First Portlethen (62194)
Thanks to Jordan Adam for the spot, First Aberdeen in error announced a new service 4 to Portlethen today. The service is effectively an extention of the 3 from Charleston to Asda Portlethen along the old Stagecoach Bluebird 8 route that ran until 2013.
The Stagecoach Bluebird 8 was launched in 2011 by then Stagecoach Bluebird MD Andrew Jarvis - now ultimately running First Aberdeen as part of the new First Scotland MD role. Jarvis spotted a gap in the market to target Cove and Charleston at a time when First were cutting the frequency of its 3 and 21 services that served the area as well as negative publicity about First fares which Stagecoach were undercutting. The area offered future passenger growth with housebuilding underway at Charleston, Marywell, and Schoolhill Portlethen and there were requests in the Cove community for a bus link to Asda and the Portlethen Retail Park. The service did exceedingly well in the peaks mainly stealing passengers off the 21 to Altens but had poor patronage offpeak. It never reached its true potential suffering from the age old problem Bluebird has had in trying to take on First - its drivers are used to just tanking the bus from A to B and are in no hurry to pull into stops unless hailed while First passengers stood back writing it off as a "country bus". The 8 was timed to run the same time as the X7 so tended to just tag behind the X7 at bus stops out of sight. Depot controllers were just as guilty by throwing on Megabus Plaxton Panther coaches with no destination displays at times when First passengers were long used to low floor buses. The journey times to Portlethen were so long it was sometimes quicker for the passenger to stand back and get a 7 bus 15 minutes later. Jarvis left Bluebird in the summer of 2013 and his successor wasted no time in axing the service that autumn.
Jarvis would appear to still believe in the link and a 4 service would be more viable than an 8 as it would still have the 3 passengers to pad it out as far as Wellington Road and then into Charleston replacing the highly unreliable and much complained about 18 service. It would be nicely timed as Stagecoach has just greatly reduced the Portlethen and Marywell services in last months service changes despite Schoolhill being a growth area for the company although AWPR works have badly damaged reliability of late. The Portlethen services have suffered for years with Bluebird poor reliability, frequent network changes and a tendancy for some drivers to run the Portlethen timing point early to compensate delays at Bridge of Dee or Stonehaven. First would certainly be welcomed into Portlethen.
The proposed service 4 could be operated by adding just one bus to the current 3/3G PVR. There would also be the potential to extend the bus to Badentoy Park in the future or to tender for the future proposed bus link to Chapleton of Elsick. The route would mark a serious departure from the gentlemans agreement of 1991 where by neither operator has encroached on the others route, although First may feel the 727 service, again conceived by Jarvis, has very much eroded the Northern Lights 17/18 service in recent years with First retaliating with the 16 service. The 16 has underperformed against the 727 so far but First seem keen to give another roll of the dice by extending it from Union Square to Balnagask allowing the 20 to revert back fixing the reliability problems that have impacted what was once the most reliable route in the network and soak up some of the excessive layover at Union Square added in September for the 16. First also seem to be thinking ahead to the new Lochside Academy that opens off Wellington Road in August for which there will be demand for travel between Torry and Lochside that the 4 will nicely fit.
The question remains as to where First would gain the extra bus for the 4 - could that be at the expense of the 8&9 rumours that continue to fuel which two weeks ago refused to deny.
The 4 move could also be seen as pre-emptive strike against Stagecoach who may be expected to retaliate now they have former First Aberdeen Commericial Manager Daniel Laird at the helm. Certainly the battle for the declining bus market in Aberdeen looks set to hot up.
Of course in true First style its grand plans have been leaked out by its own people - the proposed January 28th service changes were delayed to due to the prospect of industrial action by drivers but First web team in error loaded the timetables up unaware of the delay. Although they were quickly taken down, Google robots had archived the details and they are still on show this evening when you search for it.
Photographed above is First Aberdeen last involvement in Portlethen, as home to its redundant non PSVAR compliant bus fleet in 2016 prior to the scrap man collecting. Vandalised 62194 seen here at Portlethen in October 2016.
