WELLINGTON town councillors have met with senior managers from First Bus to look for answers about reliability problems with the Wellington-Taunton route.
“We came away reassured by their honesty in admitting that the service had been poor, especially in the weeks before Christmas, and reassured us that changes were coming to improve matters,” said Cllr Keith Wheatley, who has been a leading voice in the concerns about local bus services.
Peter McNaughton, First Bus’ operations manager for the route, outlined problems with high levels of sickness absence among drivers and breakdowns in an ageing bus fleet.
“Hands up, the 22/A/B/X hasn’t been an efficient service recently and I apologise for that,” he told councillors during a meeting on February 5.
“November was an awful time and issues dragged on into December,” he said.
Mr McNaughton explained that the new fleet of electric buses due in March would address a major part of the problem.
“The reliability of the new buses is going to be second to none and that gives us the basis for a reliable timetable,” he added.
Driver absence through sickness peaked at 16 per cent pre-Christmas and that has been reduced to seven per cent through access to fast GP appointments, free flu jabs and access to occupational health specialists. The new target is four per cent absences.
“The pain is coming to an end,” said Mr McNaughton. “It’s going to get better and we’re also putting more resources into driver training and recruitment.”
Councillors raised the issue of whether a reduction in frequency of the timetable might help with reliability.
“A bus every 15 minutes is great in theory but our residents tell me that they would happily settle for a bus every 20 minutes if they could rely on it,” said Cllr Wheatley.
A new timetable is due in April and it seems there is no current plan to change the every quarter-hour schedule but every effort will be made to actually deliver it.
Other questions from councillors focused on First Bus delivering real-time information via digital displays to people waiting at bus stops.
Mr McNaughton explained that Somerset Council has received around £3m under the Government’s Bus Improvement Plan, part of which could be used for new displays at key bus stops.
He urged residents to contact their county councillors and ask for a portion of the money to be spent on better information for bus-users.
The final piece of valuable information was that any bus user can access the Bus Open Data System on the internet to check on the performance on their local route day-by-day.
Councillors thanked the First Bus team for answering questions and facing complaints so honestly and looked forward to better times ahead for our vital bus service.
The WWN has reported on a number of occasions in recent months rising concerns about the reliability of bus services between Wellington and Taunton.
Passengers can phone First Bus 0345 646 0707 between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday or write by e-mail through the website www.firstbus.co.uk.