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I see on the First Worcestershire website there is now a promotional advert for the normal all-year services 332/363/373 that will provide SOME useable services to the festivals.
No extras unfortunately, but I'm very glad that someone in First's management has made this much effort !

Two Things :-

1. - I was hoping that a DD might get used on some occasions -
- does anyone know if any of the Saturday 363 and 373 workings can use a DD please ? - (ie - if there are any that are NOT being interworked with the 332 ? ).

and 2. - Does anyone know how the normal Upton services are doing generally - "Now that the dust has settled", I would HATE to think that passenger numbers were going down ( - ?)

I was in the Commercial Office today talking mostly about the Hay Festival, but we drifted on to the subject of Upton.

It is my understanding there will be additional advertising in Crowngate and vehicle allocators are instructed to make sure full-size single decks will be used.

That, I'm sorry to say, is about it.

Thanks anyway Adam !

Haven't seen any passenger numbers, but my impression was that there wasn't a great deal of additional passengers using the bus for the festival. There were certainly some, but not enough to warrant extra capacity. There are larger festivals later in the season so many they will be more busy.

We were forced to abandon The Graftons section of the 373 route due to poorly parked cars blocking the road.

AdamH wrote: ↑

08:10 Monday 1st May 2017

Haven't seen any passenger numbers, but my impression was that there wasn't a great deal of additional passengers using the bus for the festival. There were certainly some, but not enough to warrant extra capacity. There are larger festivals later in the season so many they will be more busy.

We were forced to abandon The Graftons section of the 373 route due to poorly parked cars blocking the road.

I hope the residents of The Graftons were made aware of the reasons for the loss of their bus service. Such thoughtless parking is becoming more of a problem in many places - I was reading the other day on a fire service message board of a situation I think in Birmingham where firefighters had to abandon their appliances and carry equipment 100 yards to the scene of a house fire. I did think that a parked car causing an obstruction was still an offence but clearly rarely enforced these days.

chason wrote: ↑

09:07 Monday 1st May 2017

I hope the residents of The Graftons were made aware of the reasons for the loss of their bus service. Such thoughtless parking is becoming more of a problem in many places - I was reading the other day on a fire service message board of a situation I think in Birmingham where firefighters had to abandon their appliances and carry equipment 100 yards to the scene of a house fire. I did think that a parked car causing an obstruction was still an offence but clearly rarely enforced these days.

I think it is unlikely they were told as this was not planned and was forced upon the company when a bus got stuck and the driver had to reverse out. A problem not helped by the fact we were using larger vehicles than usual (normally E200s on a Saturday) in anticipation of carrying more passengers. Thankfully the driver in question phoned control so later departures could be warned and avoid getting stuck.

I almost got stuck last year in an E300. It was very tight and having asked my passengers to breath in I just got through. Annoyingly that problem was caused by a coach driver choosing to take his layover on the housing estate rather than paying to use the coach park. Thanks for the professional courtesy mate!