Matt, I know senior drivers from all three aforementioned depots and a former manager too. Some of them don’t even know the changes are coming until a week before. What sort of transparency is this. If the senior drivers aren’t being consulted and managers are non the wiser then who is? I get that you’re going to represent Arriva to the best of your ability on here but that part is simply not true and you come across as defensive and disingenuous.
I don't consult former managers about changes to my networks.
Arriva doesn't employ "senior drivers". In my view, whether you've been a driver for two days, two years, or two decades, you're entitled to be both consulted and informed about network changes. Drivers are informed on what is changing at, or very close to (either before or after), the point of registration. For example, Luton drivers were informed yesterday about changes to the network on 23 February, ahead of our customer communications so they're able to answer queries when we promote to our customers. Our teams are informed via our Blink social media platform, and in print form at depot and at local driver engagement sessions - and this is always checked, so no, drivers are not informed of incoming service changes until a week before the change, this is a false accusation.
At a depot level, the Site Manager, Driver Manager, and a select group of representatives including trade union officials are walked through the detail of each change step-by-step at the point of consultation with the local authorities. Of course, a more closed audience have sight of future network plans and developments which is standard practice across the industry.
This has been the case for every network change in the past three years, which can be clearly evidenced and documented, therefore refute your claim that this is "simply not true", and refer you to my previous point that just because you don't see it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
I can’t imagine too many passengers or drivers being happy about the current state of the X4. And I don’t mean to constantly bash Arriva but have you seen the loadings on the competition now that the X4 takes the most indirect route to Aylesbury?
We've been very honest and transparent about the challenges with route X4. The easiest option would be to withdraw the service and redeploy the resource elsewhere - I opted to not do this, and have made interventions to return the route to commerciality. Time will tell whether this has been worthwhile, but shoots and leaves are encouraging however there's still more work to do.
Yes, I have seen loadings on the 100. This is the route that has just had a 16.6% frequency decrease, commencing from this month. I'd hazard a guess that any more resource to maintain the previous frequency with the congestion challenges in Aylesbury would outweigh the additional revenue benefit. The difficulties in maintaining the existing timetable whilst so many major infrastructure projects is something all operators are contending with, usually in a reactive way as is the way of bus governance.
I think High Wycombe was a big shambles and I know you’ll never admit it but it was; splitting long running routes such as the 32 and 33 was short-sighted and nothing but a scheme to make more money from either customers having to pay twice or them purchasing a day ticket. Neither of which worked and the customers saw right through it and the current operator has switched it right back to how it was before. I’m not sure where all of this great customer feedback comes from in all honesty and I mean that in the most sincere way; a quick look on the Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Milton Keynes Facebook page will give you an insight as to what the locals think about Arriva’a service delivery. It’s not conclusive but it does help paint a picture. The other issues you talk about regarding the running of those two closed depots should include poor engineering, ticket machines not working and unrealistic timetables due to the sheer lack of local knowledge and over-reliance on Optibus.
The purpose of splitting town services meant that routes could be interworked in different ways, depending on the time of day. It allowed for more fluid regulation of buses when required, delivered frequency benefits to a significant number of corridors, and was based on our data which showed that in reality, there was a very small number of customers who were travelling cross-town. It's ultimately Carousel's decision on their routings. I can't comment on how it is performing; perhaps the consolidation within the market has led to a restoration of the previous network through a smarter deployment of a bigger resource. Hopefully it's working well for them.
I can speak on our performance though, and in January 2024 when we introduced the Aylesbury review and despite most of Oxford grinding to a halt for a week due to flooding, buses ran
21.8% more on time when compared with the previous year, and improved further from that point. Stating that a "sheer lack of local knowledge and over-reliance on Optibus" is, frankly, an inappropriate and ill-founded assertion.
Optibus was not used in High Wycombe's network design, and a "lift and shift" from our old platform for Aylesbury. Optibus is currently used primarily for scheduling, not network design. We do not use AI-generated timetables. All large, and most medium/small bus operators, use some form of scheduling suite. I hate to break the illusion that we no longer use pens and rulers on bus graphs to design our timetables; Optibus significantly speeds up workflow, and it's in every operators interest to deploy their buses in the most efficient way possible.
The X1 was a great service when introduced and there was a glee about it, now it trundles around though Bletchley, Fenny before reaching the A5, for me it has lost some of its appeal. It’s a designated coach service with sometimes up to two buses a day. The buses used are filthy and slow. 7212 was sent over from Luton to cover for the damaged 7105 and went back to Luton without 7105 actually returning to service. Why isn’t there a spare coach or at the least a designated service but that actually looks and feels the part? The service is now much slower than the MK1 so the selling point needs to be the way in which the service is being delivered. Having coaches plays a big role into this. Also why would a route with specialised vehicles such as coaches not even have a spare?
We're not purchasing or redeploying a dedicated spare coach, at significant capital expense, when the route can utilise our bus fleet. Depots have a spare fleet allocation, with the industry standard being roughly between 10% and 20%. It doesn't make commercial sense to have a 25% spare fleet contingent for one route that is barely six months old.
We've an exemplary record of running the full coach contingency on X1 since the route's conception, as well as service delivery performance in general. Having just checked, since 21 July and 31 December 2024, 99.7% of all scheduled miles have operated. When a coach is unavailable, we use a bus - it's common practice I've encountered in similar operational settings, such as trentbarton's red arrow. Very occasionally, that means two buses - however,
most of the time, particularly prior to the 7105 non-fault incident, it is the three coaches; I encourage you to look this up on bustimes.
7105 has been waiting for a spare parts which needed to be imported. This has now arrived and has been fitted, but there are other repairs to carry out. A reminder; this was a non-fault incident, and we did provide an additional spare coach in the interim for as long as possible without impacting service delivery on Greenline.
The timing point at Hockliffe Signals headed towards Luton should be at Birch Close instead as it blocks adjoining traffic from Woburn Road and the A4012. This is where using a computer program doesn’t cut the mustard.
No. I visited the site ahead of registering the service, and consulted with the the Route Risk Assessor on their preference, who agreed that the current timing point presents less risk to other road users. It is also deliberately timed to minimise dwell on this busy arterial corridor following discussions with CBC.
Despite your claims, I conduct due diligence in person and accept sensible insight from all parties when I support with on route risk assessments, not just designing routes "on a computer program".
I never mentioned perfection; my friend runs a company as I said; and I see the challenges that he faces however it seems that nationwide Arriva are falling short and I’d even go as far to say that if in many of the places where they are doing well financially such as Luton and Milton Keynes if there was more competition on key routes then Arriva would loose a lot of custom as we say with Aylesbury.
Both Luton and Milton Keynes deliver commercial bus services in a deregulated market alongside several other operators that use market forces to determine viability of competition, whether direct or indirect.
Many of the Optares that were sent from Leicester don’t have working blinds, why did head office allow buses to leave to go somewhere else without checking these things? It looks so unprofessional especially when you look at Uno and Stagecoach operating in Arriva’a “turf”.
This just isn't true - there's nothing further to add on this.
The age profile is suitable for the type of work the buses do. I've said in previous posts that as newer buses are deployed, depreciation becomes a bigger factor in overall costs, so a balance must be struck. As a Volvo fan, I think these vehicles are spot on for interurban crowd-moving with their generous capacity, though even I will acknowledge that the buses are showing their age and, as a result, we're working on a cascade plan later in the year as a result of investments elsewhere in the country.
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With due respect, we appear to have differing perspectives on your claims regarding service provision. I remain committed to defending the position of the businesses I have worked tirelessly to enhance over the past two years, particularly during a challenging period for the industry. I suggest we disagree agreeably, and conclude this discussion here to allow the thread to refocus on developments related to Arriva Midlands.
Hi arrivamatt, judging by your post, I'm guessing you work for Arriva, are you able to share what the plan is for the electric buses for Tamworths 110 that are supposed to be on the way... such as when and what has been ordered?
Thanks
Apologies, I'm not close to the detail on this. Any details regarding Tamworth's electric upgrades will be made through a coordinated announcement, which I'm sure will be forthcoming once everything is finalised.
While I appreciate that you may be limited in what you can say, are you able to give details on what data was shared through the MK Bus Partnership? I am thinking is there anything which other LAs could take onboard if such data sharing is leading to expansion of the network?
The spark of the idea came from customer feedback initially, where a jigsaw of previous routes were pieced together. Whilst we were able to make ridership assumptions based on our pre-2021 network, the idea of linking elements of previous routes did have unknowns in demand. With our bilateral data sharing practice within the MK Bus Partnership, high-level supporting ridership patterns from DRT were shared at a to show the most popular movements. Many will have their views on DRT, but one of the positives that the city-wide MK Connect scheme is to demonstrate where journeys can be amalgamated into a fixed-line solution, which then allows the on-demand system to be more targeted, concentrated and frequent for other unique movements, so both parties benefit.
The X1 really should be reviewed and I still don't see why Arriva is taking such an ablest view towards the X1. You have diverted the X1 to serve Bletchley Bus Station but as anyone who has been there will know, this bus station is not accessible for coaches with a middle wheelchair lift. It's bad enough that you do it at Milton Keynes Central Station (which I know from personal experience, a coach loading a wheelchair there isn't suitable because of positioning the vehicle and ensuring no one hits their head on the canopy), and now you go to a bus station where the lift would have to be deployed in the middle of the bus apron. I'd love to know who signed that off on health and safety grounds. Are wheelchair passengers not welcome onboard the X1 service? Is it for able bodied people only?
Of course, we welcome wheelchairs on board the X1. Whilst I could articulate that all our fleet is PSVAR compliant and so on, the reality of the real-world practicalities of wheelchair lifts must be considered, and appreciate that the two bus stations have their challenges.
Your previous post on this matter supported awareness of this in early December, which was highlighted in our risk assessments for the amended routing. There is a solution and SOP for both facilities. I'll catch up with the team tomorrow and will request an update our communications on this exact matter.
