Trent-Barton Buses

I live on the outskirts of Nottingham and, as i have no car, busses are often the only way I can get around. The ONLY bus service that operates through my area is Trent Barton (the rainbow 4 service and the 15, 18/32 and commuter express services).

It is fair to say that travelling with Trent Barton is like playing the lottery, if you get lucky things are very good....but if you aren't lucky it can be really frustrating. For example, here's a little itinery of two days this week when I used Trent Barton.

DAY ONE
Arrive at the bus stop five minutes before the bus is due. Having waited fifteen minutes two busses arrive at once, I wave the bus down and the ask the driver for my fare, he utters not a word, gives me a ticket and change. The bus is full and I am forced to stand for the entire journey, it is also unbearably hot. The 25minute trip to town actually takes 50MINUTES!! A combination of the delay and the late bus mean I miss my train......very frustrating.

DAY TWO
I arrive five minutes before the timetabled time to catch the same bus. The bus arrives exactly on time, the driver is friendly and greets me as I step onto the bus. She takes my fare and thanks me when I hand the money over. the journey takes the right amount of time and the bus neither full nor empty. A brilliant service.

It really is difficult to know what you are getting when you travel with this company.

PRICE
Another problem with TrentBarton is the price of travel. As I am at University I can only work part time and my monthly bus fare is more than one third of my salary!!! There is no student discount scheme and the tickets that offer savings such as the monthly travel cards and 'zigzag' tickets are ALWAYS limited either by when or where you can use them. On some days it costs me less to do a fifty mile train journey than a six mile bus journey!

**UPDATE***
I went to the central TrentBarton office today (17th Jan 2005) and found that their prices are set to RISE yet again. They will increase to £49per month for 28days of travel in the Nottingham area (well some of it). This is an increase of more that £10 pounds in lss than two years, well above the 3%ish rate of inflation. This is completely unreasonable and I have ammended the 'value for money section' of the review accordingly.

ON THE PLUS SIDE
The majority of the busses are relatively new, although there are still some old bangers in the fleet. The drivers are polite 90% of the time and are Definately more polite than some of the Nottingham City Transport drivers, who I dread speaking to.

If this bus service is to improve the price has to come down and the reliability needs to rise a large amount! A student travel scheme wouldn't go amiss and I wouldnt mind if the busses were a bit older if it made the service cheaper.

Hope this helps! I know that it appears to be terribly one-sided, but if you read my other reviews I hope I come across as been pretty fair on the whole. Its just that my experiences with TrentBarton have not been good, and I hope they improve for their customers sake.

Alex:)