Phil's Purple Bus Blog

From A to B

2012-02-23T23:05:00.000Z

I wasn’t expecting much of a view from an Aachen hotel window, so to throw open the curtains to be greeted with the imposing sight of the Marschiertor was a welcome bonus. The Germans do mediaeval quite well, and this imposing edifice – once the southern gate of the city walls – has survived in amazingly good condition from its construction in the late 13th century.

Originally built to keep out the Belgians and Dutch, the natives eventually stumbled upon a far cleverer way of controlling their international neighbours. Allowing their cross-border cousins to believe that they had seduced the Aacheners with the tantalising combination of beer and cheese, the locals dismantled the wall and replaced it with a stunningly mediocre line of dismal concrete office blocks and hotels, in which Belgian and Dutch visitors are imprisoned on a daily basis.

The Marschiertor itself was retained to provide an attractive backdrop for visiting transport enthusiasts to use in their photos, and as we emerged from the Ibis Aachen Marschiertor and sank ankle deep into the three inches of snow that had coated the ground overnight, the three of us entertained the locals with our synchronised camera-pointing.

Each choosing our own vantage point in the snow a few metres apart from each other, so that each of our pictures would be truly unique and not in any way almost identical, our excitement at capturing a good shot of a bus passing in front of the ancient gate would be superseded by the excited yelp of one us announcing “there’s one coming the other way”, whereupon three lenses would swing round in unison, occasionally to be followed by the hysterical cry of “it’s a Belgian one!”

During the fifteen minutes of live cabaret it became clear that the overnight snowfall and arctic temperatures had not caused the transport system to break sweat and all was clearly running normally. We duly set off up the road to the main railway station, our mission today to explore the Rhineland and bordering Hunsrück hills, ending up in the riverside city of Mainz.

One of the most amazing bargains you will find anywhere on the European railway system is the Schönes Wochenende Ticket – literally the “nice weekend ticket”. It allows unlimited travel on either a Saturday or Sunday for up to five people on local and regional rail services throughout the whole of Germany for 40 Euros – essentially unlimited travel throughout the country for as little as 8 Euros (roughly £7) each. In our case there were three of us, which pushed the cost to a whopping £10 each!

I can remember travelling in Germany when the Schönes Wochenende Ticket was first introduced and the local trains were packed with people taking advantage of the incredible value. These days I guess it has become part of normal life and people don’t go out of their way as much to benefit, so we were able to kick back and relax with almost an entire coach to ourselves on a glorious sunny morning, as we pulled out of Aachen Hauptbahnhof on the 09:51 Regional Express to Cologne.

The ticket does not allow travel on InterCity, EuroCity or InterCity Express trains and this does discourage longer distance journeys, although it is still possible to cover vast swathes of the country on regional services. Our plan for today was to use a series of such trains to cover the trip to Mainz, with a side trip on a branch line I have always been curious about, but never found the opportunity to sample – the Hunsrückbahn from Boppard to Emmelshausen.

However, whereas our instincts were to make it up as we went along, the frequency of the Hunsrückbahn is now only every ninety minutes at weekends and this meant that we couldn’t afford to leave things entirely to chance. Neither terminus is a particularly big place, Saturday afternoons are pretty quiet in most German towns and we didn’t want to run the risk of being becalmed for a lengthy period somewhere with nothing useful to do. We also fancied mixing buses and trains and this meant some planning of connections, especially as wanted to enjoy daylight for as much of the journey as possible.

So while the others stared out of the window at the beautiful snowy landscape, I was running endless journey options through the DB Journey Planner on my phone. Indeed so engrossed was I that I completely failed to notice when the snow ran out and normal scenery resumed – a point that escaped me until we were leaving Cologne on our next train almost an hour later!

I had however worked out that our travel options would be optimised if we were to take the train from Cologne to Koblenz, the bus from Koblenz to Emmelshausen and then the train from there down to Boppard, and this meant being in Koblenz by 12:30 at the latest. Unfortunately, because of our leisurely start to the day, the earliest possible arrival in Koblenz by regional train was 12:42!

The only way to avoid the itinerary dragging slowly through the afternoon was to cheat and catch an InterCity train from Cologne to Koblenz which would have us there by around 11:45, but this in turn required a fairly tight connection at Colgone. So, while the others ran outside the main station to take arty photos of the city’s imposing cathedral, I worked the ticket machine and trebled the cost of our day’s travel buying three singles for the next leg of our journey.

However for me the chance to travel on an InterCity was well worth the money. They are without doubt my favourite German trains for all the wrong reasons. Once the pinnacle of continental rail travel, they are now the epitome of faded glory. While the regional services are generally neat, compact and efficient, and the streamlined ICEs storm across the nation in a purposeful and businesslike fashion, the InterCity trains meander across the country on long and improbable itineraries, not going fast or directly enough to compete with the ICEs for genuine long distance customers, but priced and marketed to make them unattractive for local journeys.

Some InterCity trains that happen to cross international boundaries enjoy an enhanced status, being branded as EuroCity. This branding was first used in 1987, just in time for the teenaged me to burst onto the scene of European train travel. With each pair of trains being named, usually I recall for famous individuals, and with the possibility of coaches being provided by any of the national railways through whose countries the train passed (and often a mixture within the same train), this heightened the sense of occasion and drama, and there was nothing more thrilling than to stand on a continental platform and watch a EuroCity pull out heading for a remote city in a distant land.

These days the EuroCity brand just means the train has an even longer and more improbably itinerary than a normal InterCity, and our conveyance for the fifty minute hop to Koblenz was EC101, which had left Hamburg at 06:30 that morning and would eventually arrive at Chur, in a remote corner of the Swiss Alps, over twelve hours later at 18:43 that evening. To complete the magic, it was a Swiss Railways (SBB) coach that conveyed us for our short trip up the Rhine Valley.

I was reluctant to leave the train at Koblenz – I could have quite happily stayed on board until Switzerland – but it was now over two hours since my travelling companions had last taken a photo of a bus and they were getting restless. Luckily for them, Koblenz has a new, gleaming bus station in front of the main railway station, and while I sat at the departure stand guarding the bags, my compatriot nutters had a photographic orgy, sprinting the length and breadth of the station capturing vehicles of all colours, and bemusing at least one local driver in the process.

The ride out of Koblenz to Emmelshausen proved to be a scenic triumph, and where better to enjoy it than aboard the most lurid of all European bus porn, the Citaro LE. This variant of one of Europe’s most popular bus designs is one of the best examples of interurban bus designs you will encounter, solving the traditional Citaro problem of a very messy back end, with a raised rear section allowing all forward facing seats, while keeping the refined qualities of the marque.

I was hoping that the view would be pleasant, but the reality surpassed my expectations. The route out of Koblenz enjoys a vertiginous climb into the hills, such that barely five minutes after leaving the bus station you have a panoramic view over the majestic Rhine river, the roads and railways snaking along the riverbanks and the steep slopes behind on the right bank.

Eventually the steep ascent gives way to more gentle, rolling terrain, often with views miles into the distance, occasionally surrounded by forest. The ride to Emmelshausen was one of the most pleasant hours of bus travelling I can recall, on a gorgeous bus with such great scenery being beamed in through the windows. Not for the first time that day, it was a chore to have to disembark.

Emmelshausen was a lot more industrial than I had expected, albeit there was not much happening on this Saturday afternoon. A small town of around 5,000 inhabitants, it took only a few minutes for us to walk the length of the main street, leaving us around an hour to kill until the departure of the train to Boppard.

The large number of eating establishments – ranging from kebab shops to an upmarket Italian restaurant – surely reflects the weekday industrial population, as a community of this size would never support such a quantity. We picked an unprepossessing but welcoming cafe, where the Gulaschsuppe was warm and wholesome, an ideal antidote to the biting cold outside.

Our departure from Emmelshausen was aboard the Hunsrückbahn, a privately operated railway run by the Rhenus Veniro company. Many regional services in Germany have been contracted to private companies, bringing colour, variety and interest to the local railway scene, and our plan was to travel on as many as we reasonably could. This was the first, and was notable for the driver greeting all the passengers as he walked through the train before departure – not an unusual event as were to discover.

This line makes a precipitous descent through yet more stunning landscape, clinging to the side of a hill with a sheer drop on one side of the train. The line is so steep that the train feels as though it is crawling along, trying to keep its footing, and it is only sad that the line is so short. After barely twenty minutes we had arrived in the riverside town of Boppard, scene of my first ever visit to Germany on a school trip in 1986, and gateway to some of the most spectacular scenery Germany has to offer!

Terminus Hopping and Country Hopping

2012-02-15T02:41:00.001Z

Picture the scene: It’s a Friday morning at a main line rail station, and the platform is full of expectant travellers waiting for the 0845 InterCity departure, reassured by the screens showing it is on time. But 0845 comes and goes, no sign of any train, nor any explanation of a delay. 0850 approaches and the screens stubbornly maintain the fiction of “0845 on time”. The crowd grows restless; a few sullen looking platform staff stroll up and down but don’t engage with anyone. 0855 comes and goes and still no train.

Finally at 0857, a train appears and the grateful throng swarms aboard, so pleased to be on their way that they disregard the faded, tatty interior. Departure in the end is 14 minutes late, with the screens outside still insisting that we are on time. The announcement from the train manager welcomes us aboard but makes no reference to the delay.

Many cynics would identify this as a familiar scene from stations the length and breadth of the British rail network, unlike our continental neighbours who – they assure us – routinely achieve perfection in the delivery of public transport.

But this scene was played out in Amsterdam Centraal Station, and the train was no insignificant backwater branch line, but a flagship InterCity Benelux express to Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels. The coaches had no further to come than from the carriage sidings a mile or so to the east.

I was already cross with Nederlandse Spoorwegen - the main Dutch rail operator. My previous trips had encouraged me to place them on a pedestal of excellence, and among their many perceived attributes was a virtually endless supply of trains between Amsterdam Centraal and Schiphol, so that in order to be at the airport by 9am to meet my friends, I could expect to present myself at the station by 0830 and enjoy a choice of departures for the fifteen minute journey.

I was also cross with myself. I had been running ahead of schedule, but while crossing the tram tracks to reach the station I had noticed a tram with the linguistically confusing destination of “Sorry Geen Dienst” – literally “Sorry Not in Service”, but why with the word “sorry” in English? So obsessed was I with capturing a picture of this destination that I had wasted a good ten minutes chasing two separate trams through the snow, only to fail in both cases to achieve my objective.

It was therefore heading for 0825 when I marched into the station and was aghast to learn that the next train to the airport was not for twenty minutes, and certainly would not have me there by nine. I whiled away a few minutes with a bonus visit to the Secret Bus Station, but soon enough found myself on the platform waiting for the elusive 0845.

My colleagues had texted me to let me know they had landed, and given that I am generally seen as being the most well organised of the trio – a concept that would make my true work colleagues fall about with laughter – I was concerned that my credibility would plunge right at the outset, if I was not there to greet them as they emerged from customs.

Eventually underway on the late running 0845, I felt a bit self-conscious to be travelling such a short distance surrounded by all these international travellers, apparently settled in for the three hour trip to the Belgian capital. It seemed like cheating to get off the Benelux Express at the very first stop, and I almost felt like apologising as I got up to wait by the door. I had little to fear – seconds later the vast majority of my fellow passengers got up too, and I estimate that around 70% of passengers on the InterCity to Brussels travelled no further than the suburbs of Amsterdam!

I sprinted up the steps to the airport terminal and hurried to International Arrivals, reaching the exit barrier at exactly the same moment as my colleagues. Doing my best to display an air of nonchalance, keen to convey the illusion that I had enjoyed a relaxed trip to the airport and a leisurely wait for their arrival, we set off back to the station concourse that I had passed through in a blur, just seconds earlier.

Now my colleagues – both experienced bus industry professionals – are really good company for this kind of trip, equally good at providing market leading bus services back home and well ahead of the game in the field of smart ticketing solutions, but only one had remembered to bring his OV-Chipkaart, that essential tool for anyone seeking to drift aimlessly around the Dutch transport system. Our attempts to buy a new card from NS’s slightly truculent self-service machines failed, but luckily a short queue at the ticket counter took us quickly to an extremely jolly and helpful ticket clerk, and in no time at all the three of us were armed and ready for action.

We were now officially at large, and ready to tackle our two missions of the day – in order of importance, uitsmijters and Maastricht!

The uitsmijter had been one of the most exciting discoveries of our previous Dutch tour. While the ingredients may seem unremarkable in their own right, the particular combination of ham, cheese, fried eggs and bread, cooked together to make an uitsmijter, makes for a mouthwatering breakfast proposition. And since this was to be our only morning in the Netherlands, we could not let it pass without an uitsmijter stop.

Breakfast notwithstanding, our main destination for the day was the town of Maastricht. This community occupies a very unusual geographic position, at the foot of a narrow strip of land dangling precariously from the rest of Holland, hemmed in at close quarters by Belgium and Germany. I had always been curious to visit, imagining a fascinating mix of international cultures.

It is also fascinating for being the home of Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre – an air traffic control centre managing the flow of aircraft through the Single European Sky, and therefore an object of great interest to me given my little known but worryingly geekish obsession with air traffic control. Sadly, my colleagues fail to share this particular interest, so the delights of MUAC would not be on the agenda for this trip and will have to be left for another day (any suitably connected readers of this blog are – of course – entirely welcome to invite me for a tour of this, or indeed any other, ATC facility should they feel inclined to do so!)

The railway line from Schiphol to Maastricht passes through the cities of Utrecht, ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven. The first and last of these had been ticked off on our previous trip, but having avoided the middle option last time on the basis of it being unpronounceable, we could no longer suppress our curiosity and ‘s-Hertogenbosch became the nominated destination for uitsmijter consumption.

It is a curious feature of the Amsterdam region, that the location and status of Schiphol Airport as a world gateway, and the belt of corporate office parks around the southern ring, means that the rail network is at least as well orientated for orbital trips around the south of the city as it is for trips to and from the city centre, and a huge volume of trains from all parts of the country reach Schiphol without ever passing through the city centre at all. One such train whisked us from Schiphol to Utrecht in barely half an hour and within six minutes a cross-platform connection saw us making rapid onward progress.

Den Bosch – as we were relieved to discover it is colloquially known – is reportedly a very attractive walled city with a strong mediaeval heritage, but I am unable to confirm this as our interest was confined purely to the pursuit of uitsmijters and buses. The station itself presents an unusual contrast, with very traditional-looking platform canopies contrasting with a much more recently developed station square.

The square offered the choice of two apparently suitable venues for our uitsmijter stop. We marched into the first of these, changed our table three times, eventually arranged ourselves and all our stuff around a big corner table and then discovered the kitchen didn’t open for another hour! The second establishment proved more welcoming and in the perfect location, providing us with the ideal of a traditional Dutch breakfast from a vantage point overlooking the bus station.

We quickly decided that bus operations in the area were divided between Arriva and Veolia and my camera-happy companions set off on their habitual breakneck run round the square, photographing everything with six wheels and windows. I confined my pictorial efforts to this interesting contrast of destinations, which hopefully is not a commentary on the state of the two companies..!

...and finally a chance to capture what had eluded me in Amsterdam, the curious bilingual apology...

In the same spirit, I am minded to reprogramme Velvet destinations to show “Entschuldigung, not in service” or “Désolé, private charter”, except of course that I won’t because I don’t believe in the whole patronising insincere concept of the bus being sorry. It’s not in service, deal with it!

Back on the train after an enjoyable hour, we eventually made it to our main destination for the day, Maastricht. This wasn’t to be our overnight stop – surprisingly given the city’s location it takes quite a long time to head east by public transport into Germany and we didn’t want to waste too much time on the Saturday morning, so our hotel accommodation was booked over the border in Aachen. But Maastricht was the main town of interest and we intended to carry out a detailed exploration – which in our case meant spending more than an hour there!

Initial signs were very unpromising. Despite the attraction of a modest bus station directly outside the railway station – a normal feature of Dutch towns – the immediate vicinity of the station appeared pretty run down and undistinguished. Furthermore, if we wished to proceed by train to Aachen this would involve catching a Veolia service to Heerlen and changing there. The only problem was that – according to the departure screens – all the trains to Heerlen were cancelled!

A brief raid on the Veolia enquiry office opposite the station and perusal of the timetable boards revealed that we had another option to travel to Aachen – Veolia bus number 50 – running every fifteen minutes with a journey time of an hour, so the absence of trains stopped being an issue.

Although the unimpressive surroundings of the railway station caused us briefly to ponder the notion of getting straight out of town, we decided to persevere, and the best thing to do was to jump on a bus and go somewhere. The beauty of OV-Chipkaart is that you don’t have to decide anything in advance – you just touch your smartcard on the reader when you board the bus and touch off when you decide you’ve had enough, and the smartcard reader does the rest.

So we decided to indulge in the bus geek sport of ‘terminus hopping’. This is a game that involves catching a bus route to the outer terminus, walking to the terminus of the nearest adjacent route, catching the bus back into town and then – if time and enthusiasm permits – repeating the process ad nauseam. That way you can cover an entire network without every retracing your steps.

Successful terminus hopping requires a map, a certain amount of intuition and a certain amount of luck. You have to be able to work out from the map when a road is really a road, whether you’ll be able to cross a river at a particular point and whether indeed the buses stop where they say they do.

In previous jobs I have carried out professional terminus hopping as part of my work, and I well remember in the French town of Quimper presenting myself at the rural outer terminus of one of the town routes, in an unlikely location where the driver had clearly never encountered a passenger before – especially not one covered head to toe in mud because I’d had to trudge across a field because there wasn’t a road where the map said there would be one, and needless to say I had managed to fall over. I seem to remember I also had a migraine. Nevertheless, I wiped some mud from my face, looked the driver in the eye, wished him a cheery “bonjour”, stamped my ticket in the validator and sat down. Unabashed, the driver raised an eyebrow, and with a true gallic shrug threw the bus into gear and off we went.

We didn’t have time to cover the whole of the Maastricht network but terminus hopping is a great way to get to see quite a lot of a town very quickly. Based mainly on the fact that it was there loading, we elected to catch a 3 to its western terminus at Wolder, walk to the terminus of the 5 and 6 at Daalhof and return to the city centre from there.

Our decision to persevere with Maastricht was rewarded almost as soon as we turned the corner from the railway station and set forth across the wide and majestic River Maas, then wound our way through the very picturesque city centre, through narrow cobbled streets and big elegant squares.

The 3 turned out to be quite an upmarket route – though busy – with the city centre soon giving way to the university, and relatively upscale housing all the way to the terminus. On arrival at the terminus, my colleagues did their usual trick of running like loons to the other side of the road to take pictures of the bus before it left to go back to town, while I plotted our route across the river to the next terminus – a route that took us within quarter of a mile of the Belgian border.

As we approached the Daalhof terminus, a 5 pulled into the stop and my colleagues once again scared the driver by taking photos of his bus from every conceivable angle before we set off. This route was much more reminiscent of what we in this country would call “good bus territory”, with block after block of high density housing and flats, and provided a complete contrast to the 3. As we approached the centre we could increasingly detect evidence of where tram tracks must have previously been located.

Alighting in the Market Square – sadly ruined, I felt, by the presence of a market – we retired to a bar for our first beer of the day. Challenged to come up with Dutch beer, the waitress failed but did manage to produce a Belgian beer that slightly oddly came with a lump of cheese each! Subsequent research has revealed that this is a fairly normal thing in Belgium, so the fact that we were in Holland gives me sufficient proof that Maastricht is indeed a truly international multicultural city!

My hypothesis having been proven correct, our work in the Netherlands was done and it was time to go to Germany. Arrival back at the station revealed that the trains to Heerlen were now running again, but by that time we had decided to take the bus, and were soon on our way on the 50.