First Portlethen (62194)
Thanks to Jordan Adam for the spot, First Aberdeen in error announced a new service 4 to Portlethen today. The service is effectively an extention of the 3 from Charleston to Asda Portlethen along the old Stagecoach Bluebird 8 route that ran until 2013.
The Stagecoach Bluebird 8 was launched in 2011 by then Stagecoach Bluebird MD Andrew Jarvis - now ultimately running First Aberdeen as part of the new First Scotland MD role. Jarvis spotted a gap in the market to target Cove and Charleston at a time when First were cutting the frequency of its 3 and 21 services that served the area as well as negative publicity about First fares which Stagecoach were undercutting. The area offered future passenger growth with housebuilding underway at Charleston, Marywell, and Schoolhill Portlethen and there were requests in the Cove community for a bus link to Asda and the Portlethen Retail Park. The service did exceedingly well in the peaks mainly stealing passengers off the 21 to Altens but had poor patronage offpeak. It never reached its true potential suffering from the age old problem Bluebird has had in trying to take on First - its drivers are used to just tanking the bus from A to B and are in no hurry to pull into stops unless hailed while First passengers stood back writing it off as a "country bus". The 8 was timed to run the same time as the X7 so tended to just tag behind the X7 at bus stops out of sight. Depot controllers were just as guilty by throwing on Megabus Plaxton Panther coaches with no destination displays at times when First passengers were long used to low floor buses. The journey times to Portlethen were so long it was sometimes quicker for the passenger to stand back and get a 7 bus 15 minutes later. Jarvis left Bluebird in the summer of 2013 and his successor wasted no time in axing the service that autumn.
Jarvis would appear to still believe in the link and a 4 service would be more viable than an 8 as it would still have the 3 passengers to pad it out as far as Wellington Road and then into Charleston replacing the highly unreliable and much complained about 18 service. It would be nicely timed as Stagecoach has just greatly reduced the Portlethen and Marywell services in last months service changes despite Schoolhill being a growth area for the company although AWPR works have badly damaged reliability of late. The Portlethen services have suffered for years with Bluebird poor reliability, frequent network changes and a tendancy for some drivers to run the Portlethen timing point early to compensate delays at Bridge of Dee or Stonehaven. First would certainly be welcomed into Portlethen.
The proposed service 4 could be operated by adding just one bus to the current 3/3G PVR. There would also be the potential to extend the bus to Badentoy Park in the future or to tender for the future proposed bus link to Chapleton of Elsick. The route would mark a serious departure from the gentlemans agreement of 1991 where by neither operator has encroached on the others route, although First may feel the 727 service, again conceived by Jarvis, has very much eroded the Northern Lights 17/18 service in recent years with First retaliating with the 16 service. The 16 has underperformed against the 727 so far but First seem keen to give another roll of the dice by extending it from Union Square to Balnagask allowing the 20 to revert back fixing the reliability problems that have impacted what was once the most reliable route in the network and soak up some of the excessive layover at Union Square added in September for the 16. First also seem to be thinking ahead to the new Lochside Academy that opens off Wellington Road in August for which there will be demand for travel between Torry and Lochside that the 4 will nicely fit.
The question remains as to where First would gain the extra bus for the 4 - could that be at the expense of the 8&9 rumours that continue to fuel which two weeks ago refused to deny.
The 4 move could also be seen as pre-emptive strike against Stagecoach who may be expected to retaliate now they have former First Aberdeen Commericial Manager Daniel Laird at the helm. Certainly the battle for the declining bus market in Aberdeen looks set to hot up.
Of course in true First style its grand plans have been leaked out by its own people - the proposed January 28th service changes were delayed to due to the prospect of industrial action by drivers but First web team in error loaded the timetables up unaware of the delay. Although they were quickly taken down, Google robots had archived the details and they are still on show this evening when you search for it.
Photographed above is First Aberdeen last involvement in Portlethen, as home to its redundant non PSVAR compliant bus fleet in 2016 prior to the scrap man collecting. Vandalised 62194 seen here at Portlethen in October 2016.