Bus companies have to ‘register’ changes to their routes and timetables 56 days in advance with the regional ‘Traffic Commissioner’.  The Commissioners are the regulators for the bus industry.  In practice this means that we have to have finalised our plans two months in advance.  Our Summer 2009 timetable runs from 5 April, so we’ve now registered the relevant services.

We’ve taken the plunge so to speak, making a number of changes.  Some will be popular, some not so popular, although even then it really depends upon where people live and travel to.  In the main though our levels of service will be better.  These are the main changes:

Route 4

Is being made direct between Ryde and East Cowes, missing out Haylands, the Binstead Estate, and the Hefford Road area of East Cowes.  The route has suffered from these lengthy diversions in recent times, with end to end journey times becoming very unattractive.  The journey time will be thirty minutes now and this should encourage greater use of the service.  The changes also reduce the cost of running the service by a third as it will require two instead of three buses.  This is necessary as the reduction in payments for each free journey (English residents over 60 get free travel) has significantly reduced in the last year.  The vast majority of custom from Haylands and Binstead Estate has been free travel, so the income for the third bus has been too low to make it pay.

We have come to an agreement with the local IW Councillors though, and to partially replace the Haylands and Binstead Estate service, one of our coaches will be running a regular service linking the two areas to Ryde Town between 0915 and 1345 on Mondays to Saturdays.  This is very much an experiment for the summer timetable period to see whether it is viable.

Route 9

Between Ryde and Newport has continued to attract more and more customers since it was increased to every 10 minutes and the Mercedes buses were introduced.  Demand has been so great that we regularly run full, so we have acquired another 2 Mercedes, and the daytime Monday to Saturday service will be increased to every 7/8 minutes.

Route 14

Between Ryde and Bembridge has also seen significant growth in customers, so is being increased to half hourly. 

Route 16

Will no longer serve the Oakfield area of Ryde, as the extra route 14 journeys will replace it in those areas.

Summer Sundays

We’re also going to be running more buses on Sundays, and have a new Sunday and Bank Holiday timetable for such days.  Many routes will see better frequencies on Summer Sundays, following our experience of buses running at capacity in 2008.

There are a number of other minor changes to routes and times too.

Timetables will be available on our website shortly, and in printed form about a week before introduction.

Now this really is snow!

Having survived Monday without too much disruption, Tuesday dawned positively too.  Our Operations Team were out and about from 4.30am, able to determine that all the main roads were clear and wet, so the day started with ‘business as usual’, before our first buses started to leave the garages just after 5am.

Snow overnight and a clear morning isn’t too much of a problem as we know what we are dealing with – we can simply make a decision on what is safe to run, but Tuesday was one of those days when we didn’t have that luxury. 

Just as the majority of buses were out far and wide the snow set in, with the Eastern end of the Island hit hardest.  It soon became clear that it was settling rapidly on all roads, and in some quantity.  The dilemmas began!… will it carry on snowing, will the traffic break it up into slush…?

Just after 7am our Coaching Team were preparing to leave their outposts in Wellow and Godshill and their calls came in to say that conditions had rapidly worsened.  The coaches take children into schools, and the majority of them pick children up from the more remote areas and off the main roads.  Decision time had arrived!  Do we attempt to run, potentially getting coaches stick, perhaps with children aboard in remote areas?  Do we attempt to reach some areas through pretty hazardous roads and hills?  With snow forecast to last for some hours do we risk getting children to school only to find schools closing, requiring return journeys in worsening conditions immediately, or later in the day?  The answer had to be no, so all our coach drivers were told to stand by and wait for instructions. 

So starts our need for immediate information to passengers who may end up waiting in the appalling condition for buses that aren’t running – with a live appraisal of the situation for IW Radio, who did a superb job of keeping Islanders bang up to date on the complete travel picture.

In the event those staff in Wellow were pretty much marooned for a couple of hours!  The decision was a good one though, as many schools subsequently closed.  At this stage most our regular buses were now on the road and steadfastly struggling on through blizzards and a good layer of snow. 

One of our biggest problems is that the weather can be so different in different parts of the Island.  The differences were remarkable this time around.  Persistent snow battered the Ryde and surrounding areas, the very South escaped relatively lightly until it received a huge fall later on.  As one area became passable, so another received a thick blanketing of snow.

Soon word from our man on the ground in the Ryde area was that Bembridge couldn’t be reached, and nor could Seaview. Indeed his van had only just managed to break back out of the icy grip of Seaview!  Our man in Shanklin was reporting serious problems in the Shanklin and Sandown areas.  Back onto IW Radio to update listeners of a growing list of routes not operating, as we took the decision to curtail some routes.

The whole thing came to a climax around 8am, when buses started to become physically stuck in Ryde, Newport and Wroxall.  The drivers concerned had the sense to stop and stay put and phone in.  At this point the overriding concern has to be the safety of our passengers and other road users, so the decision was taken to suspend all service.  This isn’t as simple as it sounds of course, as many buses were away from Ryde or Newport, so it still takes over an hour to get them all safely back to one of the bus stations – hence the need for a rapid decision.  Third interview with IW Radio to get the message over – there will be no buses at all until conditions improve!

By now we were having to think about what to do with all the returning buses at Newport, so the garage staff were alerted to make room for buses coming back to the garage to take shelter!  Similarly, onto our web providers to get our website new updated.

As conditions started to settle, the planning had to begin ready to resume service.  Our three warmly clad scouts were now out and about surveying all the Islands bus routes.  As the morning went on the first to recommence were routes 1, 5,and 9 where the roads appeared to be clear enough.  The West Wight was still under several inches of snow and only 4×4s were easily able to traverse some of the roads normally used by our buses.  Our route 6 between Newport and Ventnor via Chale, Blackgang, Niton and Whitwell became worse as a blizzard swept in and cars were abandoned.  By now we had become the rescue service for stranded motorists too!

Before long compacted snow and minor collisions had brought the main Ryde to Newport road to a standstill, but with care our buses were still making slow but steady progress.  By 1330 all roads were passable, and by 2pm we were running the full network again!

All in all a difficult day for our intending customers, and a trying one for our staff, especially the drivers, but also the Inspectors and our ladies on the switchboard at Head Office in Newport.  Thank you to them all!!!

Importantly, no accidents, and all our buses able to work through the afternoon.

Lets hope tomorrow brings us an easier day – we’ll see though at 4.30am when we stick our three men ‘on the ground’ stick their heads through the curtains again though!

Well, we survived last night.  A quick check at 0400 this morning revealed that the Island’s roads were passable, so it’s another Monday morning as usual. 

The weather forecast is still for heavy snow this afternoon and tonight, so we’re trying to plan ahead.  If it snows hard the nature of the Island’s roads and it’s hilly landscape will cause serious problems.

Our two opposing needs are, on the one hand to ‘keep the Island moving’, but on the other to avoid getting buses, and more importantly customers, stuck in remote locations.