This, like our journey on the 5, was operated by a VDL Ambassador, very much a ubiquitous Dutch bus coming from the DAF stable. At home I am increasingly unimpressed by the fragile, lightweight products such as the Dennis Dart and by the time we were on the 50 I had resolved that from now on I will only ever buy heavyweight vehicles that have that solid, robust, reassuring feel of the vehicles we used during our travels.

An effortless hour later and we were in Aachen. Most West European countries don’t really do borders, and to many Brits it would be quite an alien notion that a bus from one country could routinely travel to another country, on a normal stopping service every fifteen minutes without there being any evidence of a border having been crossed other than a change in the registration plates of the passing cars.

It’s not just a Schengen thing either – on a recent journey from Switzerland to Italy on a local mountain train, the only evidence of being in a different country was the presence of Italian flags rather than Swiss flags on the station building.

So here’s the evidence of a Dutch bus stopped at Aachen railway station, with the traditional “H” sign of the standard German bus stop. Being around 5pm it was picking up a very heavy load for its return journey, implying that there is nothing at all untoward about living in Holland, working in Germany and commuting across the border every morning and evening.

Having dumped our bags at our hotel, we went off to explore Aachen. During our journey across the non-existent border, it had been snowing with increasing intensity and there was plenty of snow and ice underfoot as we wandered through the city centre. Needless to say everything was carrying on as normal, and the evening rush hour was well underway.

After a long walk round the ring road we eventually found the travel office of the local bus operator ASEAG, where the customer service staff revealed to me that we had to pay for a map of the network – an unbelievable concept!

One Euro lighter, and with a map that required most of the office floor space to unfold, we decided we had time for one more terminus hop before dinner. To our immense excitement we had seen double articulated Citaros, and we decided to ride one on the 5 from the bus station (Bushof) to the outer terminus at Brand Schulzentrum.

This trip yielded the first of several grumpy bus drivers. He had just taken over the bus from one of his colleagues, and we boarded with me at the front of the line clutching our money. We then had to wait while he pointedly adjusted everything in his cab that he could possibly adjust, all the while avoiding any eye contact or acknowledgement of me, despite being stood right next to him. The seat went up, down and back up again; then forward then back; the steering wheel was taken through all its available planes of motion; both mirrors were adjusted; the ticket machine was programmed at length.

Eventually the activity stopped and the driver just sat there looking straight ahead. I took this as my cue to speak. I asked for three singles. The driver interrogated me about where we were going without once making eye contact, didn’t tell me the price and just waited for me to put the money down. Luckily I had worked it out while we were waiting, but the ignorance was breathtaking. The tickets were issued without a further word and we were off on the long walk to the back of the three-piece bus.

By now it was completely dark and we had no idea where we were, we were just enjoying being on the back seat of a bus that seemed to stretch most of the way to the terminus without even moving. Once the standing load had subsided we got the map out – an activity that required two of us to sit in opposite window seats and hold the map outstretched between us – and kept track of where we were.

Luckily it is standard in Holland and Germany for buses to have “next stop” screens – surely the “must have” accessory for British operators for the future and we managed to keep track by following the stops on the map.

On arrival at Brand we slithered through the snow and ice to the main road, where a 35 duly turned up with just a normal articulated Citaro to take us the direct route back to the city centre. Such a contrast with the driver – we had a very helpful (if rather gruff) female, and she was very concerned to know if we would be travelling back on the bus, in which case she would have sold us a mini group ticket – which is what we should have been advised to do on the outbound 5.

Despite the upturn in customer service, there was no sentiment. On arrival back at Bushof there was a driver change, and she was off the bus and gone virtually before any passenger had even set foot on the pavement!

A leisurely walk through the old town centre eventually brought us to the Rose am Dom restaurant, which proved to be uninspiring. The now familiar Germanic abruptness was much in evidence here too – we had made the fatal mistake of putting the cameras and a couple of timetable leaflets on the table, to be greeted with the stern reprimand “you will clear now” as the waitress arrived with the food.

By the time we were walking back to the hotel the temperature had dropped to around -10 degrees and shortly after I got into my room it started snowing very heavily, huge snowflakes that were clearly settling thickly on every visible surface. My excitement at being in a country I love was tempered with the nagging concern of whether we’d be able to get out of there in the morning!

Going Dutch

2012-02-14T11:42:00.000Z

A recent free weekend gave the opportunity for an escape to the continent. Along with a couple of bus industry colleagues, the plan was to make our way across the Netherlands, into Germany, up the Rhine, across to the Harz Mountains then finally to Berlin for the plane home. The rules were fairly simple – public transport all the way, sampling as many different operators using as many different modes as possible. We tend not to dwell anywhere too long – you can learn an awful lot about somewhere in very little time – so this seemed like a reasonable adventure for four days.

The collective agreement was to start at Schiphol Airport on Friday morning and head straight off to the south of the country, the rest of the Netherlands having been decisively covered in a previous trip. However I have never spent any time in Amsterdam before, so decided to travel the evening before and explore the city on my own, before linking up with my colleagues on Friday morning.

The Teutonic theme to the trip started before I even left the UK however, as complex domestic arrangements meant I had to break the rules right at the start and drive my car to Gatwick Airport, to endure the misery of long-stay parking. What more appropriate carriage could be waiting to whisk me to the terminal than the first of many Citaros! With Britain in the grip of arctic temperatures, it at least offered the attraction of being warm!

In no time at all I was in the airport, where my holiday was rudely interrupted by a final dose of real life. Having earlier had the office phone diverted to my mobile, I had forgotten to cancel the diversion before leaving work, with the result that Velvet Enquiries were briefly handled from a bench outside Starbucks in Gatwick North Terminal. My final moments before exiting the UK were spent remotely reuniting two Thornden School parents with their offspring’s lost PE kits!

The most impressive feature of Gatwick Airport is the world’s largest air passenger bridge – a walkway that takes you thirty two metres above the ground and over the top of one of the taxiways, allowing travellers the highly unusual sight of aircraft taxying beneath them! It was with childlike excitement that I discovered that my plane’s departure gate required me to cross this bridge and I lingered for as long as I dare, until finally an obliging British Airways plane turned and passed beneath my feet.

Unfortunately I had lingered so long that most of the rest of the passengers had overtaken me, and with Easyjet operating a “first come first shoved” approach to seat allocation I was alarmed to reach the back of the boarding queue with the departure gate still a distant speck on the horizon! Luckily I was able to board just in time to nab the last remaining window seat and in good time we were aloft, on course for the Dutch capital.

Having left Gatwick in temperatures some way below zero, it was a faint hope that the continent would be enduring a heatwave, but nevertheless my hopes that things might warm up a bit were soon dashed by the Dutch captain’s brief announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, the weather in Amsterdam is the same as in London, only more cold!”

My regression into childhood continued throughout the flight as I sat with face pressed to the window on a beautifully clear night, taking in such panoramic scenes as Southdown PSV’s depot on the outskirts of Crawley, the elegant seaside metropolis of Southend-on-Sea, bustling Europoort and an accident scene on the A4 motorway, before finally settling down bang on time on the north-east facing runway at Schiphol.

Having revived my treasured OV-Chipkaart with credit, I was soon enjoying the smooth comfort of a double-deck train ride into the capital city, where I emerged from Central Station to find it snowing. Luckily my hotel was only a short walk and I was soon ensconsed in my top floor hotel room at the surprisingly characterful Tulip Inn Amsterdam Centre.

Having dumped my bag and with not a moment to lose, I launched myself once more into the sub-zero temperatures outside and immediately realised my hotel was right in the middle of the city’s infamous red light district! Being of faint heart and prudish manner, I of course kept my eyes straight ahead as I wandered along street after street lined with establishments of dubious virtue.

I couldn’t help but be amused at the sight of a shop apparently selling nothing but vibrators, although it was not so much the store’s contents that amused me as its name – “Na Na, The Most Vibrating Shop”. I would have taken a photo but frankly, I wasn’t brave enough to stand in the middle of a busy red light district aiming my camera at a shop window full of sex toys!

My progress into the heart of the city’s seedy underbelly was marked by escalating fruit references. What started with a shop a few doors from the hotel selling “banana toys”, gave way a few yards later to a club advertising (among other attractions) a “banana show” before finally climaxing a block further on with the proudly named “Banana Bar – Live F***ing”!

I had heard many tales from friends in the UK of Amsterdam’s notorious attractions and had always assumed them to be grossly exaggerated. What I had imagined would be maybe one or two streets turned into block after block of lurid establishments.

Given that the majority of voices I heard as I wandered the streets were British males hunting in packs, I can only imagine that this side to what is probably otherwise a charming city delivers significant tourist income. Otherwise, why would a country as ordered and efficient as the Netherlands tolerate such a sordid centrepiece to its capital city?

I’d love to remember Amsterdam for its elegant buildings, graceful canals and bustling precincts, but in fact my abiding memory will be of scantily dressed ladies writhing behind red-hued glass doors, tapping on the windows to attract the attention of passers by, about as unerotic scene as it is possible to imagine on that freezing night!

It was with some relief that I finally emerged from a side street to be confronted with the impressive facade of Centraal Station, and decided that the only late night activity that I needed was some serious train watching, so I spent a pleasant half an hour dodging the drug dealers on the station platforms.

For me the romance of train travel is no better summed up than by a departing sleeper train, conveying its weary occupants on life-changing journeys to distant cities many hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Whenever I’m in a foreign city I love to watch such trains heading on their way, and as the City Night Line to Zurich drew out of the platform, I imagined the destinies of those whose faces peered at me through the windows. For some maybe only a short vacation, but for many their last glimpse of familiar comforts, knowing they would wake up the following morning to a different existence, with all the uncertainty and excitement that entailed!

As I explored further, my melancholy musings were soon banished by the most exciting of all possible discoveries – a secret bus station! Hidden at first floor level at the back of Centraal Station, this vibrant terminal hummed with life even at 10 o’clock at night, despatching buses into the outskirts and surrounding regions well loaded with Friday night travellers.

The most exciting feature of Amsterdam’s Secret Bus Station however has to be its amazing Control Room. Quite unlike any similar facility I have encountered anywhere on my travels, I will be making a point of sending a picture to the architects employed by Sainsbury’s on the proposed redevelopment of Eastleigh Bus Station, and making it a condition of my support that the town’s future transport interchange enjoys such a space aged centrepiece!

Finally exhausted, I returned to my room and lay down to sleep, only to wake up later feeling quite disorientated and dizzy – quite amazing given that I had (unusually for me) consumed no alcohol at all! It was only after sitting for a few moments to regain my bearings that I realised the entire hotel room sloped from right to left, with the top of the bed several inches lower than the foot! How ironic that of all the things that I had seen in the Dutch capital that could have caused a rush of blood to my head, in the event it was a wonky hotel room that did so!

The following morning dawned colder still and snowier, and after a brief farewell visit to the secret bus station I was on a train back to Schiphol Airport, ready to meet my colleagues and continue the adventure...

Time for 't'

2012-01-17T22:44:00.001Z

One thing I could always do was spell. From the earliest age I can remember, I would look down my nose with all the supercilious smugness of the insufferable teacher's pet that I strove to be, as the other children put their 'e' before their 'i', allowed a silent 'k' or 'w' to slip away undetected, or were in two minds over which 'too' to resort to.

But I have finally been outwitted by the residents of Winchester. From the start of this week we have been operating a short term contract for Hampshire County Council, providing local routes 2 and 6a in Winchester until June. The 2 is easy. Oliver's Battery and Badger Farm hold no fear, but the 6a has me beaten!

It goes to Abbotts Barton, but in my mind - no matter how hard I try to train myself - it goes to Abbots Barton. Even though a simple glance at the map reveals the truth, and the tender documents and existing publicity reinforce the point, I cannot bring myself to double that 't'! Every time I write it, I write 'Abbots' and then - if I'm lucky and remember - go back and correct it.

I don't know why this should be so. It has something to do with the poor, innocent people of Abbots Langley, a Hertfordshire village that I served at the first bus company that gave me a home - the late, great Buffalo Travel. I must have read and written 'Abbots' so many times on official forms, in publicity and probably replies to complaint letters that I have that spelling firmly embedded in my mind.

(As a complete aside, in Buffalo days I once registered the evening service on route 344 through that village entirely in German - von Hemel Hempstead Busbahnhof nach Croxley Green Reptonweg ueber Watford Exchangestrasse - and the then Office of the Traffic Commissioner accepted it!)

To my shame the timetable leaflets refer to Abbots Barton, because I drafted and proof-checked them and failed to spot it. I only realised today that the website referred to Abbots Barton throughout, and even now the Bright Tech destinations on some of our Darts show '6a Abbots Barton' because I programmed them.

Luckily the Mobitec kit on the Solos that we are actually using has been programmed by our Commercial Assistant Mikey, and he has no such hang-ups. Indeed it is he - displaying the full condescension of one half my age and twice my ego - who has gleefully pointed out most of my slip-ups so far! He has also designed the roadside publicity which is equally correct and has attracted much favourable comment.

So all is not lost, but I'm getting to the age where old habits are hard to break, so I apologise in advance if the odd Abbot manages to slip through the net in the future! If it gets too bad, I might just have to Hyde!

The good news is that the new routes have started off extremely well. Timekeeping has not been the issue we were told to expect, with both routes running comfortably to schedule, and early passenger numbers are exceeding expectations.

Hopefully we are also exceeding theirs - certainly many positive comments have been received about the vehicle, the publicity and the drivers. Steve and Geoff are the regular presenters, backed up yesterday and today by Mikey doing the 'meeting and greeting'. Indeed for a while today all three were on the bus together, outnumbering the passengers at times.

During today's brief period of triple manning, Steve (or 'Scooter' as some of his former colleagues might apparently recognise him) managed to escape for long enough to take this rather nice shot of 222 pausing at Winchester Station on its way to Badger Farm.

The 6a also appears to have its own Les, which will no doubt add interest and colour, and it is already clear that the regular congregation have their own interpretation of where the bus is required to stop, which bears little resemblance to such trivial issues as where there happen to be signs on poles saying "bus stop"! But these are the kind of routes we love, and we look forward to being of service to our new Winchester clientele for some time to come.

Just when you thought Christmas was over...

2012-01-08T11:30:00.000Z

Before we get too far into January and memories fade, it's probably worth reflecting on how the Christmas period went, if only as an aide memoire to myself later in the year when I'm trying to work out what to run over the 2012/13 festive period!

The first day on which services were modified was Christmas Eve, when we finished at around 8pm. From a strictly commercial point of view that was probably right, given that the evening was obviously going to be quiet, but Karl - my controller - who was driving the other late shift, agreed with my perspective that there was a reasonable number of people enquiring about services later in the evening and that in the event we would quite happily have gone through to the end of service. That's one to ponder for next year. Or possibly not, because Christmas Eve is a Monday in 2012 so unless anything changes all our buses are off the road by 8pm anyway!

Readers may recall from my last post that I was ruminating on whether we should have run service on Boxing Day. My perception is that 2011 saw a sharp increase in the number of operators around the country that did operate and I can see it becoming increasingly taken for granted over the next few years that this is a day on which bus services do run. Indeed, one or two figures I have heard from operator colleagues that will remain nameless, for commercial receipts on routes in different parts of the country are astonishingly high and if those levels are typical it should be a no brainer.

The difficulty for us is that - for the time being at least - a Sunday service is probably the most appropriate level, and of course we don't have any Sunday contracts, nor do Hampshire County Council make it a requirement for contractors to provide a service on Boxing Day. Of course on New Year's Day this year (more anon) we provided a commercial Sunday service in the absence of the two normal contractors and it is most likely that we would consider this kind of scenario again.

The period between Christmas and New Year was a normal weekday service for us, and that allows us to keep things simple. I am not a fan of operators with hugely complex arrangements with some services operating Saturdays, others weekdays, and others a special service. My experience of the travelling public is that even if you provide the most elaborate publicity in the world, as long as it's not a bank holiday they will expect Thursday buses to operate on a Thursday etc, so you risk upsetting loyal, regular customers for a tiny saving.

New Year's Eve we ran through until the end of service. It was quiet on the C1 and E8, but seems to have been about a normal level of Saturday evening patronage on the A. However, there was a great atmosphere with the customers on the buses, and many of them were regulars and very appreciative of the service - including the four who caught the 2340 A (none of whom were still on the bus at midnight, so I celebrated the arrival of 2012 on my own, as predicted, about halfway up Wildern Lane!). Definitely worth doing in my opinion, for the benefit of those regulars.

Once again it's a Monday this year so unless anything changes, there is no evening service on our routes in any event, and I'm not sure we would create one specially, but I'm definitely glad we did it this year.

I'm even more glad we ran New Year's Day. We didn't carry a huge number of people, but the reaction from those we did carry was bordering on euphoric! They were hugely grateful to have the service. Our drivers also saw huge numbers of people waiting at bus stops for other people's services, and had of course explained to them that there wouldn't be any, and the reaction from those people was disbelief that almost the entire industry had decided to take the day off on what - for them - was pretty much a normal Sunday.

On a brief visit to Eastleigh Bus Station to mid-afternoon to see how our drivers were getting on, I was ambushed by a couple who had been waiting for a Bluestar 2. Our driver Mikey had seen them from the end of the road, beckoned them down to the bus, explained the situation to them and then transported them into Eastleigh. They were just about to board for the trip home and were over the moon with joy about the fact that we were there for them.

In summary it's probably fair to say that from a strictly commercial standpoint, it remains a weak time of year. The easy option would be to pull the buses off the road at 8pm on Christmas and New Year's Eve and not come out on Boxing Day or New Year's Day.

However, we carry many loyal regulars who give us their business all through the year. They want to go out and about at Christmas just as much as anyone else does. Why does the industry think it's acceptable to abandon those people just because we fancy a day off or an evening off? We're in a service industry, and service means more than abandoning your regular customers because you won't be able to make a profit out of them for one or two days, when each of them is worth several hundred pounds to the business over the course of a year. I'm happy that we provided the service that we did over Christmas 2011/12, but with hindsight we could have done more!

And while I'm on the subject of abandoning customers, I do want to fit in a quick rant about other industries that shut down for the whole period. Our ability to provide service is dependent on having buses on the road. Why do so many parts suppliers think it is acceptable to simply stop providing service at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, and resume some time in early January? Why do their entire staff have to have a week and a half off, when their customers - who they claim to value so highly - are still slaving away. Frankly, it is a disgusting tactic and if I had the purchasing power to withdraw my business from suppliers who indulge in these long shutdowns, I would do so today.

Many industries do it, so it is unfair to single out one particular type of business. We had a similar problem where we are trying to get timetable leaflets printed for the new 2 and 6a routes in Winchester, but the design company we use - who happily didn't think that having someone on duty on 29th December was such an unreasonable expectation - couldn't even get quotes for print.

We manage our service levels, using reduced staff numbers to reflect reduced demand. They can probably cope with fewer admin staff, so there should still be plenty of scope to accommodate a desire to give staff more time off over the period. Why can they not manage the situation in this way, rather than simply locking the gates and telling their loyal customers to get stuffed?

If I put a notice out on all our buses this year saying "there will be no buses from 3pm on Friday 21st December 2012 until Wednesday 2nd January 2013, nevertheless we wish all our customers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year", I wonder what reaction we might get?

On a brighter note, I am very optimistic about 2012, so I do - genuinely - wish all readers of this blog a Happy New Year, even if I am a week late!

All dressed up and nowhere to go!

