From time to time I get a "nightmare" in which I'm looking at an empty Padmore Street garage and empty parking area ("patch"), with all the buses GONE and not based somewhere else -- replaced by some other means of public transport.
The privitised bus companies have all evolved their deregulated , mainly commercial networks into the ones we see today, but now London operators, and respected, previously successful operators like Stagecoach, are struggling with congestion and costs.
I think that whoever operates Worcester's bus network in the future should use the present network as an efficient "commercial core" but with adjustments to improve reliability WHERE possible, and, IDEALLY with extra funding from central government for this. - - Pie in the sky ?? -- I don't know how much FMR pays in local and central government TAXES, and how much they can claim back -- for example BSOG -- if anyone can provide the facts on that, I would love to know (??)
Worcester is at the centre of a large network of routes that (generally) go as
far as Evesham, Tewkesbury, Malvern, and Birmingham, -- so when it gets jammed up, as it often does, all the people along these routes suffer from delays / unreliability, and an EFFECTIVE real-time / NextBus system seems to me to be essential.
I think that a "crunch point" is coming in the next year or two (for Worcester), because of all the new housing being forced upon us residents by central government, (despite roads that already cannot cope at times), and I think that (despite the A4440 dualling), gridlock will happen so often that businesses will re-locate or close their local employment places and services.
IF that is correct (??), then I think bus services in Worcester , and south Worcestershire, will continue to decline.
As a "traditional bus" enthusiast, I am worried that WHEN the situation has worsened to the point that local government is getting declining revenues because of local businesses pulling out because of traffic grid-lock, they (the councillors) will be FORCED to introduce a whole range of measures to restrict car use (even though they will then get "forced out of office" by an ignorant public).
BUT by that time, traditional bus services will be "far less than now".
(Just like Delhi in India !!)
We already know about Midland Red West's CITIBUS network of the 1980s and 90's, and more recently, UBER taxis and other innovations, and therefore I'm afraid that we might end-up with the situation as in this american city --
https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/innova ... re-service
If anyone can say whether any of the above is wrong, or put a more positive spin on things, please do so !!