The 3rd of June marks the sixth month anniversary of the Bee Network. Or, to put it another way, it will have been six months since franchising was rolled out across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester.
With this in mind, now seems like a good opportunity to look back and reflect on what have been the good bits and the bad bits of this form of franchising so far. Unfortunately, as a regular bus user, it's actually easier to spot the things that haven't gone so well than the things that have gone well.
One area that has seen an improvement is contracts for drivers, with the 'Licence for Greater Manchester' now meaning that drivers can leave one of the bus companies operating on the Bee Network in order to work for another one also operating on the Bee Network, without having to start at the new company on a basic salary. Ie, they can keep their previous grade and salary when they move companies and will no longer have to take a pay cut every time they change operators. This is really good news because it removes barriers to moving jobs, which is always a good thing, and in practical terms would mean that if you're working for a shit bus operator you can now move to a slightly better one without having to take a pay cut for the privilege of doing so.
An area where the Bee Network sought to make positive change was in the design and accessibility of the new yellow buses, which were meant to be more accessible for those with disabilities and with visual and hearing impairments. On paper at least, this has been achieved in that the new buses do have floors that can be lowered, there is greater space for wheelchairs, and there are stop display screens and recorded audio stop announcements in place. In reality though, it just isn't working as it should be.
Let's take the changes one at a time.
In terms of having a bus that can lower the floor to the same height as the kerb, this is something that was in place on most of the old buses anyway (certainly on Stagecoach buses) and, as previously, while it's good to have it and it should be standard, the implementation of it's use depends very much on the individual driver as well as on the individual driver's access to the bus stop. For example, the 385 is cursed by having a large number of bus stops without road markings where local residents are forever parking their cars with impunity. This makes it hard for intrepid 385 drivers to pull into the stop and get close enough to the pavement to ensure a smooth exit from the bus. A drop down floor doesn't solve this particular problem. Proper road markings for bus stops and enforcement action against motorists parking at bus stops would.
The greater space for wheelchairs is really good and does ensure that there is more room on the buses for those using a wheelchair. I'm really glad that it was built into the design, but... It does mean that there are now less seats on the buses. Especially the single decker buses and the smaller single decker buses that basically resemble a minibus. This unfortunately leads to more people standing in the aisles, hindering access for everyone, including those using a wheelchair.
The visual display screens and audio announcements were being trialled on Stagecoach pre Bee Network and, as with the ones on the Stagecoach buses, the problems have remained the same: They are rarely switched on and, when the drivers do remember to switch them on, they often have the wrong end of the route displayed. There is literally no point in looking at a list of real time stop information for the Hawk Green and Mellor end of the 385 route if you're actually travelling in the opposite direction towards Stockport. It tends to be even rarer for the audio stop announcements to be switched on and, again, they sometimes are wrong as well. I'm assuming that the three main reasons why the visual and audio stop info isn't switched on are as follows:
1) Lack of training on how to switch them on and ensure they are working properly.
2) Tech failures
3) Drivers find the audio announcements annoying and know that some passengers do as well.
This all leads me onto a number of other areas in which the first six months of the Bee Network can be seen to have not been that great.
Firstly, there have been problems with vehicles. Not just the new vehicles - which have definitely had problems, both as described above, but also with payment scanners not working properly for days or weeks at a time - but also with old vehicles. Specifically, there have been a number of occasions when I've flagged down a bus that I know is my bus (because no other buses stop at that stop) but it has either not had a destination or number displayed on the front of the vehicle or, on one memorable occasion, has had the 'Sorry, not in service' display up while still carrying passengers.
There's also driving styles, which leads onto a personal bugbear of mine, ie drivers who don't know how to drive over speed bumps without treating passengers like a sack of spuds in a delivery van.
The big problem is, of course, reliability. According to the data that the Bee Network has collected over the past six months, reliability on bus routes in Tranches 1, 2 and 3 of the Bee Network is constantly improving. But it doesn't feel like that to passengers. As regular readers will know, the reliability of the 385 has - in my experience of using it - decreased since the contract was taken away from D&G and given to Diamond in January. Similarly, while it felt as though reliability on the 383 had improved since January, it now seems to be sliding backwards again (more on this in my previous post). With reliability in particular, perception of passengers is as important as cold hard statistics. If people don't feel that they are getting an improved service, they won't feel good about using the Bee Network. And they may even stop using it.
