Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Anthony Seculer has delayed decision on possible penalties over bus reliability issues in relation to Arriva Group-owned Yorkshire Tiger in order to enable the plans drawn up by the company for its three Shipley services to take effect and to demonstrate an improvement in punctuality and reliability.
The Elland-based company had been called before the DTC after a monitoring exercise in 2018 revealed failures to operate to registered timetables. He accepted arguments that the effects of timetable changes being introduced in May could not be evaluated for six months.
The DTC said that he had dealt with the company over similar issues in August 2016 [routeone/Court Report/31 August and 7 September 2016]. It had been issued with a warning over bus service reliability in 2017 after he was satisfied that the efforts made to improve matters were genuine and determined.
The evidence of the DVSA Bus Operations Account Manager was accepted by the company. She reported that she had carried out the monitoring of 93 journeys on five days between 5 July and 8 October 2018. Of those journeys 14 failed to operate, one was one minute late and five were five minutes late. That gave a non-compliance rate of 56.71%.
Area General Manager Robert Mason said that there had been short-term rolling roadworks in the Shipley area.
It was very difficult to re-register services for short-term roadworks. The Shipley services, which were taken over from TLC Travel on 20 May 2018, were operated under contract to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), who had control of the timetables.
The firm received advanced notification of prospective roadworks, but the problem was the unpredictability of their affect.
Other problems included roadworks starting earlier than notified and emergency roadworks where there was either insufficient notice or no notice. There had been 69 registration variations within two years to improve punctuality. There were more service changes to be made in relation to the Shipley services on 18 May.
The DTC said that he was grateful for feedback from the WYCA in support of Yorkshire Tiger, outlining the problems inherited from the takeover of the Shipley services including the fact there had been a lack of punctuality data provided to the company from TLC Travel.
Mr Mason said that only six of the 16 drivers that had transferred over from TLC Travel under TUPE were still with the company. He did not believe that TLC Travel operated to the same standard as Yorkshire Tiger.
After the DTC commented that the punctuality figures appeared to be going downwards, Mr Mason said that West Yorkshire was a very difficult area in which to operate.
The network in parts of the area was at saturation point. He believed that Yorkshire Tiger was performing better than the average in the area. In 2019 so far, the punctuality figure was 82.3% and the 2018 figure was six percentage points better than the West Yorkshire Bus Alliance average. The current situation over roadworks in West Yorkshire was the worst that he had seen after working in the industry in various areas of the country since 1986. There were significant variations in punctuality week by week.
