On Monday 2nd September, operation of tendered services 360 and 361 between Scunthorpe and Goole passed from East Yorkshire (Elloughton depot) to Stagecoach (Scunthorpe depot). The timetable for this daily service remained unchanged.
In one sense, the unchanged timetable is logical - why should the timetable alter because of a change of operator? Yet the timetable is very much optimised for operation from the 'Goole end' of the route, and some minor changes could provide a better service for probably less cost.
Perhaps the biggest oddity is the Saturday timetable, which requires two buses for the sake of half an hour, as a service 361 departs Goole at 1110, with the arrival of the 'previous' service into Goole at 1139. When operated by East Yorkshire from Elloughton Depot that may have made operational sense if a a driver and vehicle change needed to take place. However now a bus has to run 'dead' from Scunthorpe to Goole for the 1110, and another returns 'dead' from Goole to Scunthorpe after 1139. Given that Stagecoach have a depot in Scunthorpe, surely the timetable could be rejigged slightly to require only one vehicle all day, with driver swaps in Scunthorpe as required? Or if a second vehicle is required, ensure any 'overlaps' between vehicle requirements are timetabled to the Scunthorpe end of the route, to avoid large amounts of dead running? Potentially an easy cost saving (and better for the environment with less dead running).
Another oddity is with the morning peak Eastoft to Goole service Monday to Saturday and the evening peak return. The main purpose is to link the East Riding villages along the Ouse to Goole, and the road network means starting back at Eastoft in North Lincolnshire is a sensible thing to do. For an Elloughton based operator, it is also the sensible start and finish points for these journeys, as they can easily run dead to/from Eastoft via the A161. However for a Scunthorpe based operator, the marginal costs of running as full route journeys from Scunthorpe to Goole would be marginal. Missed opportunity? Could miss out Tesco Extra and Ealand village to cut marginal costs back further? Or at least start in Crowle, which has to be run through 'dead' anyway to get to Eastoft.
The timetable also requires dead running from Scunthorpe to Goole each morning and reverse in the evening Monday to Friday and Sunday. Operating a full in service 360 or 361 at these times might be a little optimistic, but is there a missed opportunity to run a Scunthorpe-Crowle-A161-Goole fast service? Or at least to reinstate the early morning Swinefleet-Goole short and early evening return - the extra mileage would be zero?
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