Government transport minister impressed by new ftr system

"I have to say I was impressed," said the Minister, who had chosen York for his first public engagement since being appointed to the post in Tony Blair's Cabinet re-shuffle last Friday.

"I thought it was a good experience.

"Of course, there are always going to be teething problems with the introduction of a new scheme, but I think one needs to have a clear sense of the possibilities that innovations can bring to a community such as this."

However, he stressed that it was ultimately the people of York who would decide whether the £1.3 million of public money invested in preparing the way for the ftr was money well spent.

"Let's see how the public react to it," he said.

"I travelled on the service this morning and was impressed by what I saw, but ultimately that will be the judgment made here by local people."

The Press presented the Minister with copies of yesterday's paper, which reported how we had been inundated with complaints about the new service, and also handed him copies of some of the letters and emails which have been sent to us.

The complaints included the dangers for cyclists as the massive bus tries to negotiate York's narrow streets, the congestion at pinch-points such as Heslington Road, the number of seats on board and the need for passengers to pay more for a ticket if they pay with cash on the bus. Mr Alexander said: "Obviously, I will be interested in the points of view that people are expressing but ultimately these are decisions that are best taken at a local level.

"I think people here in York are best equipped to make many of the key decisions in terms of which specific schemes make sense for this city given the patterns of people moving about and the patterns of people's work, and the expectations of tourism in the city."

He said he had spoken to the chief executive of First, which is running the new service.

"He was keen to impress upon me the desire of the First group to raise the performance standards of literally the first couple of days of this new service. I think it's reasonable that we try and see that progress in the days ahead."

What the York superbus chief has to say about the new ftr vehicles

Readers have inundated The Press with letters and calls giving their view on the controversial new ftr bus service. Following a two-page letters special yesterday, we put your comments on the new "superbus" to First York commercial director Peter Edwards.

Here's what he had to say:

"People will need help with the new 'PrePay' ticketing systems and I hope that First will have staff on board for a number of weeks to help. I also asked that First quickly look at their technical equipment to ensure that 'Family Tickets' can be purchased on board, which I understand they will not be able to."

- Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing,

Labour transport spokeswoman.

Mr Edwards: "We are making arrangements for the next three weeks for there to be hosts on board every one of these vehicles between 7am and 6pm. We are aware of the issue with family tickets. We are dealing with brand new technology and what we are trying to do is to get that running reliably before we start making changes."

"The 'Purple People Eater' was stuck outside the Spar shop (on Heslington Road) with traffic gridlocked in both directions and car horns blaring as frustrated drivers were unable to move. York's road system was not designed for huge monstrosities like ftr and I fear scenes like those I witnessed today will be repeated all over the city."

- Steve Bradley, Margaret Street, York.

Mr Edwards: "We have worked closely with City of York Council and they are trying to provide us easy access down Heslington Road. We can't legislate against someone who has parked inappropriately and causes an obstruction."

"Even the state-of-the-art satellite tracking system on the new ftrs will not prevent these vehicles from being caught up in the gridlock on the Heslington Hall roundabout (they seem to be experiencing some difficulty negotiating this 180-degree bend), caused by those ridiculous chicanes on the road towards Fulford."

- F Jones, Main Street, Heslington.

Mr Edwards: "These vehicles are only slightly larger than the existing bendy-buses and are the same width. Obviously the pilots are still becoming familiar with the new vehicles as they have not had the opportunity to drive them before. I am sure these problems will ease in a very short time."

"I caught the bus (sorry - I mean ftr) from York train station today and because their shiny new ticket machine was taking too long, the nice man from First just told everyone to get on. The same thing happened all along the route - what a nice change compared to their usual constant fare increases."

- David Carpenter, Constantine Avenue, York.

Mr Edwards: "We did have some teething problems with the technology with the ticket machine. It is fairly slow at the moment. We need to try and attract customers to use pre-pay."

"Despite all the publicity the ftr has received, I fear it will not succeed. From my viewpoint on Front Street, I can report that they were not busy during the first morning of operation. They rumbled past on a very regular basis, but most of them only had one or two passengers on them, a driver and an inspector."

- Paul Cunniff, Front Street, Acomb.

Mr Edwards: "This is not true. There were a huge number of people who tried the service on Monday. A lot of them were pretty impressed."

"(The) promotion of an over-large, diesel polluting bus as 'state of the art' is laughable."

- M Warters, Yew Tree Mews, Osbaldwick Village.

Mr Edwards: "The ftr is a clean vehicle and it complies with European standards."

"If one removes all the 'hard-sell marketing' from the FirstGroup and the spin from the council, one is left with a remarkably conventional vehicle.

"Combine this with the fact that the ftr has 14 seats fewer than a conventional bendy-bus and it becomes clear that the ftr is a step back rather than forward."

- Oliver Starzynski, Murton Way, York.

Mr Edwards: "These vehicles are capable of carrying more than 100 people. If you translated that into people driving single occupancy cars the traffic queue would stretch for hundreds of yards. This is an extremely efficient way of moving large numbers of people and freeing up road space."

"I waited 25 minutes for it this morning from 8.45am and finally walked, or I would have missed my hospital appointment. Luckily I set off early. Dare I rely on it to get to the station to catch my train to the airport? I think not. We were quite happy with the bus we had. As your other correspondent said - if it's not broke, why fix it?"

- P Blanchard, Heslington Road, York.

Mr Edwards: "Customers will be able to rely on it - when we have solved some of the initial difficulties. We are dealing with a brand new vehicle, with new pilots. With this new technology, it is going to take a little time to bed down, but bed down it will."

"Could someone explain to me why, after all the hullabaloo about the 'ftr' with its costly aids to faster journey times, the new timetable actually shows slower times? For instance, the new journey time between The Green, in Acomb, and the University on a Sunday is now two minutes longer!"

- John Ibbott, Tedder Road, Acomb.

Mr Edwards: "We are looking very closely at the intermediary times. Once we have got boarding times down at bus stops we will look again at the timetable and accurately reflect how long it takes to move around. In some cases, this will be a shorter time."

"There are only two reasons for bringing this ftr carbuncle on to the streets of York. One is to needlessly increase the price of tickets, the other to increase congestion in York pending congestion charges, which I suspect are the ulterior motive."

- Steve Smith, Dijon Avenue, Acomb.

Mr Edwards: "I am in no position to comment on the question of congestion charging. What we are trying to do is to provide an improvement for the customer. While that might not be apparent yet, that's what we are trying to do."

"Why do we need fancy buses to travel ten to 15 minutes? What's wrong with the 'old buses'?"

- Mr N Hillen, Wains Road, Dringhouses.

Mr Edwards: "We aim to meet the objectives of providing people with more reliable services."

"The entire length of Heslington Road is impassable for two new buses and the design of the buses means that the drivers have no option, but to travel the majority of the route in dedicated cycle lanes. During the course of my journey this morning, my ticket was checked three times. Whilst on board, a series of technicians alighted and disembarked the bus to repair the on-bard telemetry."

- Paul D Miller, Heslington Road, York.

Mr Edwards: "This is day four of a huge enterprise for staff and there has been no real experience with this service anywhere else in the country. I understand the issue on Heslington Road, but in our original plan we would have put services down Lawrence Street. The majority of residents from that area wanted to keep the bus service. If we had ftr or not the issue of parked vehicles on Heslington Road would still remain."

Updated: 08:42 Thursday, May 11, 2006