Transport -
Buses
A
new fleet of buses in Merseyside was too big to
go through the Mersey Tunnel. Arriva North West
spent £7 million on 70 single decker DAF buses, 
but they were too wide
for the toll booths at the Liverpool to
Birkenhead tunnel. The mistake was only
discovered when a driver first tried to complete
the route. He had to take his passengers on an
eight-mile detour because of the one-and-a-half
inch discrepancy. Arriva explained that the bus
had only been used because another had broken
down. "We've plenty of buses narrow enough
to get through," a spokesman said.
London Transport
announced on Tuesday 27 of October 1998, that a
huge fare rise which will see fares on London
Buses and Underground rise well above inflation.
The worst rise is of 16.7% for a single stop trip
within Zone 1 or 2 on London Buses. Prices for
that journey will rise from 60p to 70p. 
Despite the poor services
London Transport says they have to raise price to
help pay for the massive improvements necessary
to the tube network which needs about £1.5
billion to create a state of the art, modern,
working system. However London Transport are
pointing out that although some journey have
massive fare rises attached to them the average
increase over the whole network is only 4.5%.
London Transport also gave another blow today
when it announces that price rises above
inflation would continue until at least 2002. But
one of the biggest blows is that the Government
will find it even more harder to convince people
to leave their cars and travel by public
transport.
Under new rules,
bus and coach operators can increase the size of
their vehicles by 10 feet bringing them into line
with others across Europe. Transport minister
David Jamieson said, "This is good news for
bus and coach passengers. Now these vehicles can
be up to 25 per cent longer, allowing operators
to add to passengers' comfort and allow greater
capacity. We've seen bus use increase and I'm
sure these measures will encourage even more
people back onto buses." So, longer buses
are the answer - not reliability, punctuality and
convenience.
A bus driver
took two hours to complete a 10-minute journey to
school after asking the children for directions.
Rather than helping the driver, the pupils led
him on an estimated 20-mile round trip. One
parent who wore a disguise for the protest to
avoid embarrassing his 11-year-old son, said,
"How can a bus driver get lost? It's a
straightforward route and you would think he
would check the route first. For the older kids
it was probably a bit of a laugh but for the
younger ones like my son it was frightening. He
could have taken them anywhere."
The confusion began when the driver took a wrong
turn after picking up pupils on the 901 service
from Bury to Tottington High School. The school
was less than two miles away and the driver
needed to make only two left turns to get there,
before the pupils intervened. He finally dropped
the children off at Elton High School, which is
15 minutes' walk from their own school, at around
10.15am.
Simon Bennett, the managing director of bus
services for First Manchester, said, "I
would like to apologise to parents for any
anxiety and concern that this event has caused,
and to the school for any disruption to its daily
routines. However, the safety of the children was
not in question at any time." No one from
the school was available for comment.
Parents
complained there were not enough buses serving
their childrens school and that many pupils were
unable to get on the bus because it was always
full when it arrived. 200 pupils were trying to
get a bus which can only take 80, and some were
forced to wait 20 minutes for the next bus which
resulted in making them late for school. Arriva
commercial director said it was "very
unlikely" that an extra service would be
provided because it was at a PEAK PERIOD.
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