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Hello Roger, I must most interested by the old age free bus pass issue. Prior to receiving these bus passes users would have simply have purchased an all day ticket. Now The Brighton and Hove Bus Co. gives them a single fare for each leg of their journey, and refuses bus pass users an all-day ticket. Your company then claims each of these amounts back from the taxpayers under the government scheme. Are you a) artificially inflating the amount you can claim from the current pot of taxpayers' money, b) artificially inflating the amount it is costing to try and scam a bigger share of the cash next year, or c) both? Tony Davenport

Hello I'm delighted to be here at The Argus on the Friday Inquisition and look forward to receiving feedback and questions readers.

Do you give your drivers training on how to deal with the public? I have noticed some really miserable rude drivers recently,a smile goes a long way!

Tony I understand why you might conclude that these could be the case but neither are in fact true. The local councils who reimburse us for the free concessionary travel are keen to know exactly how many journies are being made and where and when the passenger boards the bus. to ensure this is accuratley recorded the best system is to issue a ticket as a receipt. In due course we hope to introduce readers on our ticket machines that will automatically record the information. The amount of money we recieve in reimbursement is significantly discounted to take account of sales of day tickets as well as other cheaper tickets that could be purchased if the passenger was paying. We do not recieve anywhere near enough funding to properly recompense us for the free travel scheme and neither does the city council recieve enough money from the government.

BN3 I think our drivers do a fantastic job especially the way they cope with some attrocious traffic conditions and all the roadworks. The feedback I get in the post and on our own telephone and email reinforces this view as we get some fantastic positive comments and praise for the work our drivers do. I'm sorry if there have been times when you haven't recieved a smile - I'll also try to remember to keep smiling.

Isnt it time Brighton & Hove bus Drivers stopped having to phaff around with money. Surely the job is stressful enough having to cope with passengers, public, traffic, roadworks and time keeping without having to deal with change. I have travelled on buses in Scotland and Canada where there is a set fare. You put your money in a secure plastic tube and you know if you have not got the right money then you dont get any change thus keeping the driver involved with what matters transporting passengers from A to B. This would stop people who insist on handing in £20 notes getting free rides when lack of change and also ensure the driver gets a better chance of running to time.

Roger, What do you think of bendy buses? Cyclist death trap or the future? Colbert

Thanks for your response Roger. I'm glad you can see why it looks the way I, and many, in this city see it! The information I have is that you are being fully reimbursed for the scheme. Could you clarify for us - as a simple example, if an elderly lady uses her pass and claims 5 single tickets in one day, how much of that money do you receive back from the taxpayer? Tony Davenport

Sandy thanks for your well-made point; we have been working for many years to encourage passengers to buy our saver tickets which can be purchased in advance of travel and offer great bargains as well. More recently we've been boosting sales even further by offering great discounts with purchases from our website. Indeed, it's the cheapest way to travel: to buy online. We're currently talking with a supplier to equip our ticket machines for a London style Oyster system which will hopefully remove even more if not most of the remaining cash transactions.

Roger, I understand the bus route from the city to Stanmer Park could be extended to run during the week. Do you have a start date for this as I am eager to take my bongos to the park to practise because the missus won't let me do so at home? Also, as your drivers will be going on strike in the not too distant future, will I be receiving money back off my season ticket?

Colbert I think bendy buses have their place in parts of London where they have to move hundreds of commuters for a relatively short distance eg from Victoria to Waterloo. But I'm not sure they would be appropriate for a city like Brighton and Hove. Their other drawback is that they assume a hundred people will stand and only have 39 seats and I don't think this would work for our passengers.

Jason This route is one which is funded by the city council and is only scheduled to run at weekends and bank holidays. Our own service 25 to the universities passes close by to Stanmer Park at frequent intervals and would be a good option to try. Good luck with the bongo playing. With regard to the TGWU ballot for strike action, any such action would be futile since drivers would lose pay, the company would lose income and passengers would have a disrupted service. We are continuing to talk with TGWU representatives to find a way of resolving the issue, especially as many of our staff groups and their representatives in the company have already agreed their pay incresese and had them implemented.

