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This article first appeared in ‘Passenger Transport’ issue 315, and is reproduced here with the editor’s kind permission.

Out now: Issue 315 of Passenger Transport

Professor David Begg has warned his home city to respond to an increase in bus journey times by extending bus lane hours and vociferous campaigning

David Begg (right) with Edinburgh Bus Users Group chair Harald Tobermann and his dog Buster

It’s a warning that could be applied to cities across the United Kingdom, but on this occasion Professor David Begg was talking about his home city of Edinburgh: future-proof your bus network against further increases in journey times or risk decline.

Begg, former chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport, spoke at a meeting of the Edinburgh Bus Users Group in the Scottish capital last week.

While hailing Edinburgh’s transport system as “one of the best in the UK”, the former Edinburgh councillor urged the group to mobilise bus users and hold politicians to account on bus speeds. He also called on the city’s council-owned bus operator, Lothian Buses, to be more forceful in speaking up for bus users.

Continue reading “Begg – Edinburgh must future-proof its buses”

Continue reading “EBUG Annual General Meeting; agenda and Committee’s report”

On 24 April, Edinburgh Live, followed by other media outlets, reported that the owners of the Edinburgh bus station site are seeking to redevelop it, without a bus station.

The City of Edinburgh Council’s bus station lease expires in 2027, so there are three years to resolve the problem, or Edinburgh will be left without a bus station.

The response of residents seems to be almost universal dismay. Many weren’t aware that the site is leased, not owned, by the Council. At the foot of this article is an appendix setting out its history.

Continue reading “Edinburgh Bus Station; 1957 – ?”

Our Annual General Meeting is on Thursday 6 June 2024, at 18:00 in the Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh.

Our Guest Speaker will be Professor David Begg. He is the former political transport lead at Lothian Region and the City of Edinburgh councils, chaired the Government’s Commission for Integrated Transport, was on the board of the Strategic Rail Authority and First Group Ltd. He publishes the Transport Times.

Continue reading “EBUG Annual General Meeting 2024”

Welcome to the latest EBUG Bulletin.

• • The new on-street Real-Time Information screens are still displaying timetable, not real-time, timings for Lothian Buses. An update is expected at the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee on 7 March.
  • In January we took part in a ‘stakeholder discussion’ about Elm Row. This was productive and we are now looking forward to significant improvements to the bus stops there.

Continue reading “No. 14 – Edinburgh Bus Users’ Group: Members’ Bulletin February 2024”

Click on these links to see slides and a recording of the recent and utterly excellent webinar Secrets of a Successful Bus Operation organised and published by the Foundation for Integrated Transport.  A brilliant exposition of how to do buses!

With Roger French, who was Managing Director Brighton & Hove Buses in some of its most successful years.

Roger says reliability should be a given, and identifies five other key areas:

• • Frequency, reliability, consistency
  • Price, value, simplicity
  • Legendary customer service
  • Information, promotion, publicity
  • Regular investment in new buses

Continue reading “‘Secrets of a Successful Bus Operation’ : recommended viewing”

The Scottish Government has ‘paused’ the Bus Partnership Fund. The Fund is ‘a long-term investment of over £500m to deliver targeted bus priority measures…to reduce the negative impacts of congestion on bus services and address the decline in bus patronage’ https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/buses/bus-partnership-fund/

When it was launched in 2019, it was the biggest investment in buses for years. Edinburgh and surrounding Councils planned to use it to finance major bus priority programmes, including on nine of Edinburgh’s busiest road corridors.

Continue reading “Bad budget for buses”

We’ve updated one of our key graphs. It now shows:

• The impact of the Covid19 pandemic
• The reallocation of bus lane space during the pandemic, now largely reinstated
• The reduction in bus lane hours in 2015

In December 2022, EBUG published an initial commentary on the Tram extension to Newhaven and buses https://edinburghbususers.group/ebug-comments-on-the-edinburgh-tram-extension-and-buses. At the time, construction was not complete, particularly at bus stops.

The Tram route has now been operating since June, so we revisited the sites previously inspected for an update. To recap, we had surveyed only the most southerly bus stops on Leith Walk, and the updated survey covered the same ground.

NB as previously, we did not carry out a full bus stop audit.

At Elm Row northbound, the bus stop appears acceptable. The shelter is long, and therefore spacious. It is perhaps disappointing that the opportunity was not taken to install wider end panels for better weather protection; this would have required moving the shelter onto the cycle path.

Continue reading “Update – comments on the Edinburgh Tram extension and buses”