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Birmingham buses

Jonob said:
Pensioners passes can be used at anytime, however, when used "out of hours" a £1 charge is made for any journey. John.
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Jojoba
Not everywhere, here in North Devon, on weekdays 0930hrs start. In Somerset, next door, Devon passes not accepted.
Bob
 
Birmingham has always been mollycoddled with bus fares. I believe it was just after WW2 when senior citizens gained free bus passes in the city. We had wait, in Devon, for almost fifty years for ours.
 
i have a concession bus pass i can use it anytime on any bus free, that lets me use the train at certain times too free.
 
The trains/trams concession, like the ability to partly use in peak time is a local thing only available to local people a s funded totally out of their council tax
 
Bob Davis said:
Jojoba
Not everywhere, here in North Devon, on weekdays 0930hrs start. In Somerset, next door, Devon passes not accepted.
Bob
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English Concessionary Travel Passes are accepted on bus services all over England. Start times are determined locally.
Trains and trams depend on local regulations. For example my West Midlands pass is accepted on trams in Sheffield but not Nottingham or Manchester. Only West Midlands passes are accepted on West Midlands Metro.
 
devonjim said:
Just read a quote from local councillor that free transport is not financially viable, I guess it wouldn't be!
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Once again, politicians sticking noses in where unwanted. Is Luxembourg completely in the wrong then? The savings in dealing with coinage alone would save a huge amount. (As an aside, when I worked for the Midland Red in Birmingham they went from paying bank charges to selling the cash to the post office at slightly over face value, plus no charge for collection!)
 
No problem with my pass in Birmingham, except on Metro, or Londkn and other big cities, but was unable to use it in Gloucester and cannot use it iñ Wales.
Bob
 
Bob Davis said:
No problem with my pass in Birmingham, except on Metro, or Londkn and other big cities, but was unable to use it in Gloucester and cannot use it iñ Wales.
Bob
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I can use my bus pass on (local) trains and the metro, because I live in the West Midlands PTA area.
 
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Lloyd said:
Once again, politicians sticking noses in where unwanted. Is Luxembourg completely in the wrong then? The savings in dealing with coinage alone would save a huge amount. (As an aside, when I worked for the Midland Red in Birmingham they went from paying bank charges to selling the cash to the post office at slightly over face value, plus no charge for collection!)
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I don’t think many bus services are operating on cash now are they? I thought most areas have daily, weekly and monthly passes for workers which are purchased off bus. Presumably there are mobile phone options now.
Another problem now is the splitting of longer distance bus journeys into smaller contracts based on local authority boundaries which consequently requires a bus change . This has happened locally. Consequently fewer people use the service not willing to be left stranded when the bus doesn’t turn up for the second part of the journey.
 
Never heard of longer distance journeys being split. Certainly here Reading buses cover several authorities, into Bracknell and Newbury, both well outside the reading area. similarly there re buses that go from Leeds to Scarborough, as I understand it without changing buses.
Certainly here we still accept cash, though cards and unfortunately phones predominate. I say unfortunately as many people seem unable to get their phone ready to pay until actually at the machine, and some, although they presumably use it for cash transactions regularly, seem even worse at actually doing anything on them than I am
 
Tinpot said:
I don’t think many bus services are operating on cash now are they? I thought most areas have daily, weekly and monthly passes for workers which are purchased off bus. Presumably there are mobile phone options now.
Another problem now is the splitting of longer distance bus journeys into smaller contracts based on local authority boundaries which consequently requires a bus change . This has happened locally. Consequently fewer people use the service not willing to be left stranded when the bus doesn’t turn up for the second part of the journey.
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I use the Numer 7 & 11 buses twice a week, always seen a number of passengers using the good old stuff called cash.

Nick Phillips ‍♂️
 
mikejee said:
Never heard of longer distance journeys being split. Certainly here Reading buses cover several authorities, into Bracknell and Newbury, both well outside the reading area. similarly there re buses that go from Leeds to Scarborough, as I understand it without changing buses.
Certainly here we still accept cash, though cards and unfortunately phones predominate. I say unfortunately as many people seem unable to get their phone ready to pay until actually at the machine, and some, although they presumably use it for cash transactions regularly, seem even worse at actually doing anything on them than I am
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Actually many longer distance routes are being split. I have read reports of former routes being split but still being operated by the same vehicle and driver. I was told by someone living in Merseyside that he used to get a bus from Chester to Barmouth on his bus pass but now the route is split at Wrexham so his bus pass is valid only to there.
 
DavidGrain said:
Actually many longer distance routes are being split. I have read reports of former routes being split but still being operated by the same vehicle and driver. I was told by someone living in Merseyside that he used to get a bus from Chester to Barmouth on his bus pass but now the route is split at Wrexham so his bus pass is valid only to there.
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Welsh Border?
Here in N Devon some "holiday" routes are excluded from pass system, not really fair to those for whom it is their local bus.
 
DavidGrain said:
Actually many longer distance routes are being split. I have read reports of former routes being split but still being operated by the same vehicle and driver. I was told by someone living in Merseyside that he used to get a bus from Chester to Barmouth on his bus pass but now the route is split at Wrexham so his bus pass is valid only to there.
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David. I would guess that that is because I believe the English and Welsh bus passes are separate. They are only valid in whichever country you live in. The same for Scotland.. When Tinpotb referred to local authorities I was thinking of individual councils, not Wales,england and scotland.
 
That is interesting David. If an English person used the pass and it was accepted into #wales, I wonder what would happen if he then tried to use it on another bus just going within wales. Guess perhaps they would not accept it
 
Moďs, this has become à fascinating thread but also far removed from Birmingham buses, can I suggest it has its own thread.
Incidentally , Birmingham has a split route situation , the 144.
Bob
 
mikejee said:
David. I would guess that that is because I believe the English and Welsh bus passes are separate. They are only valid in whichever country you live in. The same for Scotland.. When Tinpotb referred to local authorities I was thinking of individual councils, not Wales,england and scotland.
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The split of service route known to me is on a county council basis. I think it may be related to subsidy issues which will only get lower now as local budgets are cut.
 
One reason for split routes was the introduction of tighter drivers' hours regulations which stipulated that routes over 50km (31 miles) long could only be operated under tachograph regulations and the (then) EU hours tighter requirements. Less distances needed not to comply if the drivers were on a fixed work schedule rota. There was nothing to prevent a route linking A to B splitting at C en route, A-C becoming one journey and C-B another, both operated by the same vehicle & driver. I can remember driving the Midland Red Birmingham - Leicester route doing this, changing number at Coventry although passengers could stay on the bus and could buy through tickets.
 
My gripe about buses locally is that they use double deckers with umpteen seats doing 'milk round' routes with rarely more that one or two passengers travelling, I've followed many times around the Forest past dozens of stops where no-one gets on or off.
I think it would be cheaper for the local authority and better for the environment to forget the big buses and issue vouchers for free taxi rides.
 
Not sure where you live Eric, but assume it is a rural area. If so and the buses are mostly empty then I am very surprised that they are still running. In Reading there have been big complaints recently when a local service covering an are largely occupied by those with ridiculously large cars was reduce in frequency. The bus company quite rightly pointed out that if people did ot use them enough, then the service could not be supported as much. The problem with vouchers for free taxi rides is the same as that of those with cars. . Some people are just lazy and will use them for stupidly short journeys because they are there. I think it might end up being enormously expensive.
 
I'm in the Forest of Dean Mike, we have the same here with any suggestion of cutting the service there's campaign pops up to 'save it' despite it being underused.
I agree about the taxi, like anything that's free it would be abused, the NHS fits nicely into that category, ambulances for a cut finger and for drunks e,g, .
 
I'm very much off piste with this! (200miles from Brum). We have, on paper, four buses an hour to our local town, so with a free pass why use anything else, because we don't know which will turn up. Driver shortage, route aborted because of traffic congestion. So if you don't want to stand hoping that a bus will appear you go by car, pollute the air and pay for parking. Oh there is also a ring and ride from house door to supermarket, only if you have mobility problems, can't use your bus pass though! I don't qualify, I think it costs £6 return.
 
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Eric Gibson said:
My gripe about buses locally is that they use double deckers with umpteen seats doing 'milk round' routes with rarely more that one or two passengers travelling, I've followed many times around the Forest past dozens of stops where no-one gets on or off.
I think it would be cheaper for the local authority and better for the environment to forget the big buses and issue vouchers for free taxi rides.
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Eric, it would certainly be more efficient to use single deckers or even vans that seat 15 or 20 people, single deckers low steps or in some case kneeling vehicles. There are plenty of these vehicles made globally. The town we live in uses van types seating 15 to 20 with great success (and we are far from perfect).
 
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