2011-12-24T18:48:00.001Z

That's how it felt this morning, when the mayhem of the busiest shopping week of the year gave way to a complete anti-climax of a Christmas Eve! We had our big guns lined up, with me and Karl parked in the bus station with 107 and V12 ready to slot in to cover trips if Christmas shopping congestion affected the schedule, but in the event we just sat on the wall and watched while nothing much happened and the buses flowed freely in and out.

This wasn't necessarily a complete surprise - the obvious effect of many people having a complete week to prepare for the big day was that most had clearly got themselves organised by yesterday. But we couldn't be sure exactly how today would pan out so we had our reserves in place just in case!

We've certainly been stretched at times during the week. The C in particular has been hammered for timekeeping, both as a result of traffic congestion - Leigh Road, Bournemouth Road in Chandler's Ford and the car parks around Fryern Hill being hotspots - and passenger loadings, the latter particularly encouraging given the route's newly commercial status.

We have routinely been sending out spare drivers and buses all week to cover trips so that pretty much every journey has left Eastleigh on time, even though some have been taking 75 or 80 minutes to cover a 55 minute schedule once out there.

The downside of running a circular route of course is that people waiting at the other end haven't necessarily had such a good experience, and if you have been waiting for a bus in Hiltingbury, Fryern or Chandler's Ford any time after about 11.00 any day this week you will probably have been waiting 10 or 15 minutes longer than you expected. That's very unfortunate, but difficult to avoid, and at least by inserting spare drivers and buses in Eastleigh we've managed to keep things from getting out of hand. Our Greenroad vehicle tracking system has really been a huge benefit both in enabling us to be proactive in managing the service, and communicating delay information to customers.

Luckily most of our customers are extremely understanding and take the delays in their stride, knowing that the bus will come along eventually. Sadly there remain a few who seem to live in a bubble, and the one who sneered "what kind of a service do you call this" at me yesterday when I turned up at Fryern 15 minutes late having left Eastleigh spot on time, stands out as a highlight. I decided that my preferred response of "one on which you are not welcome, madam" was probably unwise. I can understand her frustration.

Yesterday was particularly strange for traffic. The C was predictably hammered in the morning and we didn't even try to maintain the normal duties, we just had three drivers going round on ninety minute cycles (ie doing the 1010, 1140, 1310 rather than 1010, 1110, 1210 etc as they normally would) and it worked. However, quite bizarrely, at around 1400 hrs the C suddenly died down and started running bang on time, whereas the A - which had been trouble-free all day - simultaneously started running into 20 minute delays - mostly around the Sainsbury's/M&S complex at Hedge End.

Hopefully, the commercial receipts will show that it was worth the effort, but a challenging week has now given way to an extremely gentle weekend. The frustrating loss of our Sunday contracts means that after we lock the gates tonight we won't turn another wheel until Wednesday 28th - the most number of consecutive days of not running buses since we started running services in February 2008.

We did look quite seriously at running on Boxing Day, and I see that the Omnibuses blog is debating that very subject today. I am wildly enthusiastic about running on Boxing Day, as I feel that in any major retail centre there is a great commercial opportunity. However, after careful consideration we decided that since we don't have a West Quay, a Gunwharf Quays or a Festival Place on our routes, it's probably still a bit of a stretch for us commercially. I wouldn't rule it for next year though!

When I introduced Boxing Day services at Bluestar (either 2004 or 2005), we were pleasantly surprised by the demand, but found with a few years' experience that it needed West Quay to be open to be a success, and then Saints playing at home would put the icing on the cake. With both ingredients in place this year, I predict a bumper Boxing Day bonanza for Bluestar this year, and First are fools for not running! (And I've told them so!) In fact we did consider running commercial services for one day only in parts of Southampton that won't otherwise have a service, but felt that without any marketing channels open to us we would struggle to raise awareness of anything we might offer.

For the period between Christmas and New Year, we are running a normal weekday service. This is probably the period that has the greatest variety of services around the patch, with Bluestar running Saturday timetables and First running special timetables (not something of which I am a great fan to be honest - I'm not convinced the effort involved in all the publicity and upsetting regular commuters etc is really worth the saving for three days of operation, but as it is not my place to comment on First's commercial strategy yet I have now done so in two consecutive paragraphs, I'd better wish them well and leave them to it!)

Our decision to run weekday services is based on previous experience of running Saturday timetables. For us, there is no huge difference in cost between running a weekday and Saturday schedule once the schools and colleges are stripped out, and yet we have many loyal, regular commuters who rely on the journeys that only run on weekdays. We have found in the past that we have caused considerable inconvenience to some of our best customers, while benefitting ourselves from only a very small saving.

Looking at New Year, we have decided to run through until the bitter end on New Year's Eve. I'm hoping that being a Saturday night more people will be going out to celebrate than normally do, and we want to enable them to do so. I suspect it will go very quiet around 2200 hrs, but for the sake of two hours it doesn't seem worth stopping the services early.

In previous years I have welcomed the new year in some slightly strange places, including between junctions 7 and 5 of the M27 while driving back from a rail replacement duty, and memorably one year on the Cowes Floating Bridge. I expect to welcome 2012 somewhere around the bottom of Wildern Lane on the 2340 A from Eastleigh. Feel free to come and join me, we'll have a party on the bus!

The final piece of the festive jigsaw is that we have decided to run a Sunday timetable (which means us running First and Xelabus times) on New Year's Day. There's no real business case, other than that for many people now New Year's Day is not particularly special, and in fact behaves like a normal bank holiday, and I don't see why people shouldn't have buses. I've got staff champing at the bit to work, so we're going to run and be damned! I won't be at the wheel however - chances are I shall head into Winchester for the Friends of King Alfred Buses' Running Day - always a great occasion.

For now though, Christmas Eve is starting to draw to a close. Apart from Pam, our part-timer who is cheerily flogging round the C1 (having made our day with the sensational cupcakes she brought to work this morning), we've let all the drivers go now. Karl the Controller is finishing one of the remaining duties and I'm off out to do the 1907 E8 and 1940 A to be the last bus back into the yard!

Happy Christmas!

Pear Shaped

2011-11-28T22:13:00.000Z

That's the best way to describe tonight's traffic!

We sensed trouble at the end of this morning's peak, when they erected temporary traffic lights at the White Swan in Mansbridge (on the A27 a mile or so south of Parkway station, on Velvet A between Eastleigh and Hedge End).

However, we had no serious problems until a casual glance at GreenRoad revealed that the 1610 from Eastleigh to Hedge End was not where it should be! Due at West End at 1629, yet at 1655 it was still in Mansbridge, and ended up about 40 minutes late.

That was just the start! After that, a reported accident on the roundabout at junction 5 (thereby obstructing both main routes south of Eastleigh) and no doubt the onset of bad weather, and the south side of Eastleigh just stopped.

Luckily, the usual flexibility from our brilliant team of drivers meant that everyone disregarded their scheduled duties and covered whatever they needed to cover, with the result that every journey left its start point on time, even if it got comically late along the way!

The 1610 from Eastleigh should come back empty, to refuel and form the 1740 A. The 1640 from Eastleigh should come back as the 1714 from Hedge End (Heath House Lane). The 1710 from Eastleigh finishes at Hedge End and comes back empty to depot and the 1740 comes back as the 1814.

Today, the 1610 arrived just in time to form the 1714 back from Hedge End. This of course meant no cover for the 1740 from Eastleigh, but Controller Karl stepped in to do that.

Normally, the 1714 runs on to the 1820 C1 but that wasn't going to happen, so the 1820 fell to me.

Meanwhile, the 1640 from Eastleigh took around an hour to reach Parkway station and eventually made it through the roadworks 55 minutes late, meaning that it arrived in Hedge End just in time to make the 1814 service back - an hour later than the trip it was supposed to do! At one stage on the outbound journey it was stationary for so long in Southampton Road that GreenRoad concluded it had parked up for the night!

The 1710 is one of two buses that we can't currently track so that disappeared into a big black hole (or maybe a big orange hole) after turning left out of Eastleigh bus station and was next seen back in the yard just over two hours later, while the 1740 from Eastleigh (Karl) eventually got to Hedge End around one hour late.

Meanwhile, the normally excellent ROMANSE was being unusually coy and would only refer to traffic being "slow southbound towards M27 junction 5", which we felt rather understated the issue - although they did later admit to the accident on junction 5 roundabout.

We'll wait with interest to see what happens in tomorrow morning's peak! Extra bodies are on standby, just in case!

A more exciting feature of tomorrow's agenda is my annual trip to London to the UK Bus Awards ceremony, where once again I am delighted to be a guest of our excellent insurance brokers Belmont International.

All a bit frustrating this year though, because I had fully intended to enter in a few a categories, but the entry deadline coincided with an obscenely busy period, on the weekend of our June service change while also preparing for various special events (IW Festival, Glastonbury etc) for which we were contracted, and I just ran out of time to prepare the entries! Mind you, I suppose it's arguable that a company that can't manage to meet a deadline doesn't really deserve too many awards, but hopefully I'll have my proverbial ducks in more of an orderly row in time for next year's awards.

Whatever happens, best of luck to all those in the running for the various gongs - I'm sure all will be worthy winners.

Apart from the fact that we know we're not going to win anything, the only other disappointment is an unfortunate diary clash that means I will have to miss out on the traditional post-lunch socialising that usually lasts well into the night (and beyond) in the company of great people, as I have to be back in Eastleigh for an early evening meeting.

It's all in a good cause though, because it's the annual opportunity for Eastleigh Borough Council members to scrutinise the performance of public transport in the borough, and as part of that to question the operators on any matters they consider to be of interest.

Eastleigh has no statutory obligation to support its public transport yet in practice it is highly proactive and takes a significant interest in the transport offer, both in terms of financial support and working together with operators to promote innovation and good practice. Its members deserve our full attention to any concerns they wish to raise, and I always look forward to hearing their views.

A Mist Opportunity

2011-11-21T17:07:00.000Z

A social event required my presence in Derby on Saturday night. This gave me the opportunity to sample the buses in the Peak District, something I have long meant to do but never found the right occasion.

To be honest it wasn't really on the agenda for this weekend either. My plan had been to return south on the train as soon as I woke up on Sunday morning and spend the afternoon doing domestic chores back in Southampton. But a conversation with a couple of friends on Saturday night stirred my sense of discovery and I decided to have an adventure!

My plan was not to have a plan, but insofar as I needed to end up somewhere where I could get a train south to be back in Southampton by 7ish on Sunday evening, I had the notion of setting off on trent barton's transpeak service to Matlock at 09:50 on Sunday morning, before perhaps catching TM Travel's 215 service to Sheffield. Needless to say, what actually happened was nothing like that!

Arriving at Derby Bus Station at around 09:40, the transpeak was already on the stand loading. Moreover, it had almost a full seated load with ten minutes to go to departure. It is highly creditable that it was already available for boarding, and most useful to me because it allowed me to decide not to go on it! I like my personal space, especially when I'm feeling slightly delicate after a heavy night, and really didn't fancy nearly an hour on a full bus so I aborted the plan.

In fact I almost aborted the entire plan and headed for the railway station, but just as I was about to leave the bus station my eye was drawn to a service at 10:00 to Ashbourne and Leek. The weekday equivalent between Derby and Ashbourne is trent barton's swift, which has recently been rebranded to very impressive effect, but you can always rely on a tendered Sunday equivalent to a weekday commercial service to be confusingly different, so the Sunday bus is a 108 operated by TM Travel.

This seemed more likely to offer plenty of personal space and so it proved, with a very jolly driver and three passengers on our smartly presented Solo when we left Derby. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when I got to Ashbourne but it seemed likely to offer a nice ride, and if I had thought of nothing else I figured I could always carry on to Leek and try to get a connection to Stoke from there.

Two things quickly became apparent as we headed west into the countryside. Firstly, the scenery is almost certainly magnificent. Secondly, I couldn't see any of it due to the thick fog that was enveloping everything apart from a few hundred metres of the road ahead! This afforded me plenty of time to play with my phone, and I stumbled across the website for Public Transport in Derbyshire, a real mecca for a timetable geek like me!

From this I was able to deduce that I had two much more interesting options when I arrived at Ashbourne, with a choice of departures at 10:35 on either a TM Travel bus on route 110 to Matlock, or a Bowers bus on a 42A to Buxton.

The first of these options was more appealing, as it would allow me to return to Derby in a triangle and still get back to Southampton in good time. It was also a slightly shorter journey - the Buxton bus would take nearly an hour and a half to get there and that length of journey tries my patience!

So I resolved I would catch the bus to Matlock, and almost inevitably that isn't what happened!

On arrival at what grandly calls itself Ashbourne Bus Station - a layby comprising three bus shelters - both the above mentioned buses were waiting, and as expected both were Solos. However, it quickly became apparent that there was to be some swapping of buses, and in fact the bus that was supposedly en route from Derby to Leek was actually going to transfer on to the Matlock route, and the bus that was already waiting in Ashbourne - which I assumed would be the 110 - was in fact going forward to Leek.

Presumably this is to cycle buses for maintenance etc - the 108 seems a long way from TM Travel's Sheffield heartland - but since this now meant that I would be staying on the same bus I decided that would be too boring, hence I decided to go to Buxton instead.

For my first trip on a Bowers bus I was delighted to be presented with a choice of three moquettes, all entirely clashing, but the driver was friendly and cheerful. Once again, three passengers were aboard as we pulled out.

There followed one of the most surreal and enchanting bus rides I can remember. Shortly after leaving Ashbourne, we plunged off down a narrow lane and for the next hour weaved our way around woodland and dales, through picturesque villages, up steep hills to magnificent summits and down again into precipitous valleys. At least I assume we did all these things, but the dense wall of fog kept it all secret from us. Occasionally the mist would clear enough to tease us with the merest glimpse of scenic wonder, only to close in again at the next bend.

Through it all the driver made careful but steady progress, guiding us through the gloom and picking our way past cars and horse boxes when they loomed suddenly out of the murky greyness. He displayed the skill of one who knew every inch of the roads, an assuredness honed from years of experience. And yet, suddenly, as we were nearing the end of the trip he stopped and checked with us that he had to take a particular right turn. Then he revealed that he had only ever driven the route once before! Nobody could begrudge him that moment of uncertainty - all of us who drive professionally have found ourselves in that situation - but it made all the more astounding the manner with which he had guided us through the dense fog up to that point!

Shortly before our arrival in Buxton we burst out of the mist into a clear sunny day, and for the last couple of miles we called at every stop, filling up with locals for the short ride into town who would have had no idea of our adventure in the fog.

Despite the frustration of being unable to see anything this was one of the most magical bus rides I can ever recall. I loved the sense of being a long way from anywhere, in our own little cocoon remote from the outside world. And of course I have the added joy of knowing that I will have to go back to experience the route again in clear conditions, when I can properly appreciate the surroundings!

Arrival in Buxton was just before 12:00 and our bus was allowed a brief rest before disappearing out of service - here it is (the one at the front) having just been joined by one of its sisters:

It was clear that having crossed so much of the Peak District, it made much more sense to pop out the other side than to hack back across to Derby, so my thoughts turned to onward transport. The train now became an option, but my preference was for one more bus ride - you see and experience so much more of local life riding on a bus.

Stockport seemed the obvious destination, with an hourly direct train link back to Southampton. transpeak has an annoying three hour gap heading north from Buxton, so skyline 199 - also from the trent barton stable as you can tell from the absence of capital letters - was the obvious choice. 12:15 from Buxton would get me to Stockport Bus Station at 13:25, just in time for a mad scramble up the hill to the railway station for a 13.36 train. Perfect. So of course it didn't happen!

By about 12:30, with no sign of skyline anywhere to be seen, I was bored. I also knew I had missed my connection and would therefore be on the 14:36 from Stockport. Had this been the plan all along I wouldn't have minded at all, but having set my heart on the 13:36 it was something of a let down to know that I had missed it.

I figured that, to be sure of at least getting the 14:36, I could give skyline until around 13:00 and then I would have to walk to the railway station. And then, while I was idly pondering the maps and departure boards at the bus stop, Macclesfield emerged!

Listed on the bus stop timetable was a 12:40 service 58 to Macclesfield. The map suggested it went through somewhere called the Cat & Fiddle, which stirred a distant memory from radio traffic reports in times of bad weather. Consulting the Derbyshire website, I could scarcely believe that compared to the seventy minute slog to Stockport, this option would have me on the West Coast Main Line in barely half an hour! And still in time to catch the 13:36 train one stop up the line!

I consider myself to have a good grasp of the geography of Britain, so I am ashamed that I had no real idea of just how close Buxton is to Macclesfield, and the outside world in general. I had not appreciated how much I would be cutting the corner by heading to Macclesfield rather than Stockport, and until this option bopped me on the nose Macclesfield had never entered my head as somewhere on the shortlist of places to visit! It certainly was not on the list of places I had expected to see when I walked out of my Derby hotel just three hours previously! And yet Macclesfield was the answer!

But Buxton wouldn't let me go without a fight. skyline eventually turned up twenty five minutes late, but I sneered at it with disdain as I waited for the now imminent service 58. Only the 58 didn't come! 12:40 came and went, 12:45, 12:50, 12:55 and still no sign. I was now resigned to a walk to the station to catch the train, and then the 14:36 from Stockport. Such a let down after such anticipation!

And then finally, just as I was about to give up and start walking, along it came! Another Bowers Solo, I boarded along with the two other waiting passengers, and then we sat there for five minutes while the driver had a phone conversation with his controller. He rang to alert him to the delay, but this turned into a lengthy debate about how it had happened and what could be done about it. None of which was getting us any closer to Macclesfield. But eventually we set off.

It was now 13:10, and I knew that my favoured train would be in Macclesfield at 13:49. I knew also that the bus journey would take half an hour and therefore I didn't have much time and I had no idea how to find Macclesfield station once I got there. So the scene was set for a nail-biting finale, but before any of that my breath was taken from me by the stunning scenery that lay around us as we climbed out of Buxton!

Normally I know when I'm going to be in for a scenic ride, and I set my anticipation levels accordingly. By contrast, I saw nothing to look forward to in the trip to Macclesfield. It felt like a cop out, shuffling sheepishly out of the side door of the High Peak. I was not prepared for the Cat and Fiddle!

What an amazing road, what a panorama, and all condensed into less than thirty minutes! What a surprising end to my bus travels for the day, and what a climax!

Before we got to the best bit, I was able to take this photo looking back over Buxton, from which you can see the northern extremity of the fog bank that I had endured for so much of the morning:

After the unexpected excitement of the Cat and Fiddle, our descent into Macclesfield took us right past the railway station (although in the best traditions of bus-rail integration in this country, it was kept as low profile as possible). So my connection was easy, I had had a great adventure and it was barely lunchtime!

The £15 upgrade to First Class was a no brainer and I enjoyed four hours of relaxed snobbery, cruising south in spacious, luxurious accommodation, reading my book and listening to the occasional despairing announcements from the Train Manager to the sardines in Standard Class, not to block the aisles or pile their luggage in the vestibules.

The Peak District fascinates me. It has some of the most dramatic scenery you will encounter in this country, but all in close proximity to real life. Distances are short, it is easy to cover a lot of ground in a short space of time, and especially for a Sunday the frequency of bus services is astonishingly good, with some really useful connections.

Although passenger numbers were modest on the buses I used, there were walkers and sightseers as well as locals. All the drivers I encountered were friendly and helpful.

All the ingredients are there for an amazing tourist product, yet the whole thing seems so much less than the sum of its parts. It seems to me to be crying out for a decently branded network, indeed the network is virtually already there, but if I wasn't a persistent transport geek I would never have worked out that stringing the 108, 42A and 58 together would get me from east to west in a morning, or that everything comes together in Ashbourne at 10:30. I still have no idea if there was a ticket that I could have bought that would have saved me buying three separate singles and given me the flexibility to go where I wanted. There certainly should be.

