Topic: Goodbye Thamesdown Transport

[Midlander]

.....and hello Go Ahead.

I hope they return some of the decent routes around the town, rather than making all buses go to the town centre.

After looking at the state of our trains though, I'm not sure there will be a lot of difference.

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[Terry Reynolds]

I wonder what the payoffs will be for the chairman and the councillor 'directors' ??

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[the gorgon]

TT had been so badly run for so many years (like SBC) I doubt I'll miss them.  TT made services worse and then wondered why on earth people stopped using the bus service.

I guess we'll see what difference economies of scales (buying/leasing buses, maintenance etc) and getting rid of some of deadwood TT management will make.

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[komadori]

I spent quite a bit of time at the weekend reading through the Thamesdown's published accounts. What seemed to have finished them off was reduced passenger numbers to the town centre. My guess is that was in part due to the council reducing car parking charges, and partly because of the council's less than stunning management of major roadworks.

The outgoing chairman of the company is Mike Bawden, ex-councillor.

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[Midlander]

The reason why people were using the buses less was down to them cutting the routes. People found they had to walk further to stops, plus the other reason, if the only place you could go was the town centre, then why bother.
Don't forget a few years back, they had major roadworks down Paddington/Penzance Drive which caused little problem to the general traffic but caused major delays to the bus services, which was probably another reason why people gave up using them. Even today I see major traffic jams down there, usually down to the fact that the exit onto Meads Roundabout is the only one with no traffic lights.
I've even started using taxi firms over the last few years to get around Swindon as the buses take far too long

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[Terry Reynolds]

If you follow the company on twitter, they post details of when a bus has broke down etc, and the number of buses being cancelled due to traffic congestion, daily is over the 6 number , along with breakdowns and no staff, it means that about 8 or 9 buses a day are not running, that cant help, I went to a cabinet meeting last November and asked what the council was going to do about this and the newly elected chairman, (wonder what perks he got, on 'retirement'), told me in some sort of satisfaction, that they had only lost £77,000 in the first six months of that year !.  Bad management from top to bottom..

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[Midlander]

I believe the many breakdowns are due to the fact the company doesn't have enough money to maintain the buses properly. Part of the downward spiral, if you invest money, you will get a return, but if you squeeze the lifeblood out of it, it's not going to last long.

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