Skylarking on skylink

Sunday 24th February 2019 No bus company does route branding as well as trentbarton (as they like to be called, with no capital letters). trentbarton were the original bus route brand masters and have retained that crown trailblazing regular investment in impressive new vehicles, upgrades and refreshes to the brands and an eye for getting... Continue Reading →

A day out in Sheppey

Friday 25th January 2019was too good an opportunity to miss. As Ford's Chariot accepted its last ride share booking today, closing down just a few weeks after RATP's Slide and Esoteric Systems' (with First Bus) MyFirstMile in Bristol also both bit the dust, Arriva's Click has been in celebratory mood marking its 100,000th booking by... Continue Reading →

A Lifebelt for ailing Hayling Ferry

Saturday 3rd November 2018 There's a handy passenger ferry which connects the south western tip of Hayling Island with the south eastern tip of Portsea Island across Langstone Harbour. It only takes a couple of minutes to cross and saves Hayling's residents a 12 mile detour via Havant and Cosham to reach the commercial centre... Continue Reading →

Friendly feedback for ManFred

Saturday 20th October 2018 Monday's 'Business Announcement' outlining proposals to centralise even more of Arriva's UK bus business mysteriously landed anonymously in my inbox. I'm told it's a legacy plan left over from recently departed UK Bus MD Kevin O'Connor (formerly Regional MD of G4S) who's now moved on to pastures new. I thought I'd... Continue Reading →

I went to Thorpe Park by bus

Tuesday 16th October 2018 No, not the infamous leisure park in Surrey, that's so last decade; I'm talking Thorpe Park as in 'a flagship scheme for the Northern Powerhouse Agenda' no less (well that's what their brochure reckons). And in case you didn't know, Thorpe Park 'sits in the city regions most significant growth area... Continue Reading →

Spiralling decline in London

Friday 28th September 2018 TfL's much leaked cuts to central London's bus routes were officially published today as a six week public consultation is launched. As expected the plans involve removing parts of or whole bus routes along busy roads also served by other routes on the grounds the overall capacity supplied by the combined... Continue Reading →

Which Ipswich bus station?

Tuesday 25th September 2018 There aren't many towns of Ipswich's size (circa 150,000 population) with two bus stations. Many similar sized towns don't even stretch to having one bus station these days let alone two. For example down the road and over the Suffolk/Essex border, Colchester rather cheekily calls its somewhat unexciting on-street bus stops... Continue Reading →

A peek into my inbox

I've received some interesting promotional emails from the new breed of ride sharers recently. Arriva Click sent an enticing personalised message on Thursday proclaiming some 'great news' for me. It seems Click now accepts concessionary passes. Amazing. Arriva certainly know how to rub salt into the wound of being in that frustrating cohort having to... Continue Reading →

Gliding on Glider

Ever wondered what around £100 million will buy in the way of Bus Rapid Transit? I popped over to Belfast today to find out. The idea of creating a metro style cross city transit route has been discussed in the City for some years and as always with projects of this kind, (like in Bristol),... Continue Reading →

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