In my humble opinion the network cries out for some simplification, decent branding, ticketing and promotion, and surely the passenger numbers would go through the roof as they have done on Coasthopper in Norfolk or Jurassic CoastlinX53 in Dorset and Devon.

But despite that, I loved my morning bus adventure in the Peak District and I can't wait to be back!

Les is More

2011-11-16T22:26:00.001Z

While the bus industry counts many entertaining characters among its staff, the same is equally true of the customers. While the vast majority are polite, unassuming and go about their business with nothing more than a "good morning", "please" or "thank you", there are those who become part of folklore.

Meet Les.

One of our less well known activities is to operate the network of free buses into Sainsbury's at Ferndown on behalf of Xelabus, a commitment that allows us to think of ourselves as a Dorset operator at least on two days of the week! As you can see from the timetable this is a fairly complex network of five interworking local routes into the store.

Les is in charge of route SA4, not that anyone ever calls it that.

It's not clear by what process Les came to be in charge of SA4, although his military credentials suggest that he probably just lined up the other customers outside the store while waiting for the bus one day, and after a bit of square bashing claimed the title by default. But no-one messes with Les.

Les knows where everyone gets on. He stands near the front of the bus and keeps a note of who is travelling and who isn't. Most of the clientele is of a certain age and - despite falling into the same bracket himself - Les helps them on and off with their trolleys. Two trolleys in particular he keeps with him at the front of the bus, as he does not feel it is safe for them to be parked with their owners.

Les keeps the drivers in order, making it his business to show new ones the route and explain the stopping arrangements. Once the passengers and their shopping are loaded ready for the return journey, he decides when it is time to leave.

I met Les for the first time around a month ago, when I deputised for the regular part-timer we were using on the route one Wednesday. Les was both helpful and engaging, making sure that everyone got the service they expected while chatting away to me about his life and times. I think I scored points for recognising that his accent was from the East Midlands, and this led to a series of anecdotes about his upbringing around Melton Mowbray and subsequent army career.

Today we introduced a new driver to the Ferndown clan, as Martin is going to split his time between wooing his regular bunch of senior devotees on the S2, and wooing a whole new bunch of senior devotees in East Dorset.

Mostly it fell to me to show Martin the way, but when we arrived at Prunus Close on the SA4 all that changed. "Can I leave you to show him the ropes?" I enquired, and was met with a stern look and an assertive "well that's what I normally do" in response. I snuck to the back of the bus with my laptop and got more work done in a 25 minute tour of the back streets of Ferndown than I sometimes achieve in a whole day in the office!

I did interrupt my work long enough to take what passes for an action shot on the Sainsbury's bus...

Here we see Les in his rightful position at the helm, while in the background the door of yet another sheltered housing block is thrown open to yield our next intake of passengers. Inside the bus, the ladies model the latest in Ferndown hair fashion, but none are as smartly presented as Les's "bag for life", immaculately folded on the luggage rack.

All was not well today however. On arrival at the store Les revealed that it had been my job to count the number of passengers getting on, but as he had not briefed me on my responsibilities and I had failed to keep a tally, he was faced with the impossible task of deciding whether everyone was present for the return journey without knowing how many he had to count back on!

Moreover, there is a faint whiff of scandal in the air. It emerges that one of the passengers doesn't talk to Les, as he once offered to help her on with her trolley and she admonished him that she was quite capable of taking care of herself. A rift was thus created which simmers on in the background.

But there is no real doubt that Les is the hero of the SA4, and the route would be much duller without him!

Where?

2011-11-15T23:00:00.001Z

At Velvet we only employ the elite of PSV drivers, a premier band of experienced driving professionals equally at home doing laps of Velmore as reversing a coach up an Alp in whiteout conditions.

Or so we'd like to believe.....!

Today I found myself discussing a possible forthcoming one-off job to the town of Haslemere with two of our drivers. It would have been three, but we know how to play to our employees' individual strengths so we'd sent Steve off to get the teas.

Sadly, mention of the name of this Surrey town - a mere 40 miles away - drew blank looks from both my colleagues.

Not to be defeated, one of them pulled out his iPad and searched for the place on the map. Unfortunately he substituted a 'z' for the 's' and declared it to be "near Oxford". Leaving aside the question of whether the 30 mile distance between the Buckinghamshire village of Hazlemere and the dreaming spires counts as "near", left to his own devices he would have set off north in his bus and presumably spent the day scouring the suburbs of High Wycombe desperate to find some passengers.

The other driver present joined me in laughter at his colleague's schoolboy error. When the chuckling had subsided he thought about it for a moment, smiled as a moment of enlightenment arrived in his brain then declared, "Haslemere... That's in Herefordshire isn't it?"

Enquiry

2011-11-12T23:25:00.001Z

Me: Good afternoon, Velvet, Phil speaking, how may I help you?
Customer: Hello. I've got a doctor's appointment in Fryern at 1130. What time can I get a bus from Velmore?
Me: C2 at 1047, gets you there at 1113.
Customer: Okay. Isn't there a more direct one?
Me: The direct one would be the C1 leaving at 1117, but that doesn't get you there until 1133.
Customer: Oh no, that's no good, far too late for my appointment.
Me: Okay in that case it would need to be the C2.
Customer: So there's not another direct one after the C2 then?
Me: No, nothing before the 1117.
Customer: Right, so what time does that get there?
Me: As I said, it gets there at 1133.
Customer: Oh that's fine, I'll only be three minutes late for the appointment, I'll get that one!

Go figure....!?!?!

Sexing Up The Bus

2011-07-02T18:14:00.001+01:00

This picture accompanies today's Daily Telegraph travel supplement:

I have probably broken all sorts of laws by copying it and reproducing it here, but as I am using it to draw your attention to the fact that the article it accompanies is superb and required reading, hopefully the Telegraph and the photographer (Christopher Jones) will decide, on balance, not to sue me!

Normally when one reads about people using buses in mainstream media travel articles, it is a story of the writer's heroism in surviving a 24 hour ride upside down on the roof of a minibus hurtling along unmade roads across some dark and distant land, squashed between a pile of threadbare suitcases tied together with string, some locals (who always babble incomprehensibly but willingly share their food) and a few live chickens.

It is rare to find an article that is actually all about the delights of riding on buses, as a way of exploring majestic scenery and experiencing part of the local lifestyle. Today's Telegraph article does that superbly well, describing a route from Sandbanks to Plymouth using eight or nine of the country's most scenic bus routes.

Starting with two of my personal favourite routes, Wilts & Dorset's Purbeck Breezers from Sandbanks to Swanage and Swanage to Wareham, the trip continues with First's Jurassic CoastlinX53 to Exeter, thence along the South Devon coast to Teignmouth, Torquay, Paignton and Kingswear, and finally the one route that I have never explored but really must - First's route 93 from Dartmouth to Plymouth.

As a side note, while extolling the virtues of these routes it is only fair to make the point that the accessibility of some of these routes owes as much to the efforts of local authority officers (notably those of Devon County Council) as to the operators themselves.

The article describes the author's delight in discovering stunning scenery and imposing views in a way that is just impossible by any other form of transport. It also subtly makes the point that while the pace of bus travel may be a deterrent to some it forces one to slow down and appreciate the surroundings, and that is exactly the right way to approach this glorious region.

It is also pleasing to note an obvious appreciation of the skills of the drivers who ply these routes daily, and even manages a passing jibe at idiotic drivers' hours rules that deem that it it less safe to drive forty miles on one direction than to drive twenty miles one way then twenty miles back, and apparently more stressful to drive thirty two miles across rolling Dorset countryside than twenty miles across London!

The writer is one Andrew Gilligan, much better known for his political journalism, not least because it was he that reported the allegation that the Blair government had "sexed up" a dossier about Iraq's weapons capability.

He is probably thoroughly bored of "sexing up" jokes by now, and in my view he deserves nothing but praise for this article so it seems churlish to dredge up this old chestnut for the title of this blog post. However it does seem remarkably apt, and in exactly the same way that I smile and try to look slightly surprised when someone remarks that I look a bit like "you know, that one from Men Behaving Badly - that's it - Doc Martin!", hopefully he would have the good grace to look the other way while I regurgitate this particular expression one more time.

Anyway, enough of me waffling about it, read the article here!

A Beautiful Bedford

2011-05-28T00:08:00.001+01:00

For numerous reasons, we choose to outsource our maintenance to a local commercial vehicle workshop, Brenhaul Commercial Services. The business is owned and managed by two friends, Robert and Shaun, and they sprang into life just a few months before us in mid-2007, when they bought the company out from Rob’s father.

Our relationship with them has become very close as we have grown up together and they are as much friends as they are suppliers.

Their own background is in trucks, and most of the rest of their business involves providing maintenance services to truck and van operators. As an aside they do also have a MOT testing station for light vehicles and would be delighted to MOT your car!

As a result of our relationship with them we get to mix with plenty of colleagues in the road haulage industry and it is fascinating to get to know some of these guys, to talk to them and to understand their passion for the lorries – much of which has rubbed off on me!

In a separate development, over the last three years my friend and co-founder of Velvet, Taz and I have obtained our LGV driving licences for both rigid and articulated lorries. We mostly did this as a pastime to fill some time and give us another string to our bow when we were starting Velvet, and also to help fulfil our fascination for driving big vehicles.

I have never used my LGV licence for genuine commercial purposes, but it does mean that occasionally I get to play with other people’s lorries, shunting them round the estate or taking them for road tests (usually for my benefit rather than that of the truck!)

Generally these are run of the mill tractor units that are commonplace on today’s motorways, such as the Volvo FH or the odd DAF, but I had the opportunity today to sample something really quite amazing.

Another of Brenhaul’s clients is Ringwood Brewery and their vehicles are a common sight at the Eastleigh workshop. They have recently acquired this 1951 Bedford OLB previously associated with Wychwood Brewery in Oxfordshire.

Their intention is to maintain this vehicle in roadworthy condition for promotional purpose and occasionally the odd delivery, and accordingly it was at Brenhaul today for inspection. They were kind enough to offer me a drive and I wasn’t going to refuse!

The first and most striking impression is the cramped nature of the cab. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of creature comforts, but I was expecting to be able to get in! However it was quite some time before I managed to perform enough human origami on myself to fold myself into the tiny space between the back window and the steering wheel.

I set off for a short drive round Eastleigh, turning plenty of heads among the Friday night crowds as I took an impromptu drive through the bus station, and I have to say the vehicle was a delight to drive. Delight that is, in the sense of being challenging, interesting and very rewarding. Not in the sense of being easy, comfortable or relaxing!

The brake pedal was positioned fiendishly high up so that I had to contort my knee up through the steering wheel to be able to get my foot on to it, and every time I steered right I bashed my elbow on the window sill. The crash gearbox was surprisingly easy, although I only have a 1939 Bristol K and a few 1956 Lodekkas to compare it with.

Huge fun though, and I can’t wait to drive it again. If they need a delivery driver to take it back to Ringwood, they know where to find me!

Triple Darts

2011-05-22T00:20:00.001+01:00

Today was a very exciting day for us, even if the reality didn’t quite live up to the promise!

We have recently acquired three low-floor single deckers from Southdown PSV, these being two Dart SLFs - V392 SVV and W107 RNC – and a Super Pointer Dart, W554 JVV.

Although we did the deal early in April, and 392 and 107 entered service a couple of weeks ago, 554 was still running in Southdown’s own fleet when we agreed to buy it, so its arrival was delayed while they sourced a replacement.

554 emerged from repaint at Qualiti Conversions yesterday and today therefore marked the first day that we were able to allocate all three for service, with Velvet C having a 100% Dart allocation for the first time ever.

This photo shows all three lined up at Barton Park this morning waiting to take up service, accompanied by Solo 221 (YJ55 YGN) awaiting its duty on Velvet S2. The other Solo is having a few days’ holiday in the workshop and was therefore missing from the action.

The Darts have been acquired as a result of a commercial decision to double the frequency of Velvet A to half hourly from 6th June. Commercial service improvements are not entirely common in these doom-laden times, but there are sound reasons for making this move.

Our original intention had been to replace the Olympian/Spectra step-entrance double act currently seen on Velvet A with low-floor double deckers on a ‘one for one’ basis. We had looked at a number of examples of Dennis Tridents and Volvo B7TLs in various states of refurbishment, but it just didn’t feel right.

It is hard to find an engineer with too many good words to say about either product, and the poorer fuel consumption of both would have presented us with a hefty increase in running costs before we could even think about revenue growth, which would have been at best marginal in the absence of any actual service improvements.

Somewhere in the middle of our tour of low-floor ‘deckers I was toying with the thought that we must be able to do something more exciting. In particular I felt that if there was a way to achieve a 100% increase in headline frequency on the main Hedge End – Eastleigh section with only a 50% increase in resources overall, this would bring the revenue growth that we would need to achieve viability well within the bounds of possibility. The other significant attraction is that this enables the use of single deckers with much better fuel consumption, so the cost increase is nowhere near as great as people might imagine when one talks about doubling frequency.

Eventually I was able to come up with a draft timetable that provided for a half hourly service between Eastleigh and Hedge End, splitting into hourly loops serving Oaklands Estate and Botley respectively.

We have seen significant patronage growth across our network over the last year in particular, and soaring fuel prices have caused motorists to explore the alternatives. Our concern was that an hourly timetable would never offer enough flexibility to entice them from their vehicles, whereas with a half hourly timetable if you miss one, time passes fairly quickly until the next one.

All these factors converged to convince us that this was the right move to make and the right time to do it, and we are now up to our necks in publicity, scheduling and other tasks associated with the change, which has hurtled towards us at light speed and is now only two weeks away.

The three Darts – along with a second Optare Spectra that we recently acquired from North Somerset Coaches on a rather opportune basis – will allow us to cascade out three of the older double deckers, thus improving our age profile and image in the process. Obviously we still see the Darts as a stepping stone to a happy future time when we can buy state-of-the-art new vehicles, but realistically for a three year old start-up company we are going as fast as we dare, bearing in mind that we must live within our means and not risk the crazy expansion that has put paid to other ambitious young companies.

The next month will be especially busy for us however, with the increase in Velvet A coinciding with a number of special event commitments, so it is likely to be July before we can release the redundant double deckers.

From 6th June however, the normal plan will be for Velvet C to be a mixture of Darts and Solo, with the A being a mixture of DAFs and Darts, with one single decker spare. It is a relief to get the DAFs off the C. They are not ideal buses for that route, being quite sluggish and cumbersome, whereas the C really calls for nimbler, more manoeuvrable types to nip round the estate roads. The DAFs are far better suited to the A which was, after all, the route for which we originally bought them at the outset!

The remaining double deckers will normally be allocated for peak work only, but will obviously provide back-up for the main day services to cover maintenance requirements, as they do now.

This is therefore an incredibly exciting time for us and we really can’t wait to get stuck in to the improved A service. Today’s opportunity to allocate all three ‘new’ Darts for the first time was therefore an important milestone.

However, I did say at the start that the day did not quite live up to its promise, and just occasionally the facts spoil a good story! The last Dart out was 107 and this made it no further than Velmore on its first trip – less than ten minutes out of Eastleigh – before succumbing to an air leak.

So we will have to wait a little longer for the experience of all three Darts completing the day together, but it will take more than that little hiccup to curb our excitement!

Chris Day

2011-04-28T18:30:00.002+01:00

I was very sad this week to learn of the death of my first ever bus industry boss, Chris Day. Back in 1991 when I was looking for a school summer holiday job before going to uni, Chris was Commercial Manager of a local bus and coach company called Buffalo Travel, and he gave me my first break.

Prior to that Chris had been Traffic Manager of an Aylesbury-based bus company, Red Rover, which operated routes within that town and into the surrounding areas and he was very proud of his time there. During his tenure at Buffalo Chris set up a new small business based in Aylesbury, in partnership with a friend. The chosen name, Red Rose Travel, and red and yellow livery clearly harked back to the days of Red Rover.

Buffalo had started life in the 1970s as a more traditional coach operation, providing school and works contracts, tours, excursions and private hire under the auspices of proprietors Tim and Ursula Cecil. Deregulation in 1986 had provided the springboard for the sudden and dramatic expansion into local services and this had prompted Chris’s arrival.

Chris threw himself wholeheartedly into developing an extensive network of bus routes at Buffalo and the company’s network spanned the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, all operated from the one depot in Flitwick. Although most were tendered routes, many were Monday to Saturday hourly or two hourly services, thus creating quite an intensive network providing work for around twenty vehicles. This dwarfed the half dozen or so coaches still operating the traditional business.

The fleet was a very eccentric mixture of types, the company seemingly priding itself on owing at least one of every type ever made. This did not however apply to Bristols – Tim would not entertain these in the fleet. Tim did however have a strong liking for Volvos and that has rubbed off on me, remaining my first choice chassis to this day.

At the more modern end, we had two conventional Plaxton Pointer-bodied Dennis Darts for newly acquired route 311 between Watford and London Colney – at its nearest point 25 miles from the depot. My particular favourite was L133 HVS, an Alexander Strider bodied Volvo B10B bought new for route 89 between Hitchin and Henlow Camp. I remember driving it when brand new and being utterly seduced by the smoothness, power and engine note! Last year I rescued it from impending death at the back of Arriva's Luton depot, where they had robbed it of most important parts but were extremely helpful in enabling me to take it off their hands, and the vehicle is now parked in our own yard in Eastleigh as a future preservation project – if I ever get round to it!

Other favourites of mine were four Plaxton Derwent bodied Volvo B10Ms and three East Lancs EL2000 rebodied B10Ms, that scored nothing for looks, but were very enjoyable to drive. Also within the fleet we had Merc 811 minibuses, a few Iveco 49.10s, some weird and frankly dreadful Lex Maxeta Bedford minibuses, some almost equally dreadful Leyland Swifts, an AEC something-or-other, a few old Bedford coaches, several Volvo B58 coaches – most of which were to what would be called ‘dual purpose’ spec, coach bodies but fitted with a ticket machine and used almost exclusively on local services.

We also had some newer B10M coaches for coach work with Caetano Alpha and Algarve bodies, latterly a few Scania coaches, a few Fleetlines of various pedigrees for schools including a raft of ex-London DMS’s, Leyland Olympians, Dennis Dominators, a Dennis Javelin midicoach, an open-top Fleetline that would occasionally be sent out on school contracts, with an umbrella wedged above the driver’s head in the cab if it was raining……

Not bad variety for a fleet of around thirty!

To be fair to Chris he would tear his hair out at Tim’s scattergun approach to vehicle acquisition, and in particular his habit of buying cheap old coaches and spending so much doing them up that it often seemed cheaper to have bought a newer model in the first place. And to be fair to both of them, the best of the bus fleet was easily as good as anything else around at the time, and the company had made far greater strides than most other independents in establishing itself as a ‘proper’ bus company.

Much of this was down to Chris’s passion for customer service. Although the company itself seemed like a bit of a roller coaster ride sometimes, Chris was determined that no mileage should be lost unless completely unavoidable and as a result we ran a far more reliable service than many outsiders might have imagined. I always detected a certain air of superiority from our neighbouring big operators Luton & District and United Counties, which rather ignored the fact that we ran a much more reliable service than they did!

Indeed one of Chris’s stipulations, which I have carried with me to this day, is that we would always answer phone enquiries about any operators’ services, on the basis that if people felt they had received a helpful service from us – even if they were not able to use us on that occasion – they might come back to us in the future. And besides, he would argue, it was important for the image of public transport that we weren’t seen to pass the buck, if it was something we could help with. We would frequently field calls from disgruntled customers of the big operators unable to get through on their enquiry lines.

