On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, Neil Williams wrote:

Any word on what these teething difficulties are, and why it's so
difficult to operate what is basically a fancy bendy bus with fancy
ticket machines and a few extra decorative bits of plastic on the
outside?

The ticket machine was prone to breaking down at first - much to our (the
passenger's) delight - quick boarding and a free ride. The ticket machine
when working is so slow that it must throw the schedules out (which were
reduced from ever 8 mins to every 10 mins when the ftr started).

A few of the busses broke down on the first day, which led to some slating
in the local press. At least one of the 'ftr's must be out of service, as
there's a normal "park and ride" bendybus on the 'ftr' route that
occasionally turns up.

The doors can sometimes misbehave, and theres a big "open" button but
thats only for use in emergencies apparently - which confuses people.
have been incidents (in the local rag) about the doors closing on people.

The bendyness of the busses probably causes more problems in York's
streets - they will fit along "the route" but any obstruction probably
causes them more problems than a tradional bus.

The view of most people i've spoken to seems to be that it was all a lot
of fuss for no gain. I think we're going to be stuck with it as a) they
have the vehicles now and b) it's such a high profile thing for first
(with their new busses) and york council (who did a load of road works to
enable them to run) that they won't admit it's no good.

Cheers

Chris
--
Chris Johns