October 2011 – bish.co.uk

Save the X44 bus service – online petition

Many people are unable to find copies of the paper-based petition to save the X44 bus service which serves Rawtenstall, Townsend Fold, Edenfield and Shuttleworth. The bus operator Transdev has decided to scrap the X44 bus service through Edenfield because transport bosses believe the service is ‘under-used’ although I fail to see how 9-10 passengers on each service can’t be profitable for them. (Unless perhaps they want to reduce the number of people using SystemOne cards so that they make more money from people travelling from Rawtenstall.)

The daily service, with nine return journeys between Nelson and Manchester, via Townsend Fold, Horncliffe, Edenfield and Shuttleworth will be scrapped by the end of the month and replaced with a new X8 service through Edenfield running just twice per day. Transdev need to be made aware how their decision will affect bus users severely and drive their customers onto competing bus services or private transport.

Transdev’s assurance that, “Edenfield will continue to have a frequent, accessible public transport network after these changes are implemented.” is blatantly false.

Cancellation of the X44 service to Manchester

People may not be aware of the fact that this bus service is due to be cancelled by the end of October. Can I urge you to ring or email Transdev and complain about this?

THE X44 SERVICE WILL BE CANCELLED BY THE END OF OCTOBER!

The current 7 daily services to Manchester and 9 return trips will be replaced by 2 services each way. This is a very significant reduction in service.

I use this bus to commute to Manchester 3 days/week and I know that typically about 9 people rely on the 0644 service each day. Unfortunately Transdev have been trying to cancel this service for several years and they are claiming that the service is underused. This definitely isn’t the case. It seems that drivers don’t count people who travel using travel cards or weekly/monthly passes when they get on the bus.
Hopefully if enough people complain, we’ll be able to maintain this service for the people of Edenfield and surrounding areas.

Please send your complaints to ….

[email protected]
Business Director of Burnley & Pendle Travel

[email protected]
Service Delivery Manager – Burnley and Pendle Travel

[email protected]
MD of Veolia Transdev

It seems like they’ve been deliberately keeping this announcement quiet until it’s too late for people to complain. I’ve asked for copies of the new timetable for the proposed “replacement” service, the X8 but I’ve been told that timetables aren’t yet available. This is blatantly untrue because the new timetable is on the Transport for Greater Manchester Website. The new timetable shows that the only service arriving in Manchester before mid-morning will now leave Edenfield at 0739 which is too late for the 9 or so people that I know personally who catch the 0644 service.

It seems that Transdev are trying to simplify their timetable and are basing their assumptions on the fact that the service is underutilised. Since this rumour leaked out, I’ve been counting passenger numbers and observing how the drivers count passenger numbers. It appears that people using weekly or monthly tickets (the majority of passengers) are not consistently counted which may help to account for the apparent underutilisation of this service. Kevin Timberlake (Service Delivery Manager for Transdev) said in an email, that the poor road quality between Edenfield and the motorway was also a factor in their decision, it seems that they’d rather just use the bypass.

I understand that Transdev tried to cancel this service in 2006 but a petition was organised to protest against the cancellation. It seems that this time round, they’ve kept this cancellation hidden until the “last minute” to prevent complaints from the public. I’m pleased to hear that other people have started to complain but it would be great if everybody could get in touch to tell Transdev what they think.

You can also complain here:
http://www.lancashirebus.co.uk/contact-us.jsp

Or telephone Veolia Transdev (Burnely and Pendle):
Tel: 01282 427778

If you’re on FaceBook, “Like” this article on the Edenfield Resident’s Association page.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/edenfieldvillage/

PERFMON stops recording after 1 minute

As a performance tester, I’m used to collecting stats about Windows systems perrformance. I’ve done this using Windows PERFMON as well as using performance test tools such as LoadRunner and Facilita Forecast to gather performance related statistics from systems undergoing tests.

I recently did some performance testing for a client using Visual Studio and was gathering stats for later analysis. I used the Windows Performance Monitor snap-in to create my data collector sets as shown below.

By following the default options I found that my PERFMON counters were only gathered for one minute before stopping. I continually restarted my new data collector sets only to see them stop “as soon as my back was turned”. I check the account permissions for the running service, local security policies and event viewer logs but couldn’t find the problem.

When I was at the stage of tearing out my (rapidly thinning) hair, I came across this setting….

By default, all windows performance counter data collector sets stop after 1 minute.

To alter this behaviour, “Right-click” on the properties for the new Data Collector Set.

Select the “Stop Condition” tab and uncheck the “Overall duration” checkbox.
By default this is set to 1 minute as shown below.