Chris was also quite clear in his expectation that our drivers should provide a helpful and friendly service at all times, and would despair if he became aware of any individual failing to come up to standard. Most drivers were very good but there was the occasional exception, and Chris was withering in his contempt for anyone not doing the job properly.

Chris’s failings included a complete lack of attention to detail. As a keen young commercial trainee, I was completely absorbed in the detail of fares, timetables, duty compilation, publicity and data analysis. This was the stuff of my dreams and I thrived on it. Our schedules were always efficient and well presented and we always had up-to-date publicity – I even designed a network map on an early equivalent of Microsoft Paint. I would spend hours on WordPerfect 5.1 tweaking our timetable designs to make them easy to read. You always had the sense with Chris that if there wasn’t someone like me there looking after the detail, it would either receive cursory attention or not get done at all. Sometimes I had the sense that this was a bit of a problem with the Red Rose operation.

Chris was also incapable of getting up early. His working day rarely started before 11, and often closer to 12, when one of my first duties of his day would be to drive to Tesco and get his lunch.

I remember one Saturday morning I was doing control – often tricky in the days before I had a PSV licence – and after a few drivers called in sick, I was left with no choice but to ring Chris at about 7am, to ask him to come in to drive a duty. It’s fair to say it was a phone call I was dreading, and to say he was unhappy would be an understatement, but of course the show must go on, so in he came for a 0900 start.

It turned out to be a momentous day. That afternoon I ventured over to Milton Keynes, where Chris was driving on the 98 route out to the Kingston Centre. I rode with him on his last trip, after which he would be returning dead to Flitwick, and in Central Milton Keynes we were approached by a lady who needed to get to one of the villages south east of the city. It was well off our route, but there were no other buses going there, so Chris insisted that we take her, so we went well out of our way to drop her off after leaving the Kingston terminus as Chris would not see her left stranded anywhere. On the way back to Flitwick Chris asked if I fancied learning to drive a bus, and my life was complete!

Indeed, I had three driving lessons with Chris before doing my formal training. First time out, we took a B10M Derwent on a round trip to Luton, and I was filled with pride when Chris asked me if I was sure I hadn’t driven a bus before. I have no idea whether he was sincere or not, but it boosted my confidence through the roof. Second trip out, I drove Leyland Olympian A698 EAU to Aylesbury and we drove round the various housing estates stopping at frequent apparently random intervals, so that Chris could dive into a block of flats, or down an alleyway, to drop off the wage packets for his Red Rose drivers. Third time out, we took Bedford coach GTM 155T – my first outing with a manual gearbox – to Hemel Hempstead, had a McDonalds then drove back. No such thing as a boring trip round the block!

Chris subsequently worked at Seamarks in Luton, although this proved to be an unhappy experience, and then left to concentrate full time on Red Rose. I did some early Red Rose timetables for him, and indeed did Motts Travel’s Fuel Duty Rebate claim one year, but never really got involved with his other activities. After I left Buffalo and moved on to Southern Vectis we lost touch, and only met up a couple of times. Needless to say, I regret this now!

The same was true of his private life – this was never really up for discussion, and was closely guarded. I knew that he was a Samaritan, but that was about it. There was always the sense that there were subjects that were best not spoken about, and I never pried.

As a mentor early in my career, I couldn’t have wished for better than Chris. He imbued me with the principles of good customer service, and running the mileage no matter what, that have helped earn Velvet such a good reputation today. If a customer had a complaint, he would leave no stone unturned to find a resolution that was acceptable to them. He was always enjoyable company and as a boss, I would have done anything for him.

If ever there was an unsung hero in my opinion it was Chris, and he is deserving of the highest tribute. May he rest in peace!

Bustival and Botleyval

2011-04-19T00:08:00.000+01:00

By kind of invitation of my alma mater Southern Vectis, we took Ophelia (L711 ALJ) to Bustival yesterday. Our driver Martin and his family collected the bus from Eastleigh and picked me up in Southampton (thus giving me an extra hour in bed, thanks Martin!) and we headed over on the 0800 ferry.

Bustival is an annual event organised by Vectis to showcase a range of buses, past and present, in the context of a family fun day, and in doing so cement their role as part of the island's community. The location at the headquarters of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway makes for an excellent setting, and around 25 vehicles were in evidence during the course of the day.

I had never been before, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day. Apart from the chance to catch up with former colleagues, which is always welcome, it was nice to see loads of families enjoying the buses.

For me, this is what bus gatherings should be all about. I'm afraid I can't get excited about more traditional bus rallies, with the buses lined up in sterile ranks and the indignant shout of "oi, you're in my shot" whenever one dares go near one of the exhibits.

What are buses about if not people, and the beauty of Bustival was that as well as the enthusiasts who are made to feel welcome, people who don't normally think too much about buses get the chance to get close to them and talk to the people at the sharp end. From my own experience of chatting to visitors aboard Ophelia (which, if I say so myself, looked stunning) and overhearing others, many were pleasantly surprised by the standard and presentation of the vehicles.

And more importantly, the next generation of bus users was able to enjoy themselves, exploring the vehicles and getting into the cab for a 'drive'. The fact that many of these kids were as enthusiastic about 'driving' the 25th vehicle as they were the first, was delightful to see.

So I take my hat off to Southern Vectis for organising a brilliant day, and I hope those involved in the organisation found it as rewarding and fulfilling as we did.

Here are a few shots...

Meanwhile, a mere 15 miles or so away as the seagull flies, Brijan Tours were doing a very similar thing at their depot in Botley. A line-up of ancient and modern buses, supplemented with family entertainment, provided what was reportedly another very enjoyable day out. Once again it's the kind of event where families are equally as at home as the enthusiasts.

We were represented by J841 TSC, taken along by Relief Controller Matt and his unofficial PA Big Kev along with various other special guests.

Their event raises funds for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, and as far as I'm aware they haven't yet announced how much they have raised, but let's hope it's a great total!

A rubbish repair

2011-04-02T13:33:00.000+01:00

It is a well-known fact within the bus industry that ticket wallets are the most versatile tool in the engineer's armoury. Among many less reputable operators, and even the odd reputable one, it is amazing how many faults can apparently be repaired by the careful use of a ticket wallet. Loose panels, insecure flaps, rattling windows, protruding edges, broken handles..... the list is endless! Frankly I am amazed the humble ticket wallet has never won any awards, such is its adaptability to almost any problem.

However, now it seems that the wider world is waking up to the usefulness of this incredible device, as I discovered this morning when I spotted a rubbish bin in Eastleigh Bus Station that clearly did not want to stay shut of its own accord...

What will we see next? Ticket wallets on sale in B&Q and Homebase? TV programmes exploring how people's dream home improvement projects can be tackled with a few random screwdrivers, some blue roll, a ticket roll and a few bempak wallets? We could be on to something big here.....!

Mistaken Identity

2011-03-24T14:40:00.000Z

The outside world seems to be having some trouble working out who I am and what I do! After the conference in London mentioned in my last post, where I was unexpectedly put in charge of East Yorkshire Motor Services, it has been the turn of Bus and Coach Professional magazine to take a wrong turning. In their most recent issue they ran a story on mobile phone ticketing, as part of which they reflected our own experiences in this area, having spoken to me on the telephone a few weeks ago.

They illustrated the story with a picture of me, shown here:

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed two things.

Firstly, it isn't me. It is of course my great friend Alex Hornby, Commercial Director of trent barton and erstwhile Operations Manager of bluestar, which of course lends added irony to the photo mix-up because we were at one stage on opposite sides of a so-called bus war!

Secondly - and this is the bit that caused great hilarity at Velvet HQ - Alex is actually wearing his name badge in the photo! So you might think that it would not require too much editorial diligence to spot that something was amiss!

Nevertheless, I'll let them off since it was a decent article about mobile ticketing, and there are far worse people to be confused with!

On my soapbox

2011-03-21T10:15:00.002Z

An unusual event last week was the opportunity to take part in a conference in London. Entitled “The Big Bus Debate: The Future of Local Bus Service Delivery”, this was a commercial event organised by the Waterfront Conference Company, at which a number of key industry figures addressed the question of the future of bus service provision in the context of changes in public policy, with associated funding issues, and changes in market expectations.

It is not my intention to give a blow-by-blow account of the conference here – the trade magazines were well represented and I am sure the event will be well reported, but it was an enjoyable and interesting day.

My role was to take part in a panel of five speakers discussing the consequences of the government’s localism agenda, although in fact the discussion was far more wide-ranging than that. Also on the panel was one of the industry’s most respected figureheads, Peter Shipp, Chairman and Chief Executive of EYMS Group – one of the largest surviving independents. Due to a clerical error, I too was listed in the programme as Chairman and Chief Executive of EYMS Group, much to his chagrin and the cause of a great deal of banter during the day. I can assure him I am happy with my lot in life and would not wish to usurp him from his rightful and well-earned position!

The other representatives on the panel were Jonathan Bray of PTEG, Gavin Booth of Bus Users UK and Mike Cooper, Managing Director of Arriva Bus. The discussion was lively and interesting with a range of questions from the floor, but the one that seemed to me most pertinent came from the conference chairman, John Owen of UK Bus Awards and retired ex-Managing Director of Thamesdown Transport.

In response to a comment from Mike Cooper in his opening remarks that Arriva enjoys 91% satisfaction rating among its customers, John asked why it should be the case that the industry continues to see slow decline or only marginal growth and struggles so badly to attract new customers, when satisfaction ratings among existing users are so much higher than one would see in many industries.

I think this question goes to the heart of why the bus industry struggles sometimes to do itself justice, and also why we started Velvet in the first place back in 2007. My belief has always been that the industry as a whole – with honourable exceptions - fails to understand customer service, and is complacent about the level of service it provides.

Inevitably, at the strategic policy level, it is necessary to talk in terms of big numbers – we have roundly one million passenger journeys per annum on our buses, the industry as a whole has around five billion passenger journeys per annum, so just a one per cent increase or decrease is a cool fifty million journeys either way!

However what people sometimes forget is that those millions of passenger journeys are actually millions of individual human beings, all with their own individual set of values, beliefs and perceptions and all with their own individual reasons for travelling. Each will have their own triggers in terms of what will make them want to travel more, and what will make them travel less. And many of them will be regular travellers – a typical commuter might travel to work 250 days in the year, so if you upset one person you lose five hundred passenger journeys at a stroke!

On the whole, the industry does a pretty good job of getting the buses out. Collectively, we run the vast majority of the miles that we’re supposed to run, and the vast majority of them are at about the right time. But in too many places it seems that this is enough, and the attention to detail is frightening.

Yet it is that attention to detail that makes the difference between people travelling by bus or not. Will the driver be friendly, or will they be made to look a fool if they ask a simple question? How will they know what the fare will be, or when to get off? If something goes wrong how will they know about it, and what will the company do to put it right?

I see so many examples of service failing at the very detailed level. These rarely appear in statistics, but the journey to or from work can be a very stressful experience for people, and if the experience isn’t good on the ground, they may try it a few times but as soon as they can find an alternative they will.

One of my particular pet hates is buses running late, being allowed to continue to run late through the day with no intervention to put things right. Most people accept that delays can occur, but they won’t understand why a delay at 09.00 hrs should be responsible for two buses running in convoy at midday, yet these things happen all the time.

And the key issue when looking at satisfaction statistics is that existing users often have different expectations to new users. In many cases – whether we like it or not – our existing customers are travelling with us because they have no choice. They have got used to the devil they know, and very often they’ll put up with service that I would regard as being unacceptable, just because for them it’s the norm.

So if you ask them whether they are satisfied, they will almost certainly say yes, and in that sense a figure of 91% is something to be genuinely happy about. But that certainly doesn’t mean that someone who is not used to the idiosyncracies of bus travel, perhaps has higher expectations and certainly may need more help and guidance, will give you the same response.

It remains my opinion that the whole industry needs to raise its game in this area. Devolve responsibility for service delivery as close to the front line as you dare – give drivers and controllers the responsibility and initiative to deal with problems and take pride in doing so, and they will pleasantly surprise you. Give them the right support and back-up from the centre, but let them do what they’re good at.

I would never claim that Velvet is perfect – we have plenty of areas where we can improve – but the feedback from our customers time and time again is that they find our services friendly, reliable and easy to use. The reward has been very satisfying patronage growth on our key routes for two successive years, but we’re not doing anything amazing – just giving the drivers to opportunity to go out and give the customers a great service, and trying to get the attention to detail right.

As you may have noticed this is a bit of a soapbox issue for me, and in that sense I am pleased that the discussion last Thursday certainly brought the issue to the fore!

The passage of time

2011-03-16T12:25:00.000Z

One of our double deckers has had a short holiday at a diesel specialist in rural East Hampshire this week, so that they could investigate its tendency to smoke heavily. They have actually done a very good job.

The garage staff were very friendly and helpful but not exactly hurried. The guy who looked after us gave us a long, detailed account of what they had done, while in the background a couple of fitters shuffled about the workshop in a fairly leisurely fashion. Eventually our man went off to write out the bill. He was gone about ten minutes. Then one of the fitters popped his head into reception and said "he says sorry to keep you waiting, he'll be back directly." A further ten minutes passed while nothing happened. Eventually he returned, we did the business and left.

While we were waiting I couldn't help noticing the calendar behind the desk in reception. It is the best possible illustration that time moves slowly in this part of the world. Here, they don't measure their time in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months......

BSOGged down

2011-03-06T20:11:00.000Z

I should be getting ready for this year’s BSOG audit right now. But I’m not!

I’ve worked out that I have either been directly involved in preparing, or responsible for the BSOG claim for whichever company I’ve been in residence at, for each of the last twenty years. Apart from anything else, this makes me feel positively old! It is also one of the less inspiring accolades of which one can boast.

For those who are mystified by the initials BSOG, it is code for fuel duty rebate. Bus companies are allowed to reclaim a portion of the tax they pay on fuel for running local bus services, but given the huge sums of public money involved, it is both inevitable and right that the claim has to be carefully constructed to comply with detailed rules.

For most of those twenty years this rebate has been known as Fuel Duty Rebate. This explained clearly and concisely exactly what it was, which is presumably why it had to be renamed. A few short years ago the government of the day decided that it would be much better for all to be concerned if it were to be renamed Bus Service Operators’ Grant, even though nothing else about it changed.

Conspiracy theorists at the time suggested that the renaming was the first step along the road to abolition, on the basis that abolishing something called Bus Service Operators’ Grant was unlikely to find its way on to the public radar as being something worthy of sympathy. This theory didn’t really wash with me, as I couldn’t really see why abolishing something called Fuel Duty Rebate would be any more likely to cause the public to rush out on to the streets in our support – in fact possibly quite the opposite!

However, there have been numerous reviews and theories and discussions and debates throughout my twenty years in the industry, predicting the demise of the grant and speculating as to how it may be replaced. Much of the discussion has centred around the possibility of a “per passenger” incentive payment, although opponents have argued that this would work in favour or urban services to the detriment of rural services (and then other critics have questioned whether that would be such a bad thing, and so on…)

The upshot of it all, for the moment at least, is that nothing much is changing – for the moment at least. My own view is that this is probably because the alternatives all have so many flaws and loopholes that this particular area of public expenditure is firmly in the “too difficult” box. The government has said it will cut the rate of BSOG (currently 43p per litre) by 20% in April 2012, but given the scathing cuts to many parts of the public purse, this is arguably at the less radical end of possible outcomes!

The absence of any change means that I can look forward to a few more years of BSOG claims at least!

My first involvement was at my first ever bus industry posting, Buffalo Travel in Bedfordshire, which I joined at the tender age of eighteen in July 1991. After a few weeks of inputting the numbers from several years’ backlog of Setright waybills into a spreadsheet on one of several green screen Apricot 286 PCs in the office, I was deemed to know what I was doing with computers and before long I was doing scheduling, rota preparation (including the infamous occasion when I caused more than 50% of the drivers to resign within 24 hours), ticket machine programming and publicity, among many other tasks.

My boss at the time was the Commercial Manager, Chris Day. I learned huge amounts from him, most of it good, and to this day he remains one of the greatest influences on my career. He went off to run Red Rose Travel in Aylesbury and I haven’t spoken to him for years but he is right up there among the best of them for me.

However, my arrival suited him down to the ground because I was the ideal recipient of all the tasks he didn’t really fancy. This suited me as well because I wanted to learn, and all I had to do in exchange was toddle off to the local supermarket in his car at lunchtime and buy his sandwich and Belgian Bun!

I suspect the Fuel Duty Rebate claim had been and gone for 1991, so my first involvement was probably with the 1992 claim. It has followed my round every year since. In one of my Buffalo years, I even ended up doing the number work for Mott’s Travel’s claim, so I must have been doing something right. Of course as I graduated to more illustrious jobs in bigger companies, there were people within my team to do the actual legwork, but it was always under my auspices. Once Velvet was up and running I had to get used to doing it all again myself!

The process was the same then as it is now. Before the start of each claim year you submit an estimate predicting how many kilometres you expect to run, and the Department for Transport work out a payment based on this, divide it into four and send you money on account every three months.

After the claim year finishes, you work out how many kilometres you actually did run, then the DfT reconciles this with what it has paid you on account and depending on the result either pays you a bit more or asks for some money back!

The claim process is actually quite simple, but very intricate and involves lots and lots of detailed calculations and record-keeping.

I adore the spreadsheet work – I have an unhealthy fascination with spreadsheets – so that part of the process is no problem. However, what surprises many people is that despite my normal chaotic lack of organisation with paperwork, my BSOG files and records are always in pristine condition! To some extent it’s the fact that you have to have your claim auditted by proper accountants, to some extent it must just be professional pride, but for whatever reason my BSOG claims are always spot on!

Every year of Velvet’s existence, the audit has taken less than half a day, because the accountant has found everything to be in order.

In our first year, the DfT sent their inspector in – they reserve the right to check up on anyone’s records at any time – and as a new operator they wanted to fire a shot across our bows as well as offering any help we may need understanding the process. I was told to expect a two day visit, but he was gone within three hours and then wrote to us confirming that everything was as it should be.

This year’s audit visit is on Thursday, and as usual at this stage I’m feeling a bit behind the pace. However, it’s Sunday evening and that’s the only time I don’t have any buses on the road so I’m inclined to relax a bit. I know the work will all get done over the next couple of days, so after writing about it instead of doing it, I’m off to the pub for a bit!

I can’t find any pictures that help to illustrate a story about BSOG, so here’s a picture of a giraffe instead!

Into the wild...

2011-03-01T23:07:00.000Z

We’re very excited at the moment, because we’ve just registered our new service to Marwell Wildlife, which starts on Good Friday and runs every Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday until early September.

This new route – imaginatively called route M – has been put together in partnership with Marwell themselves, and also the Three Rivers Community Rail Partnership, both of whom are providing funding and support with publicity etc, although the commercial risk lies with us.

The service is another example of the benefits of building long-term relationships, and follows a number of discussions over the last few years aimed at establishing possibilities.

My own involvement with Marwell started shortly after my arrival at Solent Blue Line in 2004, when we agreed to provide service 200 on a commercial basis. This linked Parkway Station, Eastleigh Bus Station and Marwell with three outward journeys in the morning and three afternoon returns – a very similar timetable to that of the M in fact.

This led to a novel photo-opportunity with Boomer the Ostrich, but sadly this was not enough to stimulate sufficient demand to make the service viable.

We replaced the 200 with a scaled down effort, diverting certain journeys on the F, but unsurprisingly these failed to take off and were eventually withdrawn.

Nevertheless the aspiration to serve Marwell with a sustainable route never waned and discussions continued both during my latter days at Bluestar and subsequently in the Velvet era.

The Three Rivers team subsequently also appeared on the scene, demonstrating their desire to provide useful links from local rail stations to nearby visitor attractions.

