Arriva Southend - Criticisms

Criticisms

Arriva Southend has been criticised by users and the Southend Area Bus Users' Group for withdrawing services which it considered no longer economically viable due to low passenger numbers (even when parts of the route were profitable) when Southend Borough Council withdrew bus subsidies of up to £6 per passenger in 2005. On 21 January 2008 Southend Area Bus Users' Group and Councilor Steve Aylen successfully campaigned for improvements to Service 6A after having been withdrawn in 2005. On 31 March 2008, service 7 was extended at the suggestion of Great Wakering Parish Council and the Rochford Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership, who are subsidising the service. The company trials the operation of new services to gauge service demand, and makes services permanent if there are enough passengers to support them being run.

It has also been criticised by Southend Borough Council for the age of its bus fleet, as some of its buses are nearly 20 years old and many do not have low-floor, easy-access step-free entry which is important for older people, as Southend has an ageing population with the most senior citizens in the country, although most areas do not have full low-floor networks yet, and buses are built to have working lives of about 20 years. Arriva Southend did introduce some new Dennis Trident 2 Alexander ALX400 low-floor double-decker buses branded for use on services 7 and 8 in 2000, but they were subseqeuently redistributed to Arriva Maidstone and Arriva East Herts & Essex in 2004/5 as Arriva decided that they were not getting enough passengers to justify their use. However, many of the older buses have now been replaced with more modern ones, and this process will continue over the next month to replace the remainder of the older double-deckers, although a few step entrance vehicles will remain.

Further criticism came from passengers when Arriva Southend and First Essex decided to withdraw their "Day Rover" ticket, which allowed unlimited journeys on the day of purchase on buses operated by both companies regardless of which company issued the ticket, so day tickets can now only be used on the buses of the company issuing them. They replaced it with a more expensive "Octopus" ticket which is issued by and can be used on any buses operated by Arriva Southend, First Essex, NIBS, Regal Busways and Stephensons of Essex in the Southend, Rochford and Castle Point districts, covering more bus operators and a wider area of Essex.

On 8 February 2009, Arriva reduced the frequency of services 7 and 8 to some areas, which angered some residents in Hockley and Hawkwell, as it made it very difficult for them to get to and from Southend Hospital and Clements Hall Leisure Centre on time due to the 7 and 8 either running very late in the Shoebury area, or buses turning back before reaching their terminating point. The move also dismayed Rochford councillors. The Hockley Residents' Association also said that the figures for low customer numbers used to justify the frequency reduction were flawed. After receiving numerous complaints from Hockley residents, on June 7, 2009 Arriva Southend extended some service 7 buses to Hockley Spa instead of terminating at Ashingdon Schools. It is likely that this extra service is now going to stay after a review in December 2009. Hawkwell residents then sent further complaints to the Essex County Council about service 8 not having evening services after 6:30pm since 2002. They demanded that one of the service 7 evening buses to become an 8 and divert to Hawkwell. Essex County Council said it would not be possible to add an evening service to service 8. Arriva Southend have also been criticised for running all of their services in the Shoeburyness area via Asda, after they changed the route of Service 1 to run through Asda instead of Elm Road.

Arriva Southend has started using an "undercover passenger" scheme to attempt to better understand problems and complaints with the changes they have made to their services, encouraging passengers to participate by offering them a week's free bus travel for rating the services they use.

From 2 May 2010, with the help and funding of Essex County Council, all Arriva service 7 buses extended to run to Hockley Spa instead of Ashingdon Schools every 10 minutes. Service 8 has returned to running twice an hour (one to Hockley Spa, the other to Rayleigh Station) instead of the previous one bus an hour.

There has been crictism from passengers frequently using Service 29, which was merged with Service 13 to provide a through service from Belfairs to Temple Sutton since March 27, 2011. The route merger resulted in drivers not given sufficient time to complete the whole route, which has caused buses to turn back before reaching their terminating point, missing out certain bus stops and leaving passengers stranded from over 45 to 90 minutes to wait for the next Service 29.