Diesel scrappage

[dennis]

As they should be, empty buses pollute more than the odd car/taxi.

[mechanic]

Maybe they're an essential service for some?

[dennis]

Its never essential to run empty buses.

[charles]

but someoen might get on at the next stop.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Surely there is no point in running empty buses just in case someone need it?

[mechanic]

If they just have one passenger it's (perhaps) essential for them. If you think one is still too low a number, I could increase it...

[Another John]

That was the whole point of public services: they were there. You knew they were there, and you knew you could rely on them, and (in the case of buses), you could rely on a regular, frequent service. So people used them -- and I for one would use them again, if any of those attributes still existed around here.

Just about any country that I've visited in Europe does public transport better -- far better -- than the UK does. Perhaps they just haven't "caught up with us yet". They need a Thatcher to sort things out for them.

J.

[bert]

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

They should switch to vaping.

[Steve Walker]

I can drive to work in under 20 minutes door to door.

The alternative is a 15 minute walk to the station, with a lot of pain due to arthritic knees (10 minutes for someone else), plus allowing a spare 5 minutes in case of meeting someone on the way or just having to stop because of the pain.

The train then takes another 15 minutes (assuming it is on time) where I am likely not to get a seat, so even more pain .

I then have to get from the station to work, I cannot walk it - I would be in agony. The first bus doesn't leave the station 'til half and hour after my train arrives and takes another 10 minutes. I can't catch a later train without being late.

Then I have the same in reverse at the end of the day.

So 30 to 40 minutes a day by car or about 140 minutes by public transport. That extra 100 minutes per day (ignoring the pain, the frustration and the fact that I cannot be in and leave work at the times I need to), adds up to over 8 hours a week less paid work time (I am paid by the hour) or 8 hours less time with my family.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

They could certainly run much smaller, less polluting minibuses on underused routes, as they used to do some years ago.

SteveW

[bert]

Any psv has to provide low floor access and carry at least one wheelchair.

[charles]

but you have a car and can drive. Not everybody is in that fortunate position.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But if the busses are running empty, it's rather obvious people aren't using them. And saying you would use them if they were there it what everyone says - but strangely didn't use them when they were there.

You use both regularly? Not surprising you used PT abroad if you've not taken your car with you.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite. Or even a subsidised taxi service if only a few use the route.

[The Natural Philosopher]

They all spend NHS like amounts of money on them.

[dennis]

Far more sensible considering that the real essential users probably can't walk to the bus stop anyway.

[charles]

This was the argument used by Beeching to remove branch lines. Change the train times so that they are useless - don't make connections, etc, and then claim nobody uses them.

[Tim Streater]

What hav this to do with anything?

[Tim Streater]

Ah was that what he did, then? You know this do you?

I suspect that would have been completely unnecessary, there was no shortage of tiny branch lines with no traffic already.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not sure that is entirely true. The local line when I was a kid - Deeside, from Aberdeen to Ballater, never once broke even in its entire life.