Picture by Matt Davis from Flickr
Bevendean residents are fed up that their neighbourhood seems to be bearing the brunt of a driver shortage, turning the area into a bus desert.
The 48 bus from Churchill Square to Lower Bevendean is timetabled for three buses an hour during peak times on the Brighton and Hove Buses website.
However, a shortage of drivers is causing cancellations, with residents reporting waiting times of up to 40 minutes in the last week.
Confusion and frustration was shared over why some services, like the 49 from Portslade to East Moulsecoomb, don’t seem to be affected as much.
Claire Louise Huber said: “All the 49s, some literally a minute apart, then waiting up to half an hour for one 48.
“Just find the service very unfair especially when paying the same fare for more frequent services.”
Emma Adams said: “Apparently they’ve got no drivers available.
“I was waiting 40 minutes for a bus. Four 49s went past me whilst I was waiting.”
Tiff Ancell said: “Shortage of drivers but yet choose to put more drivers on the 49 routes.
“Literally take a couple of drivers from the 49s and place them onto the 48 services.
“Isn’t rocket science. They create their own shortage of drivers due to situations like this.”
The two bus services, the 48 and 49 use the same bus route from Churchill Square, through Old Steine, along Lewes Road to Brighton University, then split at the bottom of The Avenue.
The 49, which is scheduled for six services an hour during the day and three in the evenings, goes on to Moulsecoomb, while the 48 loops around Bevendean.
The 48 route also serves Brighton Station and Cardinal Newman School in the mornings.
Angie Cook said: “It’s not acceptable to walk from the bottom of The Avenue at that time of night.
“It can take up to 25 minutes to get to some parts of Bevendean by foot and that’s if you’re able bodied to walk.
“We have to pay the same bus price as everyone else but we only have the option of one bus.”
Nick Hill, Commercial Director at Brighton and Hove Buses said: “Like many bus operators at the moment, we are feeling the full impact of the nationwide driver shortage.
“As a result we have had to adjust some of our route frequencies to better match the service level to the number of drivers available.
“The frequencies of bus routes in the city are determined by the level of demand for them. We are currently running an ongoing recruitment drive and remain committed to seeing improvements to driver numbers and service reliability.”
The council is in the process of negotiating with bus operators to use £28 million from central government to address issues with the city’s buses.
The council have announced that their priorities in the Bus Service Improvement Plan are to reduce bus fares for children, and standardising the prices of cashless fares.
Brighton and Hove Buses are recruiting online here: https://www.buses.co.uk/careers. They are also launching a recruitment drive for Ukranian bus drivers.
It’s the same with the 23 from the University. Regularly late if it turns up at all. No fun if you’re trying to get home to the Marina or to the hospital
Brighton and Hove used to be such a reliable company and have such a great network of bus routes then it went rapidly downhill as soon as Metrobus got attached to them. Nick Hill was the manager at Metrobus Crawley when they were separate companies, I had reason to make a complaint. There had been a road closed for a few days due to roadworks and the service that was hourly in the Redhill area was on a lengthy diversion until 5pm. The bus company, ‘Metrobus’ decided to revert to normal line of route at around 3pm. They hadn’t updated their website so three of us were stood waiting like lemons on the diverted route.
This Nick Hill couldn’t see what the problem was when asked to explain why they advertised the route was diverted until 5pm yet went back to normal route at 3pm and hadn’t told anybody or updated their face book page.
His answer, ‘Well the contractor finished earlier’.
If that idiot now runs B&H I can fully understand why we have these situations.
So six buses an hour on the 49, 3 on the 48, so lets drop a 48 because we have no Drivers, great logic that Mr Hill, I’m sure dropping one 49 would make it very difficult for passengers having to wait 10 minutes for the next one.
AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY THERE’S TOO MANY CARS ON OUR ROADS, get a grip MR HILL.
Yesterday I waited 45 minutes at sainsburys on lewes Road after picking my daughter up from school and there was SEVEN 25s SEVEN!!!
IT’S DISGUSTING WE WAS ABSOLUTELY FREEZING, IT WAS GETTING DARK IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT THE 25s where empty after the third one went by so there was no need for the other four.. And a bus went by out of service which I bet was the 48! Why not take off a 25 why run an empty bus?? Yet u say no demand in Bevendean yes there is.. Why students get priority do u know how many students live in Bevendean TOO MANY SO THERE SERVE THEM!
Logically, it’s so they can get 25s up to that end of the route to get staff and students back down from Falmer at the end of the working day. It’s absolute carnage trying to get back into town on that route, I can assure you.
It could have been the 48, but maybe so late, the driver would be in breach of hours, or for break. The most reliable place to catch a bus – is the garage. Changes taking place here mean you can get your bus.
If you catch the 22 to Race Hill, you can walk down into Bevendean, but said 22 would also become a 48 later.
Keith
What an unintelligent comment.