Last year One Community Transport provided a service, free of charge to the user, which carried some respectable loads. They did a good job, but perhaps they suffered from not being seen as an established bus operator and awareness of the service was not as great as it could have been.

Nevertheless they put a huge amount of effort into making the route work, for which they deserve high commendation, and this has helped paved the way for this year’s development.

Although we will be charging fares, we hope that many more people will take advantage of the service as we are able to spread the word much more widely through our established publicity network, and of course Marwell and Three Rivers will be able to open up many other promotional avenues.

On the subject of marketing I’m not sure if our contacts at Marwell were amused or bemused when I pointed out that a number of our staff like dressing up, and will be quite happy to parade the streets in animal costumes for a few days before the launch! The big excitement at Marwell this spring is the opening of their new cheetah enclosure, so we need to find Karl a cheetah costume by early April. Any suggestions gratefully received!

Obviously it would be ideal if the route could also run on weekdays, especially during school holidays, but this is a bit beyond everyone’s budget for the moment. However, the advantage of routes that appeal mostly to discretionary users is that you can quickly get into a virtuous circle of increasing patronage bringing improved service leves, which in turn generates more patronage which in turn leads to even more service improvements and so on.

The highest profile example of this must be Coasthopper – a wildly successful partnership between Norfolk Green and Norfolk County Council, and although we are working on a much smaller scale it shows what can be done. With the benefit of the funding as a safety net, we see this year’s service as a starting point from which we can move forward in future years.

My own attitude to this project is helped by the fact that I love going to meetings at Marwell. ‘Reception’ is effectively the admission desk, and the offices are at the other end of the park.

It is the only place I have ever attended a meeting where the directions to the meeting room have included the instruction, “turn left at the rhinos!”

I was hoping to conclude the story and illustrate this point with a picture of some rhinos, but sadly I couldn’t find one. So instead here’s a picture of Matt, Martin and Simon arriving at work….

Going Down The Pan

2011-02-28T22:15:00.000Z

A little piece of Hampshire bus heritage passed into history today!

I first visited Gang Warily as a Southern Vectis Management Trainee in 1995. I had been despatched to the mainland for a week, to study the mainland operations of the Vectis group. I think the idea was that I would be so horrified at the squalid accommodation and cavalier working practices that I would rush back to the Island screaming for mercy and never ever leave. Instead it gave me an enduring fascination for Solent Blue Line that never left me.

I could write a book about that week, and at some point I might wheel out one or two of the more repeatable stories. But little did I realise, as I stood with Inspector Wally Pearce surveying the swamp that passed for a Hythe outstation, that one day I would be able to call the toilet block my own!

The story of how the portacabin that housed the Gang Warily staff toilets ended up in the Velvet yard is known only to a few people, and although there is nothing to hide it had probably better remain that way. Nevertheless, when the offer of a free portable building was made, we were more than happy to benefit from Go South Coast’s generosity. We had visions of gutting the inside and creating a controller’s office and our new prized possession was duly installed at the back of the yard.

Our enthusiasm waned fairly quickly once we realised the condition of the interior. We maybe hadn’t given enough thought to the previous use to which this unit had been put, but one Sunday Karl and I decided to begin the conversion process by demolishing the interior. As we hacked through the old toilets with axes and hammers, the sickening stench of raw human sewage burst forth from the exposed pipes.

We quickly came to the conclusion that our potential office accommodation would never amount to anything more than a health hazard!

But that was two years ago or more, and since then the disused toilet block has sat abandoned and forelorn, in a state of partial demolition, while we failed to get round to do anything about it. Plans for its removal were many, ranging from the civilised approach of lifting the whole thing intact on to the back of a low loader – the kind of plan I would espouse – through to the approach favoured by our erstwhile controller Ant among others, of pulverising the entire building into a thousand tiny pieces and then carting away the ruins. However, for one reason or another none of these plans ever came to fruition, and the Poobox (as it came to be affectionately known) stubbornly resisted the inevitable demise.

This picture shows the building looking sorry for itself but largely intact, as it approached its final days…

Finally however, our present-day controller Karl and his partner-in-crime Steve could bear it no longer and persuaded me that violence was the only option! Karl organised a giant skip and this finally arrived today. In this photo you can see Steve, flanked by Paul C and Simon, struggling to conceal their excitement at the imminent death of the Poobox! Or perhaps they think we’ve bought a new open-top bus….

Then it was down to business, and before long Steve and Karl were tearing the building limb from limb….

And finally, with our portacabin reduced to a pulp, it was time to contemplate loading the ruins into the waiting skip….

Tomorrow the skip will be collected, we will have more room to park buses, but a stalwart of the Hampshire bus scene will be gone, never to return. And with it go some deeply ingrained memories, and a few gallons of raw sewage!

Fine Romanse

2011-02-23T00:56:00.000Z

Public authorities often have a very dry, formal, rather boring style of communication. While correct and professional, sometimes you wish they would lighten up a bit! ROMANSE is the organisation that carries out traffic control and co-ordinates travel information for Southampton and much of South Hampshire. Following a spillage of cooking oil in Southampton Road, Eastleigh, this afternoon it was fantastic to see this appear on their Twitter feed...

E'LEIGH: Cooking oil spillage on Southampton Rd jct w/ Derby Rd, road to be closed at 1730. Fry-version via Chestnut/Passfield Ave/Leigh Rd.

...followed shortly afterwards by this...

A335 Eastleigh - Road now re-opened N/B between Derby Rd and Blenheim Rd after earlier spillage. Road now Crisp 'n' Dry!

Full marks to whoever was manning their office with a sense of humour!

Two Little Ducks Turn One

2011-02-07T23:07:00.000Z

We realised embarrassingly late in the day today that tomorrow, the 8th February, is the first anniversary of us taking over the operation of route 22 (now S2 of course) in Southampton.

We were never in the frame for it initially. That particular batch of tenders – which also included the 14 and 21 among others - was originally offered to operators through an e-tendering procedure. We were close to the limits of our o-licence, with finite capital to invest in vehicles, so we were looking for one or maximum two vehicles’ worth of work. The method of e-tendering in use prevented operators from proposing alternative timetables and for the route 22 timetables on offer we could not have fulfilled the peak commitments, so we largely ignored the route!

As it turned out, the City Council was able to successfully let all the other tenders, but for one reason or another did not feel they had an acceptable response from any operator for the 22, so they reverted to a more conventional paper tendering method. This invited operator suggestions for route and timetable modifications, with the strong implications that cost savings were to be welcomed, and we were able to respond positively with a raft of different timetable proposals, almost none of which required more than one peak vehicle!

Our winning bid (variation H as I recall!) applied the logic that the sections of the old 22 route between the City Centre and Royal South Hants Hospital; and between Shirley, the General Hospital, Lord’s Hill and Nursling were all covered by other routes. Therefore, best value for limited funds could be obtained by concentrating resources on the ‘unique’ section of route between the City Centre and Shirley.

This was initially controversial, as people inevitably were concerned about the loss of direct services to the hospitals in particular. Indeed, we were warned to expect demonstrations and protests. Having said that, we clearly caused surprise to a few people who telephoned this alien company, of whose existence they were previously unaware. They expected us to be belligerent and difficult and instead found us friendly and approachable, and we almost had the sense they were disappointed!

I also well recall a phone call from one lady who was very excited we had her local service, as she had previously been a regular user of our Ringwood service and thought our drivers were amazing! It was nice to know that at least someone had heard of us!

In practice, there were no demonstrations and the service started without problems on Monday 8th February 2010. The previous operators – A2B Travel – while disappointed to lose the service, were very co-operative with the TUPE arrangements and it was one of the two drivers who transferred (Tony, since moved on to pastures new) who drove the first ever Velvet 22. For the first few days our resident Commercial Assistant/Customer Service Champion/Lovable Teenage Brat Mikey rode on the service to spread some Velvet love among the passengers and make sure all their questions were answered, and everyone seemed very happy.

Having been used to Mercedes 709s, the low-floor Optare Solos played a big part in buying the affection of our customers. In the early days very many unsolicited comments lauded the quality of the vehicles and the ease of access, and these continue to perform very well on the route. Nevertheless, at some point during the first week I couldn’t resist taking a DAF out for a couple of trips, just to prove to the cynics that it could be done! It certainly isn’t advisable however, especially due to parked cars in the area of Foundry Lane and Richmond Road, and the only subsequent DAF appearance was for one trip as an emergency breakdown cover.

Meanwhile we also received favourable comments about reliability – it appeared the traffic congestion around Upper Shirley had prejudiced timekeeping on the previous timetable.

As word spread, more passengers came to appreciate the benefits of the 22 and by June-July, weekly passenger numbers were consistently running around 30% higher than in February-March – one of the steepest growth curves I have ever seen for an inherited service, particularly one where a number of through journey opportunities had been lost!

From the start Southampton City Council had an aspiration to serve the area of Bedford Place, an important local shopping centre just outside the core city centre. This was not possible initially due to long term roadworks, but during the early summer thoughts turned to a possible route amendment to coincide with the road reopening in late August. Moreover, the peak journeys were very lightly used and the City Council saw the opportunity to modify the route and timetable to incorporate an established school flow from the Northam area to Springhill School. This resulted in a package of changes designed to take effect on 31st August.

At the same time, the City Council had been under some pressure to restore a higher service frequency in the Lordswood area. They therefore tendered a new route S1, won by Bluestar, to provide local links from Shirley to the General Hospital, Lordswood and Lord’s Hill.

The eagle-eyed will have noticed that we prefer letters to numbers to identify routes. Our other two main services are the A and C and we slightly regretted the fact that the number 22 didn’t quite fit in. Upon hearing about the S1, Mikey had a moment of inspiration and suggested that we redesignate the 22 to the S2. After all, demand for the 22 was much stronger at the Shirley end than at the City Centre end, so if Shirley had a S1, why should its local network also comprise the S2? I must admit I said I would run it past the City Council with little optimism, as I felt they would prefer the traditional number. However, they have been excellent partners throughout and were very receptive to our suggestion.

Hence on 31st August 2010 Velvet 22 became Velvet S2.

Initially we had to deal with some concern from the Northam parents, who had been used to what they saw as a dedicated school bus previously (even though it wasn’t) and were concerned at the thought of their offspring being transported on a normal service bus. For the first few days of the September term passenger numbers were very low and we wondered whether we had made a spectacular mistake, but once the children and parents got to know the regular driver, their concerns eased and passenger numbers are know exactly what the City Council told us to expect.

At around the same time, we received contact from the NHS, asking us about the possibility of bus access to the newly built Adelaide Health Centre in Millbrook. This site has excellent access on foot from the eastern side of Millbrook Estate, but by all accounts many visitors come from parts of Shirley, for whom the walking distance was too great. This new facility is situated directly behind Tesco, already served by the S2, but the road layout created a circuitous walk from the bus stop to the Health Centre entrance – prohibitive to those who can’t walk distances.

We took a look at the site and it was clear there was nowhere big enough to turn a bus, so we politely spurned their advances. There was a roundabout there, and it was just possible that the Merc 709s used by A2B might have got round, but the Solos stood no chance.

However, to their credit the Health Centre representatives were persistent, and insisted that the roundabout was supposedly designed and built to allow not only Solos, but various lengths of Dart to turn round. Not for the first time, it appeared that what the builders said they had built to a certain spec, did not in fact meet the spec at all!

We took a Solo to the site and proved to them that the roundabout was hopelessly inadequate, but by the now the mood was changing and we were all keen to find a way of resolving the matter. To their huge credit, the Health Centre team got together with the builders and knocked heads together, and with the help of several subsequent site visits, the roundabout has been substantially modified so that it does now allow our Solos to turn in one sweep! At the same time, a bus stop has been created immediately outside the main entrance, ensuring great access for bus passengers.

As a result, the next chapter in the life of the S2 is due to begin on 28th February, when the route will make the short detour via the Health Centre upon leaving Tesco. So short is the distance involved that we have not needed to modify the rest of timetable – there will simply be an extra timing point for the Health Centre, and the extra minute or two it will take can easily be absorbed as the timetable is fairly well padded around Shirley.

This picture shows the entrance to Adelaide Health Centre, with the new bus stop on the left. If you look very carefully at the roundabout you might be able to see darker areas of tarmac. These are areas that used to be flower beds until a month or two ago!

Finally, a word about staff. A2B had three regular drivers on the 22. All were entitled to transfer to us under TUPE regulations. One chose that moment to bow out, and of the two who transferred one eventually moved on. The remaining transferee, Lorant, will also be celebrating his first anniversary of service with us tomorrow.

Having arrived in the country from Hungary a few years ago, he has always reaffirmed his gratitude to A2B for the chance that they gave him to continue his career as a bus driver in this country, but from day one he expressed his hope that his integration into Velvet would allow him to drive on more than one bus route, and he has become a familiar character across our network. He is a very popular member of the team among staff and customers – a gentler, more kind-hearted soul you will never meet. Even his language skills are coming on in leaps and bounds now – he can answer almost any question we choose to throw at him (provided the answer is “yes”!)

For a while he moved away from the S2 completely but such were the level of demands for his return that he now regularly covers the lunch break on the route for Martin, the regular driver.

Martin is a legend in his own waistline! When he became the regular daily driver on the route in the latter days of the 22, I briefed him that I wanted him to take ownership of the route and establish a great rapport with the customers. I didn’t need to tell him – he has taken the route by storm in a way I have hardly ever seen anyone do anywhere. I have yet to meet anyone with anything other than high praise for him, and there is no better example of the sense of community with his regular passengers than the lavish Christmas decorations applied to one of the Solos, all carried out in Martin’s own time and at his expense. You will not encounter a more conscientious team member and the customers regularly make their appreciation of his efforts clear.

So it was that I spent the eve of the route’s first birthday in our local Tesco, buying “Happy 1st Birthday” banners for the bus and boxes of chocolates for the customers of a route that it has been a huge pleasure to acquire, manage and develop!

Surveying the Surveys

2011-01-26T23:34:00.001Z

On my return from my Swiss holiday, I found a number of the companies I used had emailed me asking me to complete satisfaction surveys. Specifically, they were Easyjet, Etap Hotel and Expedia (the latter of which I have used for many years as a flight and hotel booking facility, and once again came up with a great hotel – the Agora – in Lausanne).

It is tempting to disregard these emails – busy life, lots of other things to do etc – but generally I take the view that if they are sufficiently bothered to want my opinion, I should be sufficiently bothered to give it . This is especially true as I am always looking for ways to improve the satisfaction of customers in my company, and therefore I should not turn down the opportunity to help these brands do the same. Besides, the alternative was an evening spent completing next year’s BSOG estimate and anything beats that! So I set about filling out the various electronic survey forms.

Needless to say, they were all quite similar in their general style and layout. They asked broadly similar questions, but the one thing none of them asked was what I thought of the survey! In every case, this was the least satisfying aspect of all my dealings with their brands, which is disappointing since in every case my experiences of the actual brands themselves were very good, and all will get my business again!

So just in case any of their customer service staff should happen to be avid readers of this blog (which I appreciate is slightly less likely than the chances of me finishing the BSOG estimate tonight), here is my critique of their surveys….

Firstly, none of the surveys worked properly. At some point, something failed to load correctly or told me I’d done something wrong when I hadn’t. It was only because I was patient and I’m not frightened of internet browsers that I persevered and managed to get through to the end. Less patient people, or anyone nervous of their computer skills, would have given up and gone away long before I did.

This was particularly true of Easyjet. When I first clicked the link on their email, nothing happened, I just got egg timer. So I clicked it again. This loaded a page telling me I had already started the survey (even though nothing had opened on my computer) and that I must wait 10 minutes before I could start again. This had me screaming at my computer. How dare they ask me to fill in a survey then tell me I’ve done something wrong and must wait ten minutes to be allowed to try again?! Sorry Easyjet, I love your airline but this was a major black mark.

The Etap Hotel survey stuck on a question half way through. Twice when I clicked the “next” button it reloaded the same page, and it was only on the third time of clicking “next” that it actually advanced, just as I was about to abandon the process (and after many people would have). Expedia took ages to load, then loaded a screen saying they were creating “your own personalized survey”. Sorry, but there isn’t someone at the other end of the internet connection crafting away setting up a detailed questionnaire closely tailored to my individual interests. Please don’t patronise me.

Once I’d been allowed in and was answering questions, Easyjet went straight to the top of the class. Their questions achieved the right balance between general perceptions of the airline and airports, and specific issues about the flights I caught. My only criticism was that it was perhaps slightly over-long, but it was easy to follow but thought-provoking – a good mix. Etap Hotel wasn’t too bad at this either, but frankly the Expedia experience was pretty poor. The survey was so short that I can’t really begin to imagine what useful information they would glean that would actually help them develop the product. Perhaps if I’d answered one of the questions differently it would have unlocked a further compendium of questions, but the whole experience seemed entirely pointless.

One specific point for people compiling surveys. I much preferred the Easyjet approach of asking me to rate “very satisfied, quite satisfied, neither, quite dissatisfied or very dissatisfied”. Both Etap and Expedia wanted me to score on a scale of 1-10, but that’s far too detailed really. I’m really not quite sure how you evaluate the difference between an 8 and a 9. Perhaps some people prefer that approach. Perhaps we need a survey to find out?!? (Someone is bound to have done one, probably my old Data Analysis lecturer at Aston University!)

On the whole therefore, I would say I was “quite satisfied” with the Easyjet and Etap Hotel surveys (whereas I was very satisfied with my actual experience of both brands), but “very dissatisfied” with the Expedia survey, despite – again – being very satisfied with the actual service provided.

The real question that remains unanswered of course is why I was only surveyed by brands beginning with the letter “E”, and is this statistically significant?

Un trolleybus Lausannois

2011-01-24T12:00:00.000Z

I've just got back from a short holiday in Switzerland, which may well be mentioned in this blog again over the next few days. It's one of my favourite countries to visit - a combination of interesting transport and some stunning scenery.

However, while trolleybuses - both rigid and articulated - are still prevalent on the urban transport scene, one thing I noticed for the first time on this occasion was articuled trolleybuses where the trailer was completely separate from the main vehicle, with no opportunity for the passengers to walk through.

Here are two shots to illustrate what I mean...

I encountered these in Lausanne (as seen here) and also in Lucerne and very odd they look! I have no idea whether the driver has a way of seeing what's going on in the trailer - internal CCTV is no big deal these days, but the bus in this shot and many of the trailers look to be getting on in years, so I very much doubt they would have such features, so how could the driver know what was happening in the trailer? Or is this simply not seen as being a requirement?

My travelling companions and I also found ourselves wondering whether the trailers are semi-permanently coupled to the drawing vehicle, or whether they are separately allocated and attached on a daily basis. Our bus spotting skills and the length of our stay were not sufficient to enable us to see whether the same buses always appeared with the same trailer, but we certainly saw instances of buses with the relevant towing equipment operating without a trailer.

We had visions of Lausannois trolleybus drivers getting to the depot of a morning and complaining that their allocated trailer was parked at the back as always, or grumbling about particular trailers that they dislike!

If there are any knowledgeable Swiss transport buffs reading this, feel free to comment and advise!

Although the towing buses all seemed to be of the older types - a trawl of Wikipedia reveals that the bus in the above shots dates to between 1986 and 1990 - there was quite a wide range of trailers, from those appearing to be of very advanced years, right up to youthful low-floor examples. Indeed on a number of occasions, journeys advertised on the real-time information screens as being wheelchair accessible were fulfilled by an elderly step-entrance bus towing a modern low-floor trailer!

Just as an aside, the Swiss transport system is rightly revered in many ways. There is an obvious, logical hierarchy of services, with very efficient connections between them. Trains in particular are generally very comfortable and offer attractive frequencies, and everything runs very punctually.

