First Group X2 Lowestoft to Norwich - Possibly the worse service in Britain
I have used buses all my life, long before eco-friendly became the fashion. I have always, where possible, attempted to use public transport and have thus acquired many years of experience during my years of travelling since the early 70's.
These days, living down in deepest coastal Suffolk but working in Norwich, it is not easy to find public transport to complete the journey. The rail fare is extortionate (over £25 for a return journey from Saxmundham) and there are no direct buses. For the first 18 months after starting work in Norwich I used the Park and Ride which is a very good service and certainly beats battling the traffic and it is cheaper than parking in central Norwich. Then, in May 2011, after researching the bus services in and out of Norwich I decided to give the First Group X2 bus service a go. This would mean having to drive to Beccles, then catch the half hourly First Group bus into Norwich.
My initial impressions were favourable, the fare is excellent - £20 for a 10 trip ticket which works out less than the petrol to get from Beccles to Norwich plus the added advantage, when using Beccles Quay carpark, of no parking fees. At first the buses appeared to arrive on time and were well used. The downside was the drivers were not particularly responsive to casual chat when boarding and alighting the bus and in general the buses were not very clean. The only other gripe was in the morning when the service was used by some rather rowdy school kids. Nonetheless, with my music player plugged to my ears to distract from the commotion, it was a reasonable stress free journey that beat driving the horrendous A146 which always seemed to be full of suicide drivers bent on getting a few places ahead in the heavy stream of rush hour traffic.
Those initial impressions, after 6 months of using the service, soon evaporated. My experience now leaves a lot to be desired, and, judging by talking with fellow passengers I am not alone in my criticism of the X2 service and First Group buses in general. The service suffers from constant break-downs, buses not turning up and even buses catching fire. The buses that do run on time appear to constantly suffer from cab alarms sounding throughout the journey. One driver said it was just an 'electrical fault' when I inquired as to the reason. I can accept that nothing is 100% reliable but it would appear that at least once a week I am delayed by a bus breaking down or not turning up. In all of my years of being a bus passenger I have never encountered such an unreliable service. Each occasion when the bus does not turn up, the next bus along has to deal with double the amount of passengers and usually the driver will refuse to take any more once the stipulated capacity is reached leaving disappointed people having to wait a further half an hour. The bus then continues its journey passing each stop ignoring the waving arms of people waiting for the bus.
Each day has now become a lottery on what time I will get to work and what time I will get home. The continuing saga of 'what happened on my bus journey to work' has become a bit of a joke and a constant source of amusement to my work colleagues but now the joke is wearing thin. These days if I need to be at work at a specified time or I need to get home for an appointment then I have to drive to the Park and Ride as I cannot trust the X2 service to deliver me on time. During summer there was rumours that Anglian Buses was to start a rival service to the X2 but so far nothing has materialised. So, despite the frustration I am still using the service on most days but have now started to investigate travelling to Halesworth or Bungay where I can catch the Anglian bus service into Norwich.
To add to all this frustration, another gripe is the heating on the First Group buses. During the heat of summer the heating systems always appeared to be on, letting passengers bake in the sauna like conditions. Now winter is here the heating is rarely working. I was told by a fellow passenger that the heating system is set by the bus engineers and the driver has no control on them.
From this experience I can only conclude that First Group do not service any of their bus fleet and their management have no interest in getting passengers to their destination. I cannot blame the drivers who are probably equally as frustrated by having such unreliable transport. Having used other Norfolk bus services such as Anglian buses, Konnectbus and Norfolk Green I can honestly say that First Group are by far the worst bus service in the county, if not the whole of Britain. In fact, given my years of bus use I would even go so far as to say the X2 service is probably the worst service I have ever encountered in my life. Before these six months I could probably count the number of times that I had a bus break down during a journey on one finger. The X2 service has surpassed this in just 6 months.
November 2012 Update
Anglian Buses are to introduce a new rival service to First Groups unreliable X2 service. The Anglian 146 service will start on 3rd December 2012 and will offer a half hourly service between Lowestoft and Norwich with stops at Beccles and Loddon.
In my opinion this new service has come none too soon and I congratulate Anglian on introducing it. Having used Anglian buses on numerous other occasions my expectations are high. Their services are usually reliable, have friendly and communicative drivers and their buses always appear clean and looked after. My only criticism is the earliest bus departing from Beccles to Norwich is at 07:35 which will mean I will arrive at work half an hour later than usual.
It will not take much to beat the First Group X2 service in all of reliability, friendliness and cleanliness of the buses. I am writing this with only a week before the new service is introduced and judging by this Friday (2012-11-23) evenings X2 debacle then Anglian Buses will have plenty of custom from the irate passengers who had to endure the X2 journey home from Norwich.
The farce on Friday evening started at 15:50 when I arrived at Norwich bus station in order to catch the 16:10 bus back to Beccles. There was plenty of passengers already waiting and it did occur to me that the previous bus at 15:40 had not turned up. This is a frequent occurrence and it never surprises me when one of the X2 service buses just fails to arrive. I waited with the ever growing queue of potential passengers. The 16:10 bus did not turn up. The queues lengthened. Eventually an announcement was made that the 16:10 bus would not turn up by which time it was time for the 16:40 bus to arrive. There was no apology, not that I had expected an apology from First Group. They never apologise for their late running and lack of a service. However I was quite surprised by the announcement because we do not usually get treated to such information, they usually leave it up to their customers imagination and guesswork to know that the bus will not turn up.
Anyway, I waited, along with the ever growing queue of what was now becoming disgruntled potential passengers. The next bus, the 16:40 did not turn up. This time there was no announcement. We had to guess that we were going to have to wait even longer with no information to just how long. By this time there was probably enough waiting passengers for two or three buses. Eventually, a bus arrived at 17:00. Whether this was the late 16:40 or the 17:10 a few minutes early is up to anyone's guess. First Group passengers are never treated to explanations or information. It is the First Group prerogative that they can and will run their bus as and when they feel they can be bothered and us public should be grateful that they are prepared to actually put a bus on the route in the first place.
The driver did not look impressed by the long queue of passengers. I dare not ask him what bus service this was supposed to be, for fear that I would be sent to the back of the queue. Eventually the bus, filled to its seams with passengers, departed leaving another bus load of disgruntled passengers still waiting because they were not allowed to board as the bus was deemed overcrowded.
I eventually arrived at Beccles at 18:00, one and a half hours after I had expected to arrive. I can understand that buses do break down, and there are uncertainties of traffic flows, but sadly with First Group this is all too common an occurrence. Roll on Anglian bus, lets hope the service fulfils the needs of the poor disregarded customers along the X2 route. Unfortunately I have a season ticket up until Christmas but with such bad service as Friday I may opt to just use Anglian regardless!
Anglian Buses have published their new titmetable at http://www.anglianbus.co.uk/media/media/timetables/146_Dec_2012.pdf
