Publicity for Buses on the North Bank

Thought I would take a brief look at the publicity produced for bus services in the region, firstly on the North Bank in Hull and East Yorkshire.

Both main bus operators in the area; Stagecoach and EYMS publish timetables for all their services. These are clear and easy to read, and often include maps. Both companies use their 'house colours' for their timetables which means Stagecoach's are a bit more brighter than EYMS's - but crucially both do their job of informing passengers when and were services run.

Stagecoach also produce a handy map of their network with summary timetables of their main services. The frequency of other services are also shown.

Some other operators in the area also produce their own timetables - notably Yorkshire Coastliner with their excellent timetable guide with detailed town maps, tourist information and a guide on how to use the bus (for new users) as well as the timetable.

So what about the councils? First for Hull City Council - I've not seen a Hull City Council timetable for a few years (please correct me if I'm wrong) but then their is very little need for any. Hull is served by only three operators; EYMS, Stagecoach and Veolia. The first two produce their own timetables while Veolia's services are included in publicity provided by others, except the park and ride service 700 which is turn up and go when it is operating. However to bring the whole network together, Hull City Council produce an excellent bus map, complete with a summary of the frequency of every service in Hull.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council produce an A4 sized comprehensive timetable book of every service in the East Riding. It also doubles up as a business directory and I presume that is how it is funded. But it does the job - some maps would be useful though - and from my point of view an indication of which services are subsidised as the old East Riding timetable books of the late 1990's used to do. However many passengers don't care so not a major issue.

Overall services in Hull and East Yorkshire have some good publicity produced for them. Room for improvement but it could be a lot worse.