjoyable evening last Saturday at The Hawth Theatre in Crawley (Tony Blackburn's Radio 2 Sounds of the Sixties Tour since you asked - highly recommended for those of us of a certain age). Whilst there I couldn't help but notice in the foyer and throughout the theatre were... Continue Reading →
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