Mr French, I often see buses jumping red lights, especially at the bottom of North Street/Old Steine and by the clock tower. Obviously the lack of respect for the Highway Code by your drivers causes a lot of accidents, sometimes fatal. What can you say about this? Is anything done to the drivers who are seen to jump red lights? Thanks

Do you think the Meadowview bus service is satisfactory? Please compare with services from Btn station such as the N7 and 12 which run more frequently and half empty and can be picked up from the same stops. Depending on time of day, day of week this service changes route. It's frequently late or absent and when I have emailed to complain I get no response. I pay the same fare as on other buses but for a substandard service. Why can we not have a comparible service to that supplied to people living in the Marina or Eastbourne.

Why does the City Saver area only go up to Palmeria Square? As City of Brighton & Hove, surely it should be extended at least as far as Hove Town Hall and Hove station. It seems very unfair that most Hove residents should pay the same as someone coming from Steyning or Shoreham.

LB I really wish we could find a way of providing a better service for the Meadowview area and make it a viable proposition for us. The area is partly difficult to serve because of the geography and topography of the area including a 'no through road' as well as relatively low density housing. The evening and Sunday service is funded by the city council and we keep weekday daytime service running without any subsidy. It would be good if we could have some subsidy during the week so that we could look at ways to expand the service for residents of the area. There are some other parts of the city which also have a half-hourly frequency service, for example Goldstone Valley and Furze Hill in Hove.

Penny Wherever we have a boundary for a zonal ticket such as the City Saver there are always understandable requests for this to be extended to the next bus stop, for example we also have people at the eastern end suggesting it should include the RSCH. We are grateful for such feedback as we do keep these matters under review and indeed not so long ago we did extenf the boundary further out along Davigdor Road and to include the top end of Elm Grove.

How is the high price of fuel affecting you? Do you get a discount for bulk buying? Could I have some?

Plod Any driver who abuses a red light would be dealt with very seriously as safety is our highest priority and is never compromised. We have an excellent safety record thanks to the professionalism of our drivers and the very sad cases of serious accidents that have taken place over the last few years in the Clocktower and Old Steine areas have not been through any fault of our drivers and Sussex Police's thorough investigations into each incident have absolved our drivers of any responsibility.

What was behind the decision to remove advertising from the buses? Surely this loss of income is a direct cause of the steep rise in the cost to your passengers sice the days of the £1 singles when advertising was allowed?

Hi Roger, Can you please confirm that the No 27 into Westdene is not going to be taken off? The reason for my question is the recent onboard survey that has taken place and previously you have said before to my daughter at a talk at Blatchington Mill school that you think "we all have 4 cars so we dont need a service", but you are wrong! we have a large elderly and teenage population that do not drive and it would leave them completely cut off without a service at all.

Are there any plans to introduce more limited stop buses at commuter times? The 12x only has 2 departures in the evening, neither of which can be used if you work after 5pm - which most people do! Buses stopping to pick up one or two people every hundred yards is unecessary during the rush hour - far better to have key nodes for a faster service.

Ben There are two parts to your interesting question: The use of bus sides and rears for advertsing products and services has been a tradition ever since horse-bus days. It has been proved to be a very effective medium - indeed even The Argus used to advertise on our buses to promote the paper! One of the main advertiser groups was car dealers and accessories and insurance etc. We decided it was such an effective medium that we should be using it to really promote our own services and products as well as using the opportunity to counter some popular myths about car use that are portrayed in the nedia such a panacea for transport. The impact of our own advertsing, especially our 'I'm on the bus' campaign has been phenomenal and has more than justified our stance especially as we have been succesful in growing the number of passengers travelling by bus and enhancing its popularity. The increase in bus fares more reflects the cost increases we have been facing, particulary in recent weeks the astronomic increase in fuel prices which regretfully makes a fares increase during the summer inevitable.

