Public meeting in Wareham to discuss Wilts and Dorset timetable changes

The Purbeck Transport Action Group have arranged a public meeting to discuss the issue of connections between Wilts and Dorset buses and South West Trains services at Bournemouth and Wareham railway stations – the meeting will be held at the offices of Purbeck District Council, Worgret Road, Wareham on Wednesday 21 May commencing at 1830hrs.

Since 1972, when through railway services to Swanage were withdrawn, the timetable planners of Western National, Hants and Dorset and subsequently Wilts and Dorset have made every effort to maximise connectivity between bus and rail services for both residents and visitors travelling to and from Corfe Castle and Swanage. Wilts and Dorset, which is now a subsidiary of the public transport company Go-Ahead Group, is introducing revised timetables from Sunday 25 May, which will cause severe inconvenience to both residents and visitors, who use connecting rail services due to the substantial increase in journey times – Purbeck will become a less attractive tourist destination as a result of the timetable changes by Wilts and Dorset.

The revised connections at Bournemouth and Wareham railway stations between Wilts and Dorset buses and South West Trains services from Sunday 25 May 2008 will be as follows:-

Wilts and Dorset service 40 (Poole – Swanage via Wareham)

• Northbound buses from Swanage arrive at Wareham railway station at 54 minutes past each hour
• South West Trains services to Southampton and London Waterloo depart from Wareham railway station at 28 and 52 minutes past each hour
• Customers will therefore have to wait THIRTY-FOUR minutes for a train connection
• South West Trains services from London Waterloo and Southampton arrive at Wareham railway station at 28 and 49 minutes past each hour
• Southbound buses to Swanage depart from Wareham railway station at 12 minutes past each hour

Customers will therefore have to wait TWENTY-THREE minutes for a bus connection

Wilts and Dorset Service 50 (Bournemouth - Swanage)

• Northbound buses from Swanage arrive at Bournemouth travel interchange at 27 minutes past each hour
• South West Trains services to Southampton and London Waterloo depart from Bournemouth railway station at 21 and 59 minutes past each hour
• Customers will therefore have to wait THIRTY-TWO minutes for a train connection
• South West Trains services from London Waterloo and Southampton arrive at Bournemouth railway station at 00 and 20 minutes past each hour
• Southbound buses to Swanage depart from Bournemouth travel interchange at 50 minutes past each hour

Customers will therefore have to wait THIRTY minutes for a bus connection

Department for Transport to ‘research’ concessionary fares reimbursement

The Department for Transport is to commission research to see if a simpler method of concessionary fares reimbursement can be devised to overcome the annual round of appeals – the research will assess the ‘impact of concessionary fares on bus demand and costs and the possibility of moving to a more deterministic basis for reimbursement.’ A number of possible reimbursement models will be examined, including a fixed percentage of the average adult single fare for every concessionary customer conveyed and a fixed payment per concessionary passenger.

CrossCountry rail ticket restrictions cause confusion

Cheap day returns between certain stations in the South West, where CrossCountry is responsible for the ticket pricing, are now not available for travel between 1530hrs and 1815hrs, in addition to the morning peak restriction. Customers boarding trains at Cheltenham Spa to Cardiff Central between 1530hrs and 1815hrs can use cheap day return tickets to travel to Lydney and Chepstow (as these ‘station-to-station’ flows are priced by Arriva Trains Wales), but not to Gloucester or Newport, South Wales (as these ‘station-to-station’ flows are priced by CrossCountry).

FirstGroup plc preliminary results

FirstGroup plc has announced the company’s preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2008 which reveal that the passenger revenue of First Great Western grew by 9.6 per cent – the passenger revenue for the group’s UK buses grew by five per cent, leading to an increase in the operating margin from 9.6 per cent to 11 per cent.

Are ‘time saving’ benefits of new road schemes ‘illusory’?

David Metz, the chief scientist for the Department for Transport between 1992 and 1997 has claimed that hundreds of road projects have been justified over the last thirty years on the basis of time savings that were ‘illusory’ – he notes that the monetary value given to time savings has been estimated to deliver a minimum of eighty per cent of the benefits of major road schemes. Metz states that there is no evidence that people use time savings to reduce the amount of time they spend travelling – he also warns that most people use new roads not to reduce journey time, but to travel to destinations further afield.

Grants for community rail lines

The Department for Transport has announced that community rail lines can apply for grants of £5k maximum to support small projects (e.g. more seats on platforms, cycle parking) that benefit local rail users.

And finally,

The Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether to bring charges against a farmer who ‘took his time’ to repair a tractor when it broke down crossing the Gloucester to Lydney railway line, delaying train services for two hours. The farmer stated that his tardiness was in protest at the delays by Network Rail in repairing broken fences near his farm.