Wessex Connect warned to run Bristol buses on time
The company which runs the Wessex Connect bus routes in Bristol and South Gloucestershire has been given breathing space by the traffic commissioner over early running.
Flights Hallmark, which operates in the city under the name Wessex Connect, was spared a fine by the commissioner, Sarah Bell, at a hearing in Temple Quay yesterday.
The public inquiry discussed a penalty for 53 cases of early running, as well as 60 late services, nine no-shows and 48 buses wrongly numbered on 19 days between January and June.
Bus compliance officers visited 354 buses on 25 of the company's services during the inspection period.
The hearing heard Wessex Connect, owned by Birmingham-based transport giant Rotala, had just taken over operations from South Gloucestershire Bus and Coach company when the inspections started.
Miss Bell decided not to fine the company but said inspectors would revisit the routes over the coming months to see if services improved.
"I can make them an offer – either to take a decision today or have the monitors out in a few months and see where the company is then," she said.
Most of the inspections centred on the company's normal passenger routes, including the 584, 585, 586, 587, 482, 483, 71 and 72 services.
The law judges services as early if they leave a stop more than a minute before schedule and late if they run five minutes or more behind.
Wessex Connect runs UWE's Ulink services and operates two park and rides at Long Ashton and Avonmouth.
The firm's Managing Director, Simon Dunn, Rotala director Bob Dunn and Steve Davies, operations manager at the Gypsy Patch Lane depot, said the culpable drivers were disciplined and some dismissed.
"Today the on-time performance of our business has significantly improved since the time of the report," said Mr Dunn.
"Changing the attitudes and culture of the drivers is not something that can be done at the flick of a switch but we are confident that progress has been made.
"We are ashamed to be here today but our company has a track record of learning from our mistakes."
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by Aerloin, Putnoe
Saturday, November 14 2009, 11:06AM
“They should'nt even be employing drivers from poland.They hav'nt passed a U.K. pcv test and are not up to standard.”
by Emma Birch, Bradley stoke south
Wednesday, February 18 2009, 8:46AM
“Now first have cut of the 74 buses we people at the south end of Bradley stoke have only the 72 or 73b in the evenings for travel. Wessex connect are very bad at turning up on time, if at all. They just raised their prices and the do not seam to be improving their service at all. I have made several complaints to the company and I never get an apology or any acknowledgement of my complaint, they do not provide a good service in my opinion and they should be forced to make some huge improvements or be seriously fined.”
by brian, bristol
Friday, February 06 2009, 5:10PM
“the wessex management employ drivers on the 587;584 route that when asked a question about the route say "sorry no english" how can a passenger discuss anything if they only speak polish?”
by chris blanning (wessex connect bus driver), bristol
Monday, December 22 2008, 2:10PM
“Can i just say that as a bus driver for wessex connect, im sure you can appreciate the fact that all of my collegues that i talk to regularly, we don't run early on purpose in any case. some of the times are very annoying to keep to for both drivers and passengers. as you can appreciate the times must be kept to. I do believe wessex connect does a much better job in this city than first group. not only that as a driver for wessex connect you get treated much better by both employer and passengers than when i used to work for first group cityline in bristol, i have operated all the servieces you have commented on (75,76,77,54) the problem is if one bus leaves late and the one behind is on time it messes up the whole system because the later one picks up all the passengers for the later service making him later and the on time bus has next to no passengers and has to keep stopping due to him/her being early and making the other one very late. this happens less at wessex connect i have found with a few exceptions. however most of firsts frequent services suffers really bad from what i was just talking about e.g 75,76,77.
i believe wessex connect is a expanding company with a overall much better reputation and i hope to keep it that way.
along with the fact the fare prices in bristol are very poor overall, you will generally find wessex connect offeres brilliant value for money overall (however still over priced in my opinion).”
by Nikki, Little Stoke
Tuesday, November 25 2008, 4:36PM
“As Wessex Connect are a relatively new company in a town with another company who has the monopoly on this form of public transport, it seems they were a bit hasty in employing anyone with the correct license. I have been on buses where the driver has taken it upon himself to miss bits out to keep himself on time.
If what is written by the managers of this company is true then these employees should be on their way out the door as we speak, thus making room for those qualified to take the position in order to provide a public service rather than simply to pay their bills.
I'm sure some of these drivers ran early in order to keep on time later, but in all honesty they're making a rod for their own back because the bus is seen to be on time at the end so assumed it has been on time throughout. If these buses are consistently late then the timetable should be changed.
Mendipman, the only problem with your idea is that all bus drivers have their own schedule to run on; they may not be running the same service all day so it is not a case of a controller sending a bus out 12 minutes later than the last one at the end of a journey. They may start the day on something like the 76/77 which runs every 10 minutes then move to one such as 36 which is less frequent and timetabled at stops with exact times.”