Matthew Good point. We will watch the impact of the new 12X with great interest and if it is succesful will look to see where else such a concept can be extended. Of course, such services do need bus lanes so they can by-pass queuing traffic and provide good journey times for passengers. That's why we think the forthcoming bus lanes along the Coast Road are to be applauded and well done to the City Council and East Sussex County Council for their work on these.

Julie Happy to give an absolute guarantee there are no such plans and the 27 will continue. The surveys were being done for other reasons.

Roger, My point was, that the ticket is called a "City Saver" and should therefore cover the City of Brighton and Hove equally. Brighton is well covered, from the Hove boarder out to Race Hill & Lewes Road. Yet Palmeria Square is less than half a mile from the Brighton boarder. I appreciate that you need to put the boundary somewhere and never please everyone. However, it seems only right that the at least the Hove Town Hall is covered.

What are you doing to make your buses more environmentally friendly?

Nerys This is a huge priority for us as although it's more environmentally friendly for people to use a bus rather than a car, it's important the bus is not churning out pollutants itself. We are proud of our investment in paritculate traps on most of our buese - they all pass the clean hankerchief over the exhaust test - and we are now looking at future developments on hybrid buses. At the moment the cost of a hybrid bus is around £350,000 each compared to a normal bus of £180,000 so we are waiting to see if the price will come down as experiments currently underway in London give more confidence to manufacturers that this is the way vehicles will go.

There is a need for a bus that does a semi-circular route around Brighton/Hove, starting at the King Alfred and linking with Engineerium, Preston Park, Fiveways, Lewes Rd/Sainsbury's, Hospital and Marina. Currently we use a car from Fiveways to these places, because the buses are so slow and inconvenient. How do B&H buses decide on new routes? Is there a formula, or is it just a finger in the air?

Nick While some of our routes can be traced back to horse bus days (the 1 and the 5 have their origins in the 1880s!) we do keep the network of bus services and where they go under regular review and are always on the look out for new ideas. The majority of passengers want to travel into the city centre and circular type routes are notoroiously difficult to make into a viable proposition. However, I will keep your idea in mind and talk it through with my colleagues.

Roger If you're still there; are there any plans to improve the service from Coldean? We have three an hour plus one an hour on Sundays and weekends - it compares badly with Moulsecoomb across the road, particularly when one doesn't up and we have a 40 minute wait.

Thanks to everyone for their questions and feedback. It really has been a great experience and any reader is very welcome to send their comments directly to us at any time at info@buses.co.uk and we will be delighted to hear from them. In the meantime, bye for now. Roger

Tony There’s not a straightforward answer to this but I will try and explain - if you take account of all the journeys made by adult fare paying passengers – including those made with Saver tickets so they are not paid for each time the journey is made – to get to an average fare per journey, we receive roughly 50% of this sum for each journey made with a concessionary pass. This means that if we have a bus full of concessionary pass-holders, which can often be the case on the route from Brighton to Eastbourne on a nice sunny day, for example, we are only receiving half the income we need – as it is based on the average adult fare – not the actual fares paid for each journey by adults. Furthermore there are occasions on busy routes such as that where fare-paying passengers are left behind and are not able to travel as all the seats are taken by passengers travelling free, and they are unable to pay us the fare income we need. Another point is that from 1 April this year, passengers travelling in, for example, the Brighton area on a visit and who live elsewhere in England, would have previously paid us full fare since they received no concession. Now they can travel free, but we are only receiving around 50% of the average fare previously paid. In Scotland and Wales, where the free travel schemes have been introduced a lot longer, the bus companies receive around 73% of the average adult fare and this seems to be the benchmark which properly reflects the revenue loss incurred by bus companies who are obliged to participate in the scheme and of which we fall a long way short.

You are a dirty spin doctor. When the public realise what scum you are you will be dragged through the streets. You drive a V8 Audi everywhere and never use the bus. Hypocrite. See you in Hell.

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