From Sunday 6th May, EYMS is splitting one of it's main interurban services into two. Service 121 currently links Hull, Beverley, Driffield, Bridlington, Filey and Scarborough, but from next Sunday only the Hull to Bridlington section remains as service 121, with the Bridlington to Scarborough section becoming new service 12.
EYMS say this change is due to the length of the route and that "it can get delayed by busy traffic, accidents and roadworks, especially in the busy summer months". It certainly is a long route passing through six towns or cities en-route as well as busy tourist areas. EYMS state that the new shorter 121 and 12 routes should be more reliable and less likely to be delayed - delays in Hull shouldn't affect a Filey to Scarborough passenger for example.
However for anyone travelling across Bridlington a change is now required unless the Summer Only X21 or the train is suitable for your journey, and whilst connections will be available between the 121 and 12, they won't be guaranteed. Connection times northbound vary between 1 and 28 minutes and southbound between 5 and 20 minutes. There are also some slight 'misconnects', such as the Monday to Saturday 0726 service 12 arrival into Bridlington missing the 0720 service 121 departure and the 1924 weekday arrival into Bridlington on the 121 missing the 1920 service 12 to Scarborough (on the weekends the 1924 arrives at 1919 giving a one minute connection that is probably not best to rely on).
Looking in more detail at the new timetables, both the cutback 121 and new 12 remain hourly daily. Focusing on the 121, the Monday to Saturday 0635 from Bridlington to Hull now starts in Driffield at 0653 (0703 Sat), removing the only pre-9am bus arrival into Hull from Bridlington and the villages en-route to Driffield. The vehicle for this service must work 'dead' to Driffield as there is no corresponding arrival into the town. There are however new Monday to Saturday 0720 and 0825 departures from Bridlington whereas in the current timetable after the 0635 there is no southbound 121 from Bridlington until 0925. Also on Monday to Saturday mornings 0620 Hull to Nafferton (north east of Driffield) and 0635 Hull to Scarborough are consolidated into a 0630 Hull to Bridlington. On Sundays the 1000 from Driffield to Hull starts back in Bridlington at 0925, providing an hour earlier first departure from the seaside town.
In the evening the 1835 from Hull to Beverley is extended to Nafferton, filling a two hour gap on the Beverley to Nafferton section of route, and also runs on Sundays, but the 1930 Bridlington to Hull now starts in Nafferton, meaning the last southbound 121 from Bridllington is at 1830 (with a 45A following 20 minutes later Monday to Saturday).
Turning to the 12, which falls under EYMS's Scarborough and District brand, and the 0535 Monday to Saturday service 121 departure from Scarborough is not replaced on the new 12, meaning the first service is now 0630. The 0720 from Scarborough on Sundays is also withdrawn, with the first service now at 0905 on the 12, though for (presumably) eight months of the year new service 13 has earlier departures at 0750, 0820 and 0845 (the later just to Filey). In the opposite direction the current gaps between 0815 and 1000 in Monday to Saturday departures from Bridlington reduces to 0835 to 0925, whilst on Sunday mornings the first departure from Bridlington is at 0925 rather than 1000. Strictly speaking outside of the remit of the blog, but from Hunmanby (south of Filey) into Scarborough, Sunday morning departures generally operate about half an hour earlier, starting at 0754 rather than 0826.
In the evening there is a new 1945 service 12 from Scarborough, 85 minutes later than the current last 121 at 1820, and a new 2020 Bridlington to Scarborough, 60-65 minutes later than the current last 121.
At the same time as converting the northern part of the 121 into the 12, EYMS (under their Scarborough and District brand) have consolidated their Summer 120 and X20 services into new route 13. I say Summer but the 120/X20 have usually operated for 8 months of the year between early March and early November, neither of which can be called Summer! The 120 runs between Bridlington, Filey and Scarborough via various holiday camps hourly daytimes and the X20 are Filey to Scarborough shorts again operating hourly daytimes.
Whilst the 120 and X20 have been well co-ordinated - every half hour from Scarborough and every 20-40 minutes from Filey back into Scarborough, and the 120 and X20 provided a half hourly northbound service from Bridlington and an almost every twenty minute frequency from Filey into Scarborough, leaving Scarborough the 120 and 121 have been just ten minutes apart.
With the new 13 - that still provides an hourly Scarborough to Bridlington service and hourly Scarborough to Filey short - southbound co-ordination is much improved. The 12 and 13 combine to provide a services every twenty minutes from Scarborough to Filey, and although the Scarborough to Bridlington service isn't every half hour, every 20-40 minutes is better than every 10-50 minutes. From Bridlington northbound remains half hourly, every 20 minutes from Filey.
There is a new 0820 service 13 from Scarborough, but the 1805 Scarborough to Reighton Sands Holiday Village and 1920 Scarborough to Bridlington 120 journeys are combined into a 1845 Scarborough to Bridlington 13.
