Bus services in Limerick Town Centre, Ireland

In a previous article I said that I was preparing for a short holiday and promised that upon my return I would be writing a ‘first hand’ report on the bus services in Limerick, Ireland. I aplologise for the delay as I have been rather busy since then but finally, here is that report.

Limerick has a small number of bus routes linking to the Town Centre and their bus services are still regulated and operated by Bus Éireann which is owned by Transport for Ireland. It’s interesting to note how most of the bus services in Ireland are still owned and run by the government compared to Britain where the bus services have been privatised and deregulated.

Bus services at Bluewater Shopping Centre

Bluewater is an out of town shopping centre located in Stone, Kent, England outside the M25 Orbital Motorway. It first opened on the 16th March 1999 which led to the extension of London Buses route 96 from Dartford going non-stop to Bluewater Shopping Centre.

According to London Bus Routes 'about' Route 96, it says “The 96 extension was actually introduced commercially by Stagecoach Selkent when the contract was let on net cost terms – an arrangement in which the operator keeps the revenue, and can therefore take commercial risks. This one clearly paid off even though the service level seemed excessive.”

Route's 3 & 68 to convert to New Routemaster buses

Route 3 will be served with 3 door 2 staircase buses

LOTS (London Omnibus Traction Society) have reported that route 3 is due to convert to Wrightbus New Routemasters along with route 68.

·         Just a few more of the various batches of new vehicles into London continue to enter service. 

A third of London Buses to run on biofuel

As TFL continue to roll out the New Routemaster bus for the Central London routes, they have just announced that one third of London Buses are to run on waste fats and oil.

From the TFL press release:

ONE THIRD OF LONDON’S BUSES TO RUN ON WASTE FATS AND OILS

Merry Christmas to all my readers. A roundup of 2015

Today is the 25th December 2015, Christmas day, so I hope you all enjoy it, eat plenty of festive food and enjoy a Christmas tipple to celebrate with your family and friends.

Unfortunately there are no London Transport services today so for those that need to travel I hope you have made prior arrangments. There are other transport services around the world such as the New York City MTA which operate their Sunday service on Christmas day.

Below is a short reminder of some of my previous articles that I wrote this year.

Growth of multi-operator smartcard ticketing system

Multi operator smartcard for Nottingham buses

I have been noticing increasing news about the multi-operator tickets being implemented on bus services throughout England.

First off, North West of England has introduced a new multi-operator smart card called SmartZone.

SMART, MULTI-OPERATOR TRAVEL LAUNCHED FOR NORTH EAST BUS PASSENGERS

·         Region’s bus users to benefit from innovative smart ticketing initiative

·         Seamless multi-journey travel across the major bus operators of the North East - Stagecoach, Go North East and Arriva

·         Unlimited travel with any bus operator from less than £2 per day

·         Bus passengers across the north east of England will benefit from smart, multi-operator travel from today (Monday 14th December).

Bus operators Go North East, Arriva and Stagecoach North East have introduced a new multi-operator smart card – “SmartZone”  which allows travel on buses operated by all three major bus companies in Sunderland, Newcastle and North Tyneside, providing unlimited travel from less than £2 per day.

Mid/Late December London Tube and Bus news

Another news update from me as I've found a couple of London Underground related news stories from a TFL press release and Global Rail News. We also have the usual bus news from LOTS.

From Global Rail News:

Final S Stock carriage marks end of £1.5bn order

The final carriage of the £1.5 billion S Stock train order has been presented by Bombardier in Derby.

The intermediary car, which is still being fitted out at Bombardier’s Litchurch Lane facility, is the last of 1,395 S Stock carriages that have been built for London Underground over the past few years.

Mid December 2015 London Bus tender awards

Route 148 is retained with same operator with same buses

Here's a quick update from LOTS, reporting on the new tender awards.

The following TfL contracts have been announced today:

Update on Short New Routemaster

The NRM finally get to see the light of day on route 159

Link to previous article on Short NRM


London Bus Club have issued a news update on the Short New Routemaster project.

“We have some more information on the shortened New Routemaster we exclusively announced last week. It will carry the fleet number ST2001 and carry the registration LTZ2001. ST2001 is due to arrive in London in the coming week, but it is unlikely to be licensed before 1st January 2016.”

Source

As fares are set to rise, LU breaks the record again for busiest day

TFL has issued a press release about London Underground breaking their record again for carrying a whopping 4.821 million passengers!

TFL Press release

Figures released today by Transport for London (TfL) show that October's record for the number of customer journeys made on the Tube in one day has been broken again.

On Friday 4 December 2015, 4.821 million customers travelled on the Tube making it the network's busiest day ever.

REVEALED: Short New Routemaster is unveiled

Yes the New Routemaster is getting small,.

The London Bus Club has produced an exclusive report on the short New Routemaster bus which is manufactured by Wrightbus and has a reduced length of around 10.1 metres. This news comes in as a surprise.

10 year Anniversary of Route 159 AEC Routemaster withdrawal

08/12/2015: Update is below 'image attributions'

Also farewell to the Volvos on route 159

We are now approaching the 10th anniversary of a fully accessible London Bus service which coincides with the anniversary of the route 159 Routemaster withdrawal to fully low floor buses. It also marks the end of Arriva London’s service on Route 159 as it's handed over to Abellio whose contract starts on 12th December 2015.

London Bus news and deadline for accessible buses for Britain

LOTS have issued the following news updates regarding London's Buses: