LUTON -8

[LTNman]

The bigger issue is getting the passengers from Parkway to the terminal and back. This is part down to the airport and part down to Govia who are the franchise operator of Thameslink.

Dealing with the airport first, and I don't know why I put myself through the pain of checking as it depresses me, is the morning traffic peak where traffic grinds to a halt from Parkway to the terminal. The shuttle buses are sardine cans and a prolonged journey time must be hell on earth. The service not only becomes extended but there are then long periods when there are no buses as they are lost in traffic so the queues for the buses also becomes extended. If I was arriving at Parkway at around 6:30 in the morning I would allow myself an hour to do the last mile and if I had no luggage I would walk.

The pain doesn't end on just the journey into the airport, the pain extends to leaving the airport as well now since the exit route from the bus station means that buses have to queue to get onto the one way system where they meet again the traffic trying to get into the drop off zone. Once past that there is the queue for the exit barriers. Now the queue for the exit barriers can happen anytime of the day or the night. It can range from nothing to around 10 minutes which is the point where the barriers are lifted to relieve the traffic congestion.

As has been mentioned before there is a quick exit route from the bus station that crosses the dual carriageway that leads directly to the tunnel but it has been blocked off.

Now we come to Govia, a company that promised much and has delivered little.

They inherited the old franchise operators shuttle bus fleet that many years ago consisted of pure high capacity bendy buses. Before the franchise ended the bendy bus fleet was reduced from 4 to 2 and supplemented by 2 shoppers buses in their nice London red bus colour. It is worth noting that when the pure bendy bus fleet was introduced this was the point that charges were introduced between the station and the airport, as the charges were to pay for the upgrade of the fleet that has since been reduced.

Now the fleet seems to be 3 bendy buses and 2 shoppers buses although it is quite often that not all 3 bendy buses are in service at the same time. It used to be the case that if a passenger was lucky enough to catch a high capacity bendy bus then their luck was in as these buses did not suffer from overcrowding. Now even during the off peak times every bus regardless of capacity can be crammed to the roof with less and less buses traveling with spare seats.

It is going to be a long 4 year wait until the new DART link is in operation but in the meantime all the shuttle buses need to go back to being high capacity and there needs to be twice as many of them. My view is that there is a conspiracy between the airport and Govia of inaction in trying to improve the service and the lives of the passengers using the shuttle buses. Even the covered walkway from the terminal to the bus stop has not been put in and with the bus station contractor gone it looks like it won't happen either. For the airport this mean that they have managed to save a few £££ on the original plans.