So you expect people in Bevendean to go to Lewes Road Garage to get their bus?
Sorry mate, the car comes out if the bus doesn’t turn up and you bus people complain passenger numbers are down.
No, getting back to Bevendean. Not from Bevendean. Why walk from Norwich Drive to the garage when if you want to walk, you could if you’re able (I wouldn’t) up towards the race course (if anyone does, I’d be surprised) or going down to meet the 49 on the Avenue to get from town. Morning buses should be OK.
I drove these buses.
Just try the 22s, last week in the morning we had one not show up and the next day 15 mins late, daughter late for school both days. Then on one day we were waiting in the rain for just over an hour for a 22. Disgusting.
Last month it was the No7 that took the hit. Perhaps the bus company needs to pay more ?
No-one seems to understand bus services? The 49s are used heavily so more buses are put on for it. The 48s, not many actually go into Bevendean, the 25s have so many passengers that late running is bound to happen, in order to not lose much time, they go back around again – late. The next bus also goes around late.
If you have less 49s, you have more waiting time. The heavily used services should have enough buses to cover them.
Some people use a service to go to a common location. Churchill Square, Old Steine, University and those wanting to go further can not. The X series of services helps.
Keith
What a complete load of old rubbish.
No-one seems to understand bus services?
Sorry but you’re well out of your depth on this one.
The 48 has a frequency of every 20 minutes, or allegedly 3 buses per hour, the 49 six buses and hour.
If a 48 is missing, that’s a 40 minute wait but more than likely longer because they all run late anyway due to poor running times.
The 49s are used heavily so more buses are put on for it. Ok yes they are busier, but what about when 2 or 3 run together with one full and the second partly full and the third chugging along empty ?
Explain why that third one can’t fill in as a 48, or are your buses not tracked ?
It’s irrelevant that not many actually go into Bevendean, passengers expect a low frequency bus service to turn up, you know the elderly, disabled, parents with young children wanting to go to or from school, or do the company not really care about its passengers.
You say the 25s have so many passengers, well no they don’t, the 25 service has been cut back from 22 buses to 16, yes Keith, some of us do know in the ins and outs of running bus company services.
Late running is sometimes down to circumstances beyond the Driver and bus company control, yet B&H running times I’ve noticed are optimistic at best. Seriously Keith, 36 minutes on a 25 from Portslade Station to the University, always arrives late and that’s with Drivers speeding around and rushing. Poor running times.
So it’s perfectly fine for 48 passengers to wait 40 minutes for a bus in Bevendean but seriously out of order if a 49 passenger has to wait a few minutes longer. Wow, like your thinking.
No Keith, the less used services should have enough buses to cover them for the vulnerable passengers that use them.
The X series of services helps you say?
You say ‘No-one seems to understand bus services’ yet show ignorance of the fact that there’s very few ‘X’ services that now go along the Lewes Road two to be exact. Perhaps knowing what buses you run might prevent you making a Pratt of yourself.
From an earlier comment from you, If you catch the 22 to Race Hill, you can walk down into Bevendean, but said 22 would also become a 48 later.
So you expect elderly, disabled etc to walk down into Bevendean. And what about people waiting to travel from Bevendean, expect them to walk up to the Race Hill?
Love part of your last comment, Some people use a service to go to a common location. Churchill Square, Old Steine.
Absolutely the point that passengers will go to these points, but what escapes you, people live on Estates, so the bus needs to serve these areas to pick them up don’t you think ?
People will find alternatives to buses if the service is appalling. A missing 49 will have some inconvenience to some passengers, but a missing 48 has far more impact on the passengers who use the service.
Is it beyond the thinking capability of a Operations manager to think outside the box, how about one driver doing a shuttle between Bevendean and the Avenue and transferring passengers onto the 24/25/28/29/49 ?
BHCC want this to be a Car Free City, with all these cuts to services do you really think that can happen any time soon ?
Sorry Keith, I’m afraid B& H have completely lost the plot. I reverted to my car sometime ago due to buses not turning up to get me home for child care reasons and it’s actually cheaper now to use my car.
Out of my depth? I drove for B&H, B&C co.
During Covid, the frequency of buses was about 1 per half-hour. Same frequency as the 23. But that was pushed back to 1 per hour.
If you live on the Moulsecoomb estate and use the 49 if there is no bus available there is a reasonably short walk from most parts to the Lewes Rd. where many more services are available to take you into town. If you use the 48 bus service and it’s unavailable there is a mile and a half walk from the end of the estate if you are fit enough to do it. The infrequency of the service has made most residents there to use a car instead. I myself have resorted to using a car to get as far as the main Lewes road., park up somewhere there and that’s not always easy , to them pick up a bus getting int town. There are many 49s going by with very few passengers and you see many them going past whilst waiting for a 48 so it’s no wonder we in Bevendean feel discriminated against.