Aaaaaand, we’re back!


Posted by jamo

It’s been a while hasn’t it! Decided to start doing some updates to the blog. How well it will go in the world or Facebook, Twitter and TikTok is anyones guess. (The blog was a started in March 2004, long before some of these social media sites existed). Anyway, let’s see how we go!

Saturday I decided to venture to Dunstable for a couple of hours to get out the house, the visit started with being approached in the Sainsbury’s car park by a guy who was ‘on a delivery and had an extra TV’, and did I want one. I declined.

Healthy loadings on the CX

After that excitement I took a spin on the Grant Palmer C and CX routes with my friend Lee at the wheel. I didn’t time my visit that well as we ended up being at Luton Town FC ground at the end of the match so had a full bus towards Dunstable. The busway stop there really need to be either made longer or have some kind of police control as the platform was completely full of people waiting. If it was long it would also mean more buses could stop at the same time rather than having to queue behind.


The other job


Posted by jamo

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned my other ‘job’ on here before, (It’s been a long time since I posted with any sort of regular pattern), but the Vending Machine business is slowly taking off.  It’s been a busy 12 months with the number of sites/machines doubling and updating the whole fleet of machines with Credit/Debit card readers.

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Well the business has taken another turn with the purchase of a bigger van…. Meet Vernon the Vivaro!

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Showbus 2015


Posted by jamo

So, today we’ve been to the yearly bus rally, Showbus.

I took one of our electric Streetlites, 5007.

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I have to say this is probably one of the poorest organised Showbus events I’ve been to.  We were lucky with “only” waiting 40 minutes to get parked up, some buses had a three hour wait!

There seem to be quite a number of buses getting stuck in the soft ground too. If it’s held at Woburn Abbey again next year I think I’ll give it a miss…..

 

Anyway, 5007 did us well and only used 30% charge for the whole day. 🙂

and to end the post, here’s a picture of Professional Matt eyeing up an ice cream van ?

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Time Flies


Posted by jamo

Well it’s been a long time since I posted on here, there’s been a number of reasons, nothing much to report, Arriva’s ‘social media policy’ stopping me from posting some items, and also a hint of laziness!

Well today I’ve been working on a camp site shuttle service for a company called City Camping, ferrying campers to the Bowl for the Foo Fighters concert…. In three hours time I get to take them all back again. About 2am I can drive the bus back to Luton, then drive back to MK in the car to finally reach my bed! ??

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Hello *echo*


Posted by jamo

Well!, I haven’t been here for a while…. Does anyone even visit anymore?

Lots been happening, will post some stuff in the week, bus and non bus 🙂

imageHere’s a random picture of a train I took near Valkenburg.

 


Arriva Bus App updated


Posted by jamo

The Arriva Bus App was updated a few days ago, Seems to be more accurate than the previous version.

The system works with the ETM (Ticket Machine) doing all the work, Which means that we no longer have to have seperate RTPI equipment onboard the bus.  The ticket machine polls in to the Arriva server every 22 seconds telling it where it is in the world and the server cross references this against the published timetable and works out from that if its Early, Late or On time.

 

You can now select that it shows you the last known position of the bus, Rather than its estimated location… A much better option as you now know that the bus was actually at the place on the map.

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All that needs to happen now is to get more ETM’s polling in to the system accurately.