On Monday 3rd September the new timetable starts in which Stagecoach have registered EVERY Pronto journey (except weekend after midnight) 5 minutes earlier than at present. Trent Barton (tb) appear to be still running the journeys they did before (with a Stagecoach bus just in front) on an uneven headway. A driver has told us that zig zags and mango WILL now be accepted on tb vehicles. Not sure whether Explorers will be accepted on Stagecoach vehicles but presumably they will be.
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Has competition for the Miller lead to retaliation on Pronto? |
On the Stagecoach website there is a timetable of the newly registered Stagecoach journeys with a note 'Additional journeys are operated by trent barton'. At the time of writing, the Pronto website (http://www.prontobus.co.uk/) and the tb website show the 'old' times with no mention of any changes.
I have searched Notices & Proceedings and cannot find any reference to tb either cancelling or registering more journeys. This presumably means they are stuck with these uneven timings for at least 6 weeks. To give you an idea what I mean, according to the Traveline East Midlands website as from 3 September tb Prontos will leave Chesterfield at 0710, 0730, 0940, 1010, 1210, 1240, 1440, 1510, 1715, 1750, 1945, 2245.
I hope this will not ruin a service which has shown great passenger growth.
Oliver Foreman
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| Trent in front of Stagecoach - not after Monday! |
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| Substitute vehicles sometimes used |
