[Albion] The "Official" Albion Fan Advisory Board thread

[Bob!]

That's a taxi

Or Seagulls Travel....



.....oh

 

[spoonie]

Please can you ask if we MUST 100% have to take the shuttle buses at AEK next week?

Thanks.

we don't - someone emailed supporters services I also spoke to a couple of Groups of Man City fans in Manchester last month they came over and Genuinely seemed interested on how we were finding European football and both groups separately said one of the 1st things you will work out is DO NOT GET ON THE BUSES they suck the fun out of the whole experience and after the shambles of Marseille when so many missed kick off and now with Athens saying we have to go up there almost 4 hours before kick off I think they might just be right. Stay in the city, have a few beers and some good food in the sunshine then jump on metro or an uber to the stadium is our plan.

 

[jackalbion]

I’d like to have the option of paying a little more, being able to book in advance, and receiving a better, more reliable service. If there’s a driver shortage, let’s hear the club say it, and appeal for assistance. There must be trained drivers out there who would be able to help, including the newly retired etc. It’s the fact that there’s so little public comment made by the club management that is frustrating. I’d like a far more proactive, creative, collaborative approach to help improve the transport issue. There will always be a bottleneck of sorts as you have 30k people leaving at once but I’m convinced we could improve the situation with a bit of creative thinking.

I understand you'd like that, there have been proactive, creative and collaborative approaches, but its just how the country is at the moment, not just the transport industry. What hope is there when you have a prime minister saying we are the nation of the car or something along those lines. The way transport planning works is you have to make whatever you have work with the resource you have, and run services based upon that and demand. There just aren't the trained drivers out there to help and the ones that are, have found better paying jobs and don't want to give those up.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I’d like to have the option of paying a little more, being able to book in advance, and receiving a better, more reliable service. If there’s a driver shortage, let’s hear the club say it, and appeal for assistance. There must be trained drivers out there who would be able to help, including the newly retired etc. It’s the fact that there’s so little public comment made by the club management that is frustrating. I’d like a far more proactive, creative, collaborative approach to help improve the transport issue. There will always be a bottleneck of sorts as you have 30k people leaving at once but I’m convinced we could improve the situation with a bit of creative thinking.

The bus companies are saying there's a driver shortage. There are adverts on the B&H buses every day. Why should the newly retired spend thousands on taking a PSV licence to drive a few weeks of the year, at unsocial hours?

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I’d like to have the option of paying a little more, being able to book in advance, and receiving a better, more reliable service. If there’s a driver shortage, let’s hear the club say it, and appeal for assistance. There must be trained drivers out there who would be able to help, including the newly retired etc. It’s the fact that there’s so little public comment made