However, one negative feature is that buses of the age shown in the above photos - equivalent to an E-, F-, or G-registered bus in the UK - are still running in very great quantities on main line routes on most Swiss urban networks. I can't think of a single major UK city where entire routes are still in the hands of similarly aged vehicles (there may be the odd exception, but nothing on the scale seen in Switzerland), and in many cases such networks are now one hundred per cent low-floor, so the British public transport system deserves some kudos for that!

Customer Service

2011-01-08T17:40:00.001Z

My favourite cinema is the Harbour Lights in Southampton, part of the Picture House chain. Not only is it a five minute walk from my flat, but it shows a very interesting and diverse range of films, mixing the big name Hollywood blockbusters with more obscure (but usually much more enjoyable) independent films from around the world. The staff are also enthusiastic, friendly and helpful.

On Monday this week I went with a friend to see Tron Legacy - not a film I expected to enjoy but which I was really curious to see. I'm glad I saw it, although science fiction doesn't generally do much for me and this was no exception.

Clearly there was something wrong with the projection in the cinema because the whole screen was bathed in pink and green for the duration of the adverts and trailers. The content was practically unwatchable because the colours were completely wrong and every scene appeared entirely in shades of pink and green.

Initially we wondered if this was intentional. The film was in 3D, I've only seen one 3D film before (Avatar, and I was so bored I left early - it was either that or fall asleep!) so we wondered if this was some peculiar side-effect of the 3D process, but putting on the 3D glasses made no difference at all! In due course a member of the cinema staff appeared and explained to us that they were having problems but hoped everything would be sorted by the time of the main feature.

And so it was! Once the actual film started it played perfectly, with no distortion of colours or sound.

So that was the end of that we thought, until the film ended and we were leaving the cinema. As we walked out, a member of staff was there apologising for the earlier problems and handing out a voucher to watch a future film free of charge. This was entirely unexpected as the actual film had been fine, but I thought was highly creditable.

In fact we used our vouchers the following night to watch a film called The Tourist, a thriller set in Paris and Venice which was quite fun to watch, albeit the action scenes were hugely unrealistic, some of the acting was dreadful and the final plot twist was obvious almost from the start!

But the point of this post is that I already thought very highly of this particular cinema. I have had many enjoyable visits there, this was the first time there has ever been a problem and even then it didn't affect the film at all. They had no need to do what they did but by doing so, they have elevated themselves into the stratosphere in terms of my perception of them, and of course have caused me to blog about it here and hope that by doing so, at least a few people might be encouraged to visit and see what they have to offer!

Roadworks and raindrops

2011-01-07T15:24:00.000Z

Emergency roadworks in Southampton Road in Eastleigh colluded with heavy rain to throw a severe spanner in the works of Eastleigh's traffic system this morning! Luckily, and with some astute controlling, we were able to keep all buses running on time from Eastleigh (apart from one which was about 10 minutes late), even though some were delayed by up to 20-30 minutes coming in!

We were therefore able to report to the world that things were running smoothly, even though behind the scenes we were having to reschedule on the hoof to keep things moving. From 0800 onwards, departures from Eastleigh went like this...

0820 C1 left on time using the bus and driver that should have been on the 0835 C2
0825 A started from Barton Peveril College on time at 0831 (using the correct bus and driver but having arrived at BPC 20 late). An additional bus ran from Eastleigh Bus Station at 0835 driven by the controller and covered the route as far as the college)
0835 C2 left on time using the bus and driver that should have been on the 0820 C1
0900 C3 left on time with the correct bus and driver
0915 A left on time with the correct bus and driver (having arrived about 20 late on the inbound journey but with 45 minutes layover)
0920 C1 left on time with the driver that should have been on the 0940 C2 and a bus that was spare until 1430
0940 C2 left on time with a driver who was spare from 0915 until 1330, but the correct bus
1000 C3 left on time with the bus that should have been on the 1020 C1 but the correct driver
1015 A left on time with the correct bus and driver (the bus was due in at 0955 but just made it at 1012!)
1020 C1 left on time with the bus that should have been on the 1000 C3 but the correct driver
1040 C2 left on time with the correct bus and driver
1100 C3 left on time with the bus that should have been on the 1120 C1 and the same spare driver that did the 0940 C2

After that things calmed down a bit, and apart from the buses on the C1 and C3 being transposed for the rest of the day (they are both DAFs so it doesn't really matter), everything has returned to normal so far!

But an interesting morning, nevertheless.

Doing the Docks

2010-12-30T13:44:00.001Z

The dominant physical feature of Southampton's landscape and economy is its port. One of the largest in the UK, I think I read somewhere that it accounts for around 7% of all the UK's seaborne trade - that's 42 million tonnes of cargo annually! (Figures from ABP)

The port has always fascinated me - from long before I ever became a Southampton resident. When I was a half-hearted student of Transport Management at Aston University in the early '90s, the one and only field trip I actually bothered with was a day trip to Southampton Docks (in a Flight's double deck Volvo Coach - one of the ones with the small lounge at the back downstairs, for those that remember these things and care!)

Being a transport geek, I could spend hours just sitting watching the ships coming and going and the hustle and bustle on the dockside. Indeed, I can easily while a way an hour or two sat on the marina at Hythe, looking across Southampton Water at around (I think) seven miles of waterfront shared by vast container ships (some of which now able to carry over 5,000 forty foot containers), huge vehicle carrying ships sailing for America and the Far East, cruise ships, ferries and local shipping. With the added bonus of planes landing at Southampton coming in directly overhead!

While the port is a massive asset to the city, the downside is that it provides a physical barrier between the people and the water. Such is the extent of the port's activities that Southampton has almost no public waterfront, apart from a small area around Royal Pier and Mayflower Park; and Ocean Village which should be glamorous, trendy and bustling with activity but which is actually a desolate, windswept building site with some yachts in the middle!

This means that not only does the city punch below its weight as a waterfront destination, but many of the city's residents never have reason or opportunity to enter the port and therefore have little idea of the workings of this vast expanse covering around 750 acres.

Back in 2006, in one of the most enjoyable projects of my career to date, I found myself in pole position to satisfy my own personal desire to become acquainted with the workings of the port, while also helping the owner Associated British Ports (ABP) to open itself up to city residents.

In my then capacity as MD of Solent Blue Line, I was approached about the possibility of running some tours of the port, as ABP was said to be keen to give the public the opportunity to see how the port operated from the inside. As luck would have it, we had two Bristol VR open-toppers becoming redundant from the New Forest Tour as they were being replaced by newer Volvo B7s, and the timing coincided perfectly with this initiative!

With the help of ABP staff, we assembled a rough script for a commentary and devised a route round the city centre and port which would take just over an hour, and came up with a timetable with a choice of pick-ups - starting from Central Station, then heading through the city centre before entering the port.

In that first season, we had a ball! We had a small team of very enthusiastic staff working on the tour, led by yours truly taking every possible opportunity to get round the docks! The operational port staff were very permissive (probably because they didn't quite understand who we were or what we were doing!) and let us roam freely. We varied the route to accommodate the ships that were in port, and would always try to bring the tour to a climax by bringing the tour passengers almost to within touching distance of one of the vast cruise ships that could be found in port most days.

Visitor feedback was superb. They loved the opportunity to get behind the scenes in the port, and almost always commented on how much they had learned about the activities of the port, of which they had been unaware despite living within touching distance of the port all their lives.

The tour was fairly challenging to deliver however. The buses were supposed to be fitted with sound systems that would enable the driver to deliver the commentary, keeping the costs down and enabling passengers seated anywhere on the bus to get the same experience. However, the sound systems were dreadfully unreliable and inevitably therefore the commentary had to be delivered without any amplification. This basically meant standing in the middle of the top deck and bellowing the commentary at the top of one's voice to overcome any wind noise and try to be audible to all passengers.

This meant wherever possible having a driver and a guide on the bus - which had never been part of the original cost model - but the only alternative way of delivering the tour with one person was to drive the bus a short distance, stop, run upstairs, deliver an extract of the commentary, run back downstairs, drive a short distance further on, stop, run back upstairs, provide a bit more commentary and so on. You could get away with this on a quiet day when traffic was light but it wasn't much fun!

We therefore tried to put two people on the tour as often as possible, which made the whole thing much more enjoyable, especially as some of the staff preferred driving the bus while others preferred delivering the commentary, although even that could be hard work because with passengers sat upstairs and down, you would have to run up and down between the two decks delivering the commentary twice! I actually found this quite fun and the passengers certainly appreciated the effort!

My own personal highlight was one Sunday morning. The first tour of the day was at 10:00, but this was a bit early for people to be out and about on a Sunday so would usually be very quiet - indeed, there were occasions when it didn't run at all. And one fairly cold, grey Sunday morning, the driver and I arrived to do the 10:00 tour with little expectation of having to do the trip.

However, unbeknown to us the Cunard ship Queen Mary 2 was in port, and had deposited a load of Germans ashore to amuse themselves for a few hours. There isn't a lot to do in Southampton on a cold, grey Sunday morning, and as they happened to stroll up to the Bargate just as we arrived, the open top bus attracted their attention!

Quite unexpectedly therefore we had an almost full load for the 10:00 tour, but many of them spoke no English! I spent the next hour of my life careering up and down the stairs delivering the commentary four times - English and A-Level German upstairs, and English and A-Level German downstairs!!!

As I recall they tipped quite well, but the rest of the day was a bit of an anti-climax!

Another memorable occasion came when a friend of mine, a senior industry manager with whom I had worked previously, had offered to provide vintage bus rides for some well-to-do friends holding a lavish birthday party in the upscale Bassett area of Southampton. Not being a local he rang me the night before - he had the bus, but didn't know where to take people and was looking for ideas. I suggested I join him for the day and we take people round the docks. This was a huge success and proved very popular!

The second season - 2007 - was less auspicious. In a bid to save money, we cut the route back to miss out the city centre, and the tour started from Mayflower Park (named after the Mayflower which transported the Pilgrim Fathers to America, leaving from approximately that spot in Southampton in 1620. See, I haven't forgotten it all yet!). This made it shorter and easier and cheaper to operate but less visible.

Port security staff had by now worked out who we were and what we were doing, and felt we needed a dose of health and safety. So instead of roaming free, we were restricted to agreed routes within the port which - crucially - didn't include some of the best vantage points (notably Dock Head) because the security staff were convinced we'd drive over the edge!

This made the tour less fun to operate as well as less commercial, and relying as it did on a small band of enthusiastic staff, when two of us left in the summer of 2007 it was no real surprise to see the tour come to an end soon afterwards.

Overall the tour lost money. The cost of double staffing was never envisaged, but even with single staffing it is debatable whether the Port of Southampton is really enough of a visitor attraction to sustain a commercial number of tour passengers. The tour was only really busy on a nice day with two or three cruise ships in port and there were not enough of these in a season.

However, the losses that the tour sustained were tiny compared to the turnover of the company, and this commercial initiative dramatically improved the profile and image of Bluestar with the key opinion formers and 'movers and shakers' within the city. This in turn led to a seat at the table on a number of key events and ongoing committees, and relationships that the company continues to benefit from to this day. Would I do the same thing if I had my time again? For this reason, I definitely would!

I do certainly believe that there is still a market for this type of activity. It maybe needs to be more formally linked to the Port itself, maybe with some kind of "Visitor Centre", rather than just being a third party commercial enterprise that happens to use the Port infrastructure. I'd certainly love to do it again!

The reason for all this reminiscence is that we at Velvet have recently been active in the Port again, providing a shuttle for crew members on the Independence of the Seas, one of the world's largest cruise ships, and it's great to be back!

Southampton styles itself as the cruise capital of Northern Europe, being the busiest port for cruise ship arrivals and departures. Almost a million cruise passengers a year pass through the port, boarding some of the word's largest and most prestigious vessels.

This has always provided a good line of work for the coach operators in the area, both in providing transfers for passengers as well as shuttle services for crew visiting the city centre, but the bus operators have never traditionally been involved.

Based indirectly on relationships forged when doing the Docks Tour, we were asked to provide a quote for a shuttle service for crew from the Independence. Many of the crew love Southampton for its shopping facilities, and the ability to get in and out of the centre quickly and easily on a short cruise turnaround (in which the ship will be in port for just a few hours, during which time it has to say goodbye to one load of passengers, completely restock and then load up to 4,000 new passengers) is something they value.

So it is great fun being back in the docks again, and has inevitably got me thinking to what a new generation of docks tour might look like....!

You couldn't fabricate it!

2010-12-21T16:35:00.000Z

This afternoon we received the following email...

While exploring on internet we found your good company engaged in the manufacturing of velvet fabric materials.

At present we are looking to import velvet materials mainly in Red, Maroon, Black and Green colors, hope you would be able to meet our requirements.

You are requested to please let us have your catalogue for above materials, by post to the following address. If the prices and quality will be up to the expectations, we assure potential repeated orders.

Pity they don't want purple really...

Lost Property

2010-12-20T21:25:00.000Z

A member of the public (a regular bus user, known to us) walks into the cafe in Eastleigh Bus Station, where I'm sitting with our Controller Steve....

Member of Public: Perhaps you can help me! If I left my bag on a Southampton bus, where would it end up?

Steve: Southampton

By popular vote...

2010-12-18T13:37:00.000Z

Among the many phone calls received today from customers enquiring about the buses, one of our regulars phoned just after 0830 to ask about the A between Swaythling and West End.

I explained that the 0915 from Eastleigh would be operating normally and she asked who would be driving.

At that stage none of the drivers were on their normal duties because they were all happy to do whatever was required of them in the conditions.

So I told her that I didn't know who would be driving as there were three possibilities and we hadn't actually decided yet. She asked who they were, assuring me that she knew all our drivers by name, so I told her who they were. Then - as it was a good-humoured conversation anyway - I suggested we could try some X-Factor style voting and invited her to vote for the driver she wanted!

She chose Nick, who was duly allocated to the trip.

My reward arrived about half an hour ago, when Nick arrived back in the bus station after his second round trip. He handed me a jar of alcoholic jam, which she had asked to be passed on to me in thanks for granting her wish!

So now I'm wondering if we should do all our allocations in this way, allowing passengers to choose their own drivers, in the same way that we picked teams for football at school! I wonder if we could make that work.....?

There's no business like snow business 2 - the sequel

2010-12-18T11:51:00.001Z

By now you will have probably noticed that most of my blog posts have corny titles. There's no particular reason for this, it's just the first thing I can think of! Perhaps if it all goes wrong on the buses, I have an alternative career as an advertising copywriter or newspaper headline writer!

We have snow again! Only this time it's a Saturday, so not as many people are affected, and with each spell of snow we are getting better at what we are doing, so I don't feel anywhere near as depressed by the prospect of snow this time as I usually would!

The worst point was between 0630 and 0700 this morning. It started snowing around 0600 and road conditions deteriorated very very rapidly indeed. We sent the first C1/C3 of the day out, but the driver had great difficulty in Hiltingbury and Valley Park, and that was before the traffic started compacting the snow into ice. (I spent ten minutes sat in my car in Hiltingbury Road at about 0730, dealing with Facebook, Twitter and phone calls, and it got perceptibly worse while I was sat there!)

Cutting a long story short, as I write this, the situation is stable with the C1 running between Eastleigh and Fryern Hill via the main roads only, and the A is running full route but not serving Boorley Green. This is the same plan as we implemented on the last snow day and seems to work quite well. We are also running a bonus C1 just serving Oakmount Road, with the driver briefed to interview any prospective passengers to try to get them to where they need to go!

Steve the Controller went out in the van a short while ago to test Hiltingbury, Valley Park and Velmore, and got briefly stuck in Velmore to our great amusement. Some parts are nearly ok, others a long way from being viable, bhe snow is melting quite rapidly now, and the Met Office and BBC are both predicting no further snow today, so we're hopeful that we can improve the offer this afternoon.

We could do with a quieter afternoon, because it's the Velvet Christmas Party tonight and excitement is at fever pitch! No snow disruption after 7pm tonight please!

Finally, here's a picture of some snow and a bus, just in case you needed reminding...

Knowing where they are

2010-12-13T09:02:00.000Z

It's 0812 on a winter Monday morning and it's a bad morning for traffic. Not the worst, by any means, but enough to cause some late running. But I'm happy because I'm in the office and I have superpowers, so I know where everyone is!

Since I've mostly worked in provincial bus companies that have never been at the head of the queue for technological innovation, and of course when setting up our own company we had to be careful about making any kind of investment at all, I have gone through the nineteen years of my career to date not knowing where my buses are.

This is something the public find incredible, that most bus companies actually have no idea where there buses are most of the time. They know where they should be, but that doesn't necessarily bear much relation to reality.

Back in the summer, we invested in a system called DriveGreen, from a company called GreenRoad. This is primarily a system intended to monitor driver performance in areas such as braking, lane handling etc. The main conclusion so far has been that actually our drivers are pretty good - no surprise there. But the really exciting part for me is that the system gives us vehicle tracking, which makes the management of service disruption so much easier!

In the morning peak, the 0820 C1 from Eastleigh to Hiltingbury runs off the 612 service from Weston to Barton Peveril College, due at the College at 0805. The following C - the C2 at 0835 from the Bus Station, is scheduled to be operated by the bus that arrived at Barton Peveril College at 0815 on an inbound C1 that passed through the Bus Station at 0810.

However, I have been watching the 612 for a little while now. It was running about 20 minutes late at Bitterne - sure enough, a quick check of the Romanse cameras revealed that Bitterne Road West was a solid queue.

Various buses are converging on Eastleigh at this time of the morning, and as I look at the map I can see Matt (on the 612) has snuck round the back roads and has made some time back, but is looking doubtful for the 0820. He's the bottom icon on this map (also shown are J843 TSC on the inbound 603 and F303 MYJ on the inbound 618, but you'll have to take my word for that!)

Meanwhile, the inbound C1 that makes the outbound 0835 C2 is through the Bus Station on time and steaming down Southampton Road towards the college. It is quite likely that he will drop off and be back in the bus station before the bus off the 612 gets there. If this is the case, I'll attempt to use that bus for the 0820 and let Matt run off the 612 on to the 0835 C2. After all, there's nothing worse for the waiting customers in the bus station than seeing a bus parked doing nothing on the layby while their's is nowhere to be seen. Besides, the 0820 carries several Toynbee School students and we don't want to make them late (although they never normally seem quite so bothered, but that's another story!)

So I'm watching the 'blips' moving along on the map, and sure enough the C1 is unloading at the college at 0814 while Matt (with the 612) is still in Stoneham Lane, though he's doing better than he thought he would - I'm going to hedge my bets for a minute or two more.

Fast forward to 0818 and as you can see from this map, the bus that was the C1 (NX55 FFO) is now making good progress back along Derby Road to the Bus Station, while the 612 (F309 MYJ) is still at the college.

So that's settled then. A quick text to both drivers, which they should see when they get to the bus station, and their two scheduled journeys have been swapped. The Solo is back in the bus station actually at 0821, still a couple of minutes late for the 0820 by the time it leaves, but still better than waiting for 309 to come in. This one rolls in at 0824, with plenty of time to spare to get the C2 out on time.

Ok, not the most catastrophic late running and it probably wouldn't have mattered too much in this case if we'd left them as they were. But you can doubtless imagine that there are other times when late running gets more pronounced and we can save our customers a lot more than four minutes by judiciously swapping the workings around. And the nice thing for me is that I've micromanaged the service to this level just because I can - and in doing so saved an unnecessary 3-4 minute delay for the 0820 passengers, without them ever realising what has happened behind the scenes to get those few minutes of improvement for them.

A far cry from the days when any enquiry about whether a bus was on time could only be met with a vague wave of the arm and the response, "we've no idea, but all the buses are out there somewhere!"

A journey through webspace

2010-12-09T18:47:00.000Z

Over the last few weeks I have been working on a makeover of the company website, and the new site went live earlier today. It is not actually a new site at all - just the previous site with a new 'skin'. For the geeks, apart from the home page which was fairly substantially rewritten, for all the other pages the content is the same and only the style sheet has changed.

But hopefully the outcome is a crisper, clearer look, which better fits in with the corporate style that has evolved over the last year. In the early part of 2009 we were concerned that our corporate identity was a bit of a mess. Our starting point was a livery and logo designed for us in the early days by Ray Stenning of Best Impressions, a well-known industry figurehead.

I have worked with Ray on a variety of projects over the last ten years or so and he has always been inspirational to work with, and his design contribution to getting us off the ground will never be forgotten. Thanks to Ray, we started life with a quality of design and livery of which most small start-up companies hardly dream!

However, circumstances dictated that we could not work with Ray on an ongoing basis, and we sourced our publicity, stationery, internal communications and other corporate paraphernalia without any real co-ordination from a variety of sources - some internal, some external (including our friends at PB Bus Marketing)

The result was that nothing looked quite the same. Some stuff looked very professional, others less so. The logo appeared with subtle variations all over the place, including the "smooth operator" strapline in some instances but not in others, and in a variety of positions and typefaces where it was used.

However, this kind of approach is anathema to me. I am a firm believer in a very strong and well-managed brand and corporate identity. One's brand communicates so much about the values and professionalism of the company, and a good brand has to be both reassuring to existing users and also enticing and attractive to potential new users.

There are miserable people out there who think it doesn't matter what colour the bus may be, or whether the fleet name or logo are the correct colour or typeface, as long as the bus turns up, because apparently they think that's all people care about. Well, at the point of wanting to get home from work that may well be all they care about. But when they made the decision that they wanted to use the bus in the first place, that decision will have been influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by the company's brand. You haven't a hope of growing your business if no-one knows what you look like!

Imagine walking into a supermarket and seeing all the products in identical white boxes, with the name of the product written in black block capitals on the side. Apart from being very boring, it would be a very tedious and time consuming business trying to find all the products you wanted to buy, and you certainly wouldn't be encouraged to try anything new. From a functional point of view, you could achieve shopping ("it doesn't matter what colour the bus is....") but you wouldn't be in any hurry to go back!

Our position at that time was driven by necessity rather than desire, with the priority being on setting up a viable company with minimal cash outlay. Once we reached a point in spring 2009 - eighteen months after we were born - where we found some time to stop and reflect, and a small amount of cash to set aside, we decided to bring the situation under control.

Acting on a recommendation we turned to a London agency, Martyn Cornwall Design, and gave them the brief to develop a proper corporate identity. Having reviewed all the various manifestations of our identity, they quickly developed a style that we liked. They tweaked the logo very slightly, making it a little bit sharper and crisper, and developed a 'house style' for corporate stationery, publicity and such like. When the Solos arrived in the fleet in early 2010 they updated the livery and also applied this style to the recently acquired Dart SLF, and this has been very well received.

The one area where we had never really got to grips with the corporate identity was on our website. In order to save money at the outset, I decided that I would do the website myself! After all, I could do great things in BBC Basic on my Mum's BBC 'B' Microcomputer (32K, don't you know) back in the early '80s - I just needed to brush up my programming skills a bit!

So I bought some books and taught myself to programme some HTML, and coded our first ever website using the skills I'd taught myself. And here it is! In actual fact, I've kept our entire archive of websites in our very own web 'museum', so you can actually go and see it for real here if you want!

As you can see, that was a pretty basic attempt at a website, just announcing that we would soon exist! Then I managed to progress a few more chapters through the book and decided to try my hand at animation! The next iteration therefore involved both sound and animation, with a little picture of 309 trundling across the page! It looked fairly naff at the time, absolutely horrific with hindsight, but if you want to see 309 moving for real (and if you have the correct plug-in you might even hear some music), here it is!

At that time things were hotting up and we weren't far from starting our services, so I turned my attention to developing a 'real' website with actual information that would be useful to people. My first attempt is shown below. At that stage we were still using our full name, Black Velvet Travel, and felt that a black background would suit the image. This was also evident from our early timetable leaflets. Anyway, I abandoned this design of website pretty quickly because I just thought it looked rubbish, so it has never been seen in public before, but if you want to see how far I got, help yourself!

Finally we hit upon a design we liked, and by this stage I was romping through the html textbook, and was even playing with a bit of Javascript (mainly on the 'meet the team' page) and I think there's even some PHP in there somewhere! With various tweaks along the way, this website survived over a year so will be familiar to anyone who was following us in the early days. But if you want a reminder, here it is!

By spring 2009, I'd gone off that design in a big way. In addition, Mikey - our annoying teenage brat commercial assistant - is as much a fan of good branding and corporate identity as I am - and was pushing me towards a cleaner, friendlier look. Indeed, he has been behind much of the work we have done with Martyn Cornwall, including producing publicity material such as posters in the new style and it has been a very enjoyable joint effort to get where we are now.

Also by spring 2009 we'd abandoned the Black Velvet Travel name in the public eye - referring to ourselves simply as Velvet - and therefore the black background not only looked bad but was also pointless! So I set about redesigning the site on a white background, which we felt was a marked improvement on the previous version. Indeed, this design served us well for well over eighteen months, and only took retirement this morning! If you can't remember back that far, or you wish to have a play with it for old time's sake, here it is!

However, it is now over a year since we started imposing the Martyn Cornwall-inspired 'look and feel' to our various corporate manifestations, and the website badly needed bringing into line. The trouble is that with lots of competing priorities for time and money, a good website remains as having the potential to be a big ticket cost item.

I can't hope to carry on producing 'home made' websites forever. After all, the business now punches at a much higher weight (I hope) in all other areas of our branding so it is important that it looks right and functions well and my knowledge of html, Javascript and PHP remains at a fairly low level. I certainly cannot even begin to compare myself with professional web developers. Moreover, we have high hopes for a website that has a really classy look and superb functionality, and that is certainly in the melting pot for 2011, working with new design partners to take us to the next level!

However this may take months to develop and in the meantime the website we had until today was starting to fall badly out of step with the corporate image being applied with increasing consistency across the rest of our world. So, in what I am sure will be my final fling, I decided to 'take the bull by the horns' and bring the site up to date. The consensus so far is that the new look is a further improvement. Obviously it matters to us that it now has a style more in keeping with our other publicity, but generally we feel it looks better and sharper.

There are still some improvements to be made, but this is hopefully a makeover that will last us until we are ready to take the next step. Any comments, insights or suggestions are of course welcome, but I hope you would agree that it's not bad for a website still entirely hard coded, by me, in Notepad on my computer. Apart from a few graphics images bought from royalty-free internet sites, all the graphical elements are produced with nothing more sophisticated than Microsoft Paint!

So if you haven't seen our latest home made website, feel free to take a look!

But as always, reality intervenes, and now I'm off to the yard to park up some buses!

You can't please all the people...

2010-12-07T10:30:00.000Z

Yesterday a lady rang up to find the time of a bus from Asda to Hiltingbury this morning. I told her there was a bus at 0800. She asked if it would definitely be running, and I said yes.

The phone rang today at 0755, it was the same lady.

Customer: Is there definitely a bus from Asda to Hiltingbury at 0800 this morning?
Me: Yes indeed madam, it will be at 0800.
Customer: Is it definitely running?
Me: Yes it is
Customer: So it will definitely come at 0800?
Me: Yes madam, that's right
Customer: OK, only I've been stood here for half an hour already and it hasn't come yet!

Cleaning up the act

2010-12-05T23:17:00.001Z

Amid all the excitement, one still has to do the household chores!

After a few hours in the office today, I came home and spent the afternoon cleaning and tidying the kitchen and living room. Not my favourite job but it has to be done!

The phone rang, it was Taz (friend, driver, part-owner of the company) calling for a general chat about the day. He asked what I was doing so I told him I was cleaning and tidying the flat.

"Blog about that then", he laughed.

So I have!

Fangs for the information

2010-12-03T11:15:00.001Z

A few hours ago I was down at Eastleigh Ice Rink (it's brilliant and its got an amazing bus service, so good it needs six separate bus stops to handle them all!) keeping the public informed.

A well-spoken gentleman strolled up, and asked a few perfectly sensible questions about which estates were being served and which weren't. It happened to be Bluestar routes he was enquiring about, but no matter, he explained that he needed the info for his wife who needed to catch a bus later, and we had a very pleasant chat.

The only slightly disconcerting thing was that for the entire duration of our perfectly normal conversation, his dog - I'm no expert but some kind of pit bull thing by the look of it - was growling at me continuously and straining at the leash!

Not once did the gentleman acknowledge the existence of the dog, nor pass any comment about its behaviour. For all the world he behaved as though it simply wasn't there, chatting away happily while the canine made clear its desire to tear me limb from limb!

While I maintained my composure, I have to say it was a very odd experience and really quite surreal! Eventually he wandered off leaving me a nervous wreck!

I only hope I gave him the right answers to his questions....

There's no business like snow business...

2010-12-02T12:38:00.000Z

Oh dear, snow!

We thought maybe, just maybe, we'd escaped! But after days of watching our colleagues around the country having to cope with tons of the white stuff, our helping arrived from around 9pm last night.

We have undoubtedly got away with it lightly compared to many, and I have been filled with admiration over the last few days by the obvious unstinting efforts of the many thousands of staff involved in controlling, driving, maintaining and managing buses, as they struggle to keep services running.

Our own experience pales into insignificance by comparison.

The striking thing though was how quickly conditions deteriorated. The late shift driver on C1 texted me at 2154 to say the first flakes of snow were falling, and within half an hour we were having to pull the service out of some of the side roads. The last couple of trips operated only to drop the few people waiting in Eastleigh, somewhere close to where they needed to be!

So I set the alarm for 0330, with the intention of driving round all the routes in my car before 0600 to see what was viable and what wasn't, but realised pretty quickly after I woke up that there wasn't much point! With snow laying to a depth of around six inches around my flat, and even main roads in the city centre having nothing more than tyre tracks, there was no hope for the back roads!

So I drove into Eastleigh, met those staff who had been able to make it to work, and straight away we decided not to run any school or college buses. Conventional wisdom is that you wait until the schools decide what they are going to do and respond accordingly. But on this occasion, I knew that we wouldn't be able to serve large parts of the routes, and frankly didn't want to be in a position where we took them all to school and then had the responsibility of getting them home again if the situation worsened.

Most of our morning peak run out is involved with school and college commitments, so with those trips cut, frankly there wasn't a lot left to run. In the event, all the relevant schools and colleges closed anyway.

There was still the matter of the public routes to consider however, and one of the drivers volunteered to go and test the A route and I went out on the C.

The A largely sticks to main roads so we have been able to run the vast majority of it for most of this morning.

The C on the other hand winds round all the back streets of Chandler's Ford and Hiltingbury. As I drove up Leigh Road, I could see that Oakmount Road and Falkland Road (both normal haunts of the C) were a mess of abandoned cars and the ones that were moving were sliding around. So I decided on a much simplified route sticking to main routes only, on a half hourly schedule.

We agonised a bit over the S2 route in Southampton, but that route is allergic to main routes - everyone time it gets near one it turns away. I was tempted to go and have a look but then I bumped into a Bluestar driver who lives near one of the key parts of the route. From his description of the road conditions in that area, I knew there was no chance of it being viable!

Although it has stopped snowing as I write this, there is no sign of a thaw and a 'pitch inspection' by a controller and one of our drivers within the last hour has revealed that the side roads are still unsafe so I suspect the service pattern we have now will remain in place for the rest of the day.

I hate snow with a passion. I am a complete curmudgeonly killjoy when it comes to snow. In my world, it only ever causes problems (and slashes the revenue in the process). But it has its lighter moments, and if you'd asked me this morning what I would be doing today, the last thing I would have said was that I would be playing Super Mario Kart with the 5-year old son of one of the staff in the bus station cafe, to keep him occupied for a few minutes as he obviously wasn't at school.

As I say, we've got away with it lightly compared to many this time round, but I shall be very pleased when it's over!

A tale of three bus stops

2010-11-30T15:05:00.000Z

Most people would think of bus stops as being fairly static items, happy to stay in one place and make their contribution to society in a steady, predictable way from one year to the next, without any great desire to travel or see the world.

However just lately one or two of ours have had a certain amount of wanderlust and today has been a day for rounding them up and bringing them back to heel!

Shortly after we rerouted the A along Passfield Avenue in Eastleigh, back in 2008, we agreed with the Borough Council to put up a new bus stop either side of the road near the junction with Nightingale Avenue. Two bus stop flags were secured to suitable poles and that was the end of that! However, just recently we noticed that one of the flags had escaped, destination unknown, leaving the public without guidance as to where to stand to wait for the bus.

We thought we had seen the last of it, but this morning a colleague at Eastleigh Borough Council reported that our errant bus flag had been rounded up in Fleming Park, and was now sitting by her desk. So we have retrieved it and (after a strong lecture about not getting any more big ideas), returned it firmly to its rightful pole.

You'd think that might be enough bus stop excitement for one day, but not in the heady world of Velvet!

We have a 'temporary bus stop' - a flag on a short pole imaginatively grounded in a painted old wheel hub, that we can move from place to place, for example when roadworks hinder access to a normal stop.

Our temporary stop has already made one previous bid for freedom, when it escaped from Henstead Road in Southampton, before mysteriously reappearing a few days later - we still don't know where it went.

However, more recently it was posted in Leigh Road, Eastleigh to stand guard over the never-ending hole-digging activities of Southern Gas Networks, while the real stop at the Good Companions pub was marooned in the middle of a long section of single line traffic.

Bored with this assignment, the temporary stop vanished within a few days of being sent there and - until today - had been missing for several weeks. We imagined that by now it was probably sunning itself on a South American beach, but not so! A tip-off earlier this afternoon from a member of the public led us to a private car park underneath a block of flats on the outskirts of Eastleigh town centre, where our temporary stop was standing in all its proud glory, nowhere near a road never mind anywhere a bus might go!

How amazing that by sheer chance, on the same day, we have managed to round up both our errant bus stops!

Indeed, we have been rather more successful at relocating bus stops that we never expected to see again, than we have at relocating one that we actually meant to move!

Today's third and final outbreak of bus stop action was meant to involve moving the outbound flag on the S2 route in Handel Road in Southampton, from its current pole (no longer served since the route changed in September), round the corner to a new pole recently erected by the City Council for our benefit.

Mikey and Simon duly set off in Vanessa, our Rapid Response International Rescue N-reg Ford Transit, armed with all the necessary tools for the job, drove all the way into Southampton City Centre, pulled up at the appropriate spot, switched on the flashing orange lights to make themselves feel important, threw open the back of the van and.... realised they'd left the ladder behind so they couldn't actually get to the flag!!!

Unplanned bus stop moves - 2, planned bus stop moves - nil, and a job for another day!

Isn't technology wonderful?

2010-11-28T12:09:00.000Z

I am writing my new blog sitting in Costa Coffee in Eastleigh, enjoying wireless internet courtesy of them. Normally I'm in the office on a Sunday catching up on paperwork, but the office is too cold (the heating controls are in the next door office, which is currently unoccupied and we don't have a key). So I've come here instead and it's brilliant.

I still can't get my head round the concept of wireless internet. I can deal with conventional electricity - I have a firm belief that all electric wires and cables contain long rows of tiny little people who pass lumps of electrical charge very quickly along the line (a kind of human chain), until eventually it ends up in the device you are trying to power. I always worry about unplugging things in case the electricity falls out (or even worse, some of the tiny people might plunge six inches to their certain death), but so far my fears on this point seem to have proved unfounded.

But how does wireless work? The only way I can picture it is to imagine that the last tiny person in the line that goes from the telephone socket to the hub, has a very good throw, and simply has to hurl the little chunks of internet across the void to a waiting tiny person in my computer.

This would explain why the internet signal gets weaker as you get further from the hub, because obviously they can only throw so far and some chunks of internet will fall short!

Anyway, freaking me out to a whole new level is the fact that we can now offer you the chance to buy your bus ticket on your mobile phone, and simply show your phone to the driver when you board the bus! From registering at mymobiletickets.com, you can buy your ticket, pay for it, download it to your phone and use it to travel on the bus, without any physical money ever changing hands, or any paper being produced or printed out.

On a related issue, we pioneered the use of QR Codes on a small number of our bus stop timetables a year or two back. Fairly clunky at the time and far too big, but nevertheless effective, they are now making a comeback on the mobile tickets and hopefully will soon reappear on our roadside timetables (we are working on this). If you don't know what a QR Code is, look it up (this blog encourages readers to think for themselves!).

Indeed, I was delighted to see one in Tesco Express last night inviting you to download content promoting a particular brand of razor blade. I think QR Codes are one of the next big things, and when you start to see them all around you over the next few years, remember you read about them here first!

It's all a far cry from my first ever job in the bus industry, rekeying endless serial numbers from Setright waybills into a pirate copy of a Lotus 123 spreadsheet on a green screen Apricot PC, while sitting underneath a shelf weighed down with box files containing reams of fanfold printer paper (offering little information of any use), that would occasionally collapse under the weight and rain down on my head! Ah, the memories...

It's a new blog!

2010-11-28T11:45:00.000Z

Regular readers of my old Velvet Bus Blog cannot fail to have noticed long periods of inactivity, and in several cases have passed comment on this.

To be honest, I got quite disillusioned with life on the old blog. Although it was never meant to be an official Velvet production, many people saw it as such. For me, it was only ever meant to be an occasional pastime, offering whimsical comment on things that I thought people might find interesting.

I always enjoyed blogging but to be honest life is incredibly busy for quite a lot of the time, and after spending 14-15 hours at work immersed in bus issues, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was get the computer out and spend more time writing about buses!

More seriously, it is very hard to find things to write about that do not breach commercial confidence, and in one case I pulled what I thought was quite an entertaining post shortly after publication, because the organisation about whom it was written revealed itself to have no sense of humour and chose to make ominous comments about our future business relationship if it remained on view. Given that I said nothing that would actually cause any damage to the organisation in question other than some gentle leg-pulling, I now think I should have left the post there - "publish and be damned"!

In short, the fact that people saw the old blog as an official publication meant that (a) some people took it too seriously and (b) my failure to post with sufficient regularity was seen as evidence of some kind of corporate failure. Given that the purpose was only ever to entertain (and occasionally enlighten), I pretty much gave up! But I still liked the idea of blogging and often thought of interesting things to post, just didn't feel sufficiently motivated to do anything about it!

A chance meeting with the inspirational Leon Daniels of First Group at the Euro Bus Expo in Birmingham got me to thinking again! If you don't already read his blog by the way, go and have a look now - it's excellent!

I realise that my biggest mistake was to call my old blog the Velvet Bus Blog because that clearly makes it sound official even though it was never meant to be, so that blog has officially breathed its last breath! Although it can stay there for now for historical purposes, nothing more will be added, and it will be frozen in time as at last April!

I am going to have another go at this blogging lark. Many of the issues described above still remain, so I am not promising success! However, I am going to make it clear from the outset that even though I will often be talking about Velvet and bus issues generally, this blog is my own personal ramblings and is not in any way an official publication of Velvet! That means that if I fail to post, or I fail to keep people's interest, and everyone gets bored and goes away (or starts writing sarcastic comments), that's entirely down to me and no reflection on my bus company! Hopefully that won't happen though and I'll be able to keep a sufficiently engaging blog going for a little longer!

Anyway, welcome to my new blog and let's see how it goes!