TRENT BUSES

The city council's decision to remove two bus stops and replace them with one is to be investigated following complaints by residents. But the council has warned that if residents are successful in reversing the decision, the service could be withdrawn altogether. The Local Government Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the council's decision to axe the stops in Willowcroft Road, Spondon, and create one new one.

The council removed the bus stops in April 2005, claiming that their replacement with a single one would improve traffic flow. But residents said it had made life difficult for pensioners who used the services, Trent's number 91 and Spondon Flyer buses, because they had difficulty in walking to the new stop. Another reason cited by the council for the change was that motorists had been parking in the original bus stops.

Peter Price, the council's transport policy manager, said the decision was taken in a bid to dissuade Trent from not stopping at all on Willowcroft Road and said, "It's the only route out of Spondon so it's very busy, and the bus stops were being blocked by cars. We did this to help the traffic flow. Of course, there will always be occasions when cars block the new stop, but the feedback we've had from Trent Barton is that things have improved a great deal since the changes were made."

The council claims to be encouraging people to use public transport, yet is concerned that having two stops slows up the traffic flow, and that some people cause problems by parking in the bus stops. The council recently announced how much money it was collecting from a clampdown on illegal parking. Surely if traffic wardens went into Spondon, the 'problem' with bus-stop parking would disappear. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Sep/06)

Trent Buses has enthusiastically backed a plan to install an express busway on a former railway line between Derby and Mackworth. The Heanor-based bus operator said it could inject hundreds of thousands of pounds into the project if Government cash was made available. But it could be 2008 before the project sees the light of day. Derby City Council has left it out of its five-year local transport plan and says it will have to wait until the next plan, which covers 2006-2011. The city council says the first five-year plan will focus instead on completing the city’s inner ring road and installing bus priority schemes.

The busway would run from the old railway station in Friar Gate and serve a number of proposed housing developments. Trent believes that it would regenerate large parts of the city and remove hundreds of cars from the roads if it was linked with a park and ride scheme situated near the A38. Trent managing director Brian King said, “We are very keen to see a project such as this proceed because we believe it has tremendous potential.” Communications director Melvyn Hopwood said, “We would move mountains to do it.”

The pair were speaking at a dinner held yesterday to mark the entry into service of Trent’s 100th Optare Excel low-floor bus. The company says its market research has shown that the double-glazed vehicles, which cost £110,000 each, are very popular with customers. Trent has bought 250 buses from the Leeds-based manufacturer and says two-thirds of its fleet now have low floors. The average age of the company’s fleet of 400 buses is now 4.4 years, one of the youngest of any bus operator in the UK.

Mr King said that the new buses are part of Trent’s strategy to build up its key routes and introduce new and extra services. The company has recently introduced the Borrowash Flyer and has increased the frequency of its Ilkeston Flyer from every half-hour to every 20 minutes. Mr King said that after 40 years of decline experienced by the bus industry, Trent was now achieving year-on-year growth. However, Mr King said the company had to recognise that some routes were not sustainable, such as its number 29 from Derby to Breadsall, Stanley and Ilkeston.

The service was eventually replaced by an Arriva service subsidised by Derbyshire County Council. Mr King said, “More bus drivers are being employed and more journeys are being run than we did before on both core routes and new products. But on some of the lesser used products, we have to say sorry, we can’t do them any more.”

Trent Barton is investing more than £2.5m in a fleet of new buses with satellite tracking to allow users to find out by text message exactly when the next bus is due. The company is buying 25 buses for the Rainbow Five service, which connects Derby, Long Eaton and Nottingham. The buses, which cost £100,000 each, will also be fitted with state-of-the-art tracking devices which will cost a further £3,000 each. The company hopes to improve the service, which attracts more than four million passengers a year, by allowing them to find out via their mobile phones when the next bus is due.

Keith Shayshutt, head of development at Trent Barton, said, "This is a major investment in our most important route. It will allow us to deliver real-time information back to our customers, telling them the actual time the bus is coming rather than just the scheduled time. So if you are standing in Chaddesden and you want a bus to Long Eaton, you can text a number and a few seconds letter, you'll get a beep and the time of your bus." When the buses come into use, six-digit codes will be displayed at bus stops along the route.

By text messaging the code at a particular bus stop, at a cost of 25p, a text message will be received a few seconds later with information about the time of the next bus. Mr Shayshutt said, "People can't always read the timetables, and unfortunately we suffer from traffic congestion so not all buses are on time. The beauty of it is that, if you know the code of your bus stop, you can find out from your own house, the office or the pub." The new buses will also feature a scrolling screen on the bus, displaying the name of the next stop, and a voice announcement will be made over the bus stating the name of the next stop.

If the scheme is successful it may be rolled out to other bus routes, including the Rainbow Four service between Derby and Nottingham. Mr Shayshutt added that plans to install bus stop signs with up-to-date information about the whereabouts of the next bus were being drawn up in partnership with Derbyshire County Council. It is not known when they will be installed, but there should be 10 at stops between Borrowash and Long Eaton.

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