The merger of one popular Brighton bus route with another will help improve punctuality and stop it making a £250,000 annual loss, a bus company boss told residents last night.
Nick Hill, Brighton and Hove Buses’ commercial director, outlined plans for the number 18 service, which is one of the city’s worst performing routes in terms of punctuality.
And although the 18 bus is well used during the day, lower passenger numbers at night means fares cover just three-quarters of the cost of running it, with passenger numbers falling even lower over the last year. He said buses typically cost £70 – £80 an hour to run.
He said this is because the service’s circular route with loops at either end meant there was no rest period in the timetable, which allows late-running buses to catch up.
To solve the problem, the bus company wants to keep the route between Queens Park and Brighton Station – with the same 15-minute frequency – but then merge it with another service currently serving north or west of the city centre.
Speaking at a packed meeting of the St Luke’s Residents Association meeting in St Luke’s Church Hall last night, Mr Hill said he couldn’t disclose which service it would be merging with until he had spoken to residents at a different meeting later this week.
He said: “We are keen to protect the frequency of the 18 so it links the community with St James’s Street and then the station. Probably the best option is to link it to another service.
“The vast majority of our services are cross town routes and that maximises the journey opportunities between the two and means the bus has recovery times.
“I had hoped to share with you tonight but we haven’t had the opportunity to discuss it with the community at the other end of the route.”
He said the new route would mean the bus would no longer stop at Churchill Square when travelling towards Queens Park, or travel on the loop past Waitrose, Park Royal or Homelees House north of Western Road.
One resident pointed out this meant passengers could no longer wait at Churchill Square for either the 18 or the 21 and hop on whichever turned up first.
It would still stop at Brighton Station, but at a different stop to the one it now uses.
Another said it would mean no buses stopped at Homeless House at all.
Nick Hill said only about six people used the Homelees House and Park Royal stops on the 18 route. He added that following feedback from the meeting, the new route might be tweaked.
I’ve got a radical idea:
Why not make bus travel affordable in order to get paying passengers using them rather than run them empty?
But no, they’ll put the price of bus travel up even more and then wonder why they make an even bigger loss.
Another win for Uber
If you make buses ‘more affordable’, it would increase passenger numbers, but not enough to cover the loss in revenue. So, you would need additional subsidy from central or local government. Here’s the evidence:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856423001209#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20we%20show%20that,from%20existing%20or%20new%20customers.
I’m not sure that the context of that paper is relevant.
The fiddling of the totally different pricing of the Geneva system cannot compare at all to the cost that we have to endure here, so it just doesn’t relate. The example given at 500 Swiss Francs for an annual ticket amounts to the equivalent of £9.07 per week. We pay £3 per journey! There is no comparison.
The minor fluctuations of an affordable public transport system in no way relates to the pricing of our public transport system which is unaffordable from the outset. In fact, what you have illustrated is just how broken our public transport system is.
Why? They have to run the route. If it was up to them they would drop that service. So why would any company do something if it wasn’t making any money? Are you a socialist by any chance?
I would propose making them completely free, actually.
And if you can’t afford the bus you certainly can’t afford Uber.
It seems that more and more people have taken to illegally using electric scooters to get about.
No rest period in the timetable? What do we call what they do around the corner from the pepper pot then? Or… am I hallucinating empty, stationary buses with the driver p*ssing up the other side of the wall again?! Damn it!
I actually thought the drivers waited 5/10 mins at the Down Terrace stops-hardly any passengers on the bus by the time they get to that stop-then start the Service from the stop further up towards Freshfield Rd.
A Bus Service of some sort is vital in these areas, so hilly, just like the 37/37B route all that area up from The Level needs a Bus Service, more needed each hour-same with Meadowview-all needed.
And those little buses are ideal-why did B&H Bus Company get rid of the Smaller Buses.
Anyone remember the busy bee No7 service that used to run.
They’re supposed to wait on Downs Terrace but they don’t, they drive around to the side of St. Luke’s Church and wait there as they always have done. This is why when you look at the B&H app and it says the 18 is due in 5 minutes at Downs Terrace it’ll always be down by the pepper pot already. This might have something to do with the “low rider numbers” in the area. Nobody bothers trying to catch the 18 from Downs Terrace or Freshfield Road because they’re NEVER there when they’re supposed to be.
They should “half” merge the route with the 2. Maybe call it 2A. Have it serve Freshfield and Queens Park Road instead of straight down to the bingo, and then also have it follow the 7 route to the station and through seven dials the back way to George Street where it would rejoin the traditional 2 route.