Operators based in North East Wales

[Depotosw]

RE: Operators based in North East Wales

(27/06/2018 16:28)DLG817 Wrote:  Today (27th June 2018) saw the first day of operation of easyCoach on services 2 (Wrexham to Oswestry) and 2D (Wrexham to Cefn Mawr) both in open completion with Arriva Midlands who also operate these services. Tomorrow (28th) the firm start the 44 Wrexham to Barkers Lane service and Friday (29th) the 42 Wrexham Industrial Estate service.

I observed some of the workings today and report that there were clearly some teething problems for easyCoach as they had great difficulty in keeping to time and an odd journey went missing or was severely late. Traditionally in King Street Bus Station for vehicles journeying towards Ruabon and beyond, they have left from stand 1. However this is always a very busy stand and often traffic is held up when a number of buses are on the stand. Therefore a decision had been made that easyCoach were to use stand 5 which is a little distance away. Today I noticed that Arriva, who appeared to be able to keep to their timetable, had sufficient time to wait on their stand and attract the waiting passengers. Unfortunately as the easyCoach buses were often running late they did not have any time to spend on a stand and therefore they were not able to attract any passengers. The result was that on many occasions the easyCoach buses left King Street with little or no passengers. It was also apparent that in many cases instead of being a few minutes in front of the Arriva vehicles the easyCoach vehicles were playing catch up and were often behind.
This is of course only day 1 and therefore we shall have to see how this situation develops.

Hi Ron, I managed to take a look this morning briefly between work commitments, the operations were smartly presented but time keeping niggles was evident early on, the 09:32 2 ex Wrexham was near 30 minutes late passing through Johnstown, Oswestry bound. The side destination on MX05 EKZ was notabilly not working to violate DDA, not ideal for a first day after these vehciles have done little for some time and assumed that been prepared. It was also notable the programming of the destinations displays between vehicles on the 2D was totally inconnsistant style.

I noted the 11:37 2 ex Oswestry was well loaded as it neared Gobowen with passengers intended from the closely following Arriva 2. I later noted the 16:37 2 ex Oswestry running late by the Gobowen Orthopaedic Hospital to the point were the Arriva 16:42 ex Oswestry was well loaded and taking a good load onboard in front of it until it was overtaken then we saw a silly game of trying to grab the passgener at the next stop. the last departure heading into Oswestry, the 16:02 ex Wrexham was at least 10 minutes late also with a few passengers onboard but still infront of the 16:07 Arriva 2 ex Wrexham just close to the journey end.