Of 37 votes cast 21 voters thought that WiFi on board would benefit longer distance travellers the most, 14 thought it was a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere, and only 2 thought on board WiFi suits the short hop passenger most.
I deliberately didn't vote in the poll, but if I had I would have voted with the waste of money. But then I'm a grumpy old sod and would like to see blanket bans on anything that makes a noise on buses and trains apart from phonecalls. Noisy earphones drive me up the wall and the inconsiderate people who blast music through them should be made to walk!! The only advantage I can see from Town routes getting WiFi first is that by time it's rolled out to the country routes all the teething troubles with the system should have been ironed out.
I would just like to put something else into the melting pot for you all to mull over. First Ipswich depot has 47 vehicles. If they are all fitted with WiFi - which I assume is the intention then the first year will cost £75,200, and subsequent years £18,800. How many extra evening journeys on country routes would that money pay for? I guess I'd rather see more services provided than gimmicks like WiFi. As I keep saying till I'm blue in the face you won't get extra passengers on buses if they can't get home again at a time that suits them regardless of what on-board facilities you have to offer.
Hi Steve.
ReplyDeleteThe only way you will get country services after tea or weekends,is,when money is made available again to sponsor them,you know as well as i do,who out in the country side would,come into say Ipswich on a 18.30 bus for a show or what ever,and wait til 22.50 or there abouts to go back home,not many,they would go by car,it's not like the 50's or even 60's where a bus was located in the sticks,i would love to see that idea return,Saxmundham,Framlingham,Woodbridge,even Diss outstations,not going to happen though is it.
Sadly, Jim I fear you're right. It will take a brave and visionary company to target evening and country travellers again. Far easier to try and poach other company's passengers.
ReplyDeleteI have received a comment from "Anonymous" which for some reason isn't showing on the blog - if anyone else can see it let me know. However, I've pasred it from the email below.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Steve. If buses were fitted with WiFi, the standard of travel would decrease. After all, the aim of a bus is to get from A to B, not hastle about logging into WiFi or companies turning their service into an 'internet café'.
Is half the problem the regulatory straightjacket in which the public transport industry exists? You need permission to do anything, like a naughty child, and don't do exactly as you've promised and you'll be put in the naughty corner. So running buses is playing a game of changing the vinyls and chase the bunny (aka competition). Great in high frequency urban areas. But in rural areas anything may be better than nothing. So it seems to me you can't run/extend an evening service as a sort of bus-taxi according to demand which might help. Innovation: God help us! the civil service (in its privatised form) doesn't get it, and politicians run scared of their (ever-complaining) public. And we're English, so we look for anything to complain about. It must come from being products of the weather and the BBC. Are First on a mission to annoy everyone, by the way?
ReplyDeleteWe can't control the weather, the BBC thinks no one should control it. Innovation in the bus industry died the day it ceased being a public service and became a profit making industry. No one is prepared to take a chance and wait for a service to catch on. If it doesn't succeed in weeks it goes. As for your last one I couldn't possibly comment as I want decent shots of 69005 this week :)
ReplyDeleteDunno, I don't remember buses in the 1950s/60s/70s being very innovative: the set up (and many vehicles, at least in East Anglia) seemed inherited from the 1930-50s. My finger still points at the heaps of regulation - why would any decent manager want to be second-guessed by a bureaucrat (or several) every time? Trains have the same, or an even worse, problem. That's not to say the staff don't do their best, they really do; but what star wants to play for a non-league side? Though First had better make sure you get the decent pics now, or we'll all know why!
ReplyDeleteI remember coming out of a theatre in Chatham on a Saturday evening with my Mum when I was about 8 in the me middle of a thunderstorm, running to the bus stop and catching a bus home. That wasn't even the last bus. I remember the bus was an old Leyland Panther though. I remember as a teen buying an Explorer tocket, getting the first bus out of the village at 7am and getting home on the last one around 10.30pm having travelled hundreds of miles around the South East. I remember an hourly Sunday service and a special Sunday Rider ticket indeed seeing and riding on my first V reg Bristol VR on a Sunday. My village then was on an A road. My village now is on an A road. My first bus leaves at 0953. My last bus gets back at 1247. I think maybe innovation was better then regardless of the vehicles.
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