Interestingly the 12 and 13 appear to have some 'interworking', which may mean some changes to the 12 are needed in November when the 13 will presumably end for the year as it's predecessors the 120 and X20 did. The 0750 13 from Scarborough seems to form the 0925 12 from Bridlington. The 1845 13 Scarborough to Bridlington seems to return as a service 12 at 2020 from Bridlington, and the 1945 12 from Scarborough to Bridlington seems to return as a service 13 at 2050 from Bridlington.
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10 comments:
I travelled last year to and from Scarborough to Hull on that bus, long trip but very handy.
Split routes are a nightmare for wheelchair users, you get off only to find another user was waiting already, then you are stuck, it really puts people off taking longer distance trips if they are split.
And any time keeping achieved by only having the southern section late would mean connections northwards are missed.
I liked it how it was.
There was never any need to split the service.
All the service needed was a running time that was attainable by putting in a extra bus, but they would not do it.
So now you have this farce of passengers having to change at Bridlington.
On a summers afternoon with 50 passenger's waiting for a Scarborough bus and 20 or so having to change at Bridlington from Driffield it's going to be chaos.
But it seems the new boss at EYMS is not in the business of consultation with his passengers, just ask the residents of Scarborough or Bridlington about the cuts he has sanctioned.
This is more about splitting the company than the route. I'd say either S&D or EY will shortly have new owners. This split of the route means they won't have to worry about having to share the route.
A little unfair. The company has had to make changes to survive. Adding an extra bus would be a significant cost for the same revenue. As for consultation I led 3 days of it in Scarborough going to the people, listening to feedback. Another day in Bridlington on Wednesday. Points have been noted by the company. Wait and see.
Chaos at Bridlington bus station today with the disruption due to the Tour de Yorkshire stranding lots of day trippers trying to get back to Filey and Scarborough. The situation wasn't helped by 3 things -
1. The information point was closed.
2. There wasn't any information about the service changes today due to the cycle race. Surely the poster displayed on the buses could have been put up in the bus station too?
3. All the bus times at the station (and at all the stops around Bridlington) are for the new routes and times despite them not starting until tomorrow. This caused huge confusion as visitors from outside the area are looking for buses that don't yet exist! While the route and time information displayed at the bus stops is of a high standard, surely it would be obvious to anyone that the information should be changed on the day the times change rather than in advance?
All in all not a great advert for bus travel in the area - something of a combined fail by EYMS and East Riding council. Lots of passengers walked to the rail station to get back to Scarborough and others were even joining forces and booking minibus taxis to get back to the holiday camps.
So 3 days were spent in Scarborough discussing it. But from Scarborough there are 3 journeys per hour by EYMS plus a service provided by Shoreline all running to Filey with 2 buses per hour to Bridlington.
But you only spent 1 day in Bridlington where the effect of the change will be noticed more.
And where was your meeting advertised.
It did not appear on the EYMS website, or appear on the web pages of the Bridlington Free Press or the Bridlington Echo.
It did not appear on the Facebook page for EYMS.
And again it seems that the passengers of a bus service are the ones affected by this change.
And finally if this change is to improve the service for passengers why does the last bus from Hull to Bridlington arrive 4 mins after the connecting bus has left Bridlington for Scarborough. Thus passengers have to wait over 50 mins for the next bus.
Another case of planning not doing the job properly.
The 121 has always had minor problems and this is because EYMS refused to give the drivers time to operate the service..
There is a timetable departure board at the Driffield George Street stop that still shows a departure of service 142 at 1250 on Saturdays. This service hasn't run for almost three years! The board doesn't show any of the service 121 departures that use that stop.
Just shows EYMS in a true light with a total lack of info for passengers.
The website and the app have provision for updates to service disruption.
But this seems to finish around mid afternoon Fri and start again Monday.
No up to date info at anytime on Sat even though Scarborough, Filey, and Bridlington were feeling the effects of the tour de Yorkshire.
And the info office at Bridlington is a joke not opening till 9.45 and closing at 2.00pm and on a Saturday closing when the staff get bored.
The lack of information from EYMS is appalling. The website hasn't been updated for sometime with its main feature being the Scarborough changes which happened last month. Surely this major May change should be front and centre.
I understand that the twitter and app updates are only run by one or two people and they don't work weekends. And when they are on holiday for example the service simply doesn't operate.
Hardly professional.
David Shipp ran seminars for managers a couple of years ago wanting to show the company should be going from being good to great. At this moment they aren't even good.
For years EYMS was run by a enthusiast who relied on managers to keep things going, but Peter had no idea of just how bad things were.
I remember drivers been told to take coaches and park them at number bridge because they didn't want Peter to know there was no work for them.
Now we have David trying to remedy years of bad investment in 6 months.
Savage service cuts, buses relicensed to save servicing costs, depot closures.
And the sacking of some senior managers which proves they were not needed to start with.
I'm afraid the good days have gone, too much money has been wasted,and the only way for EYMS to survive is a sell off whilst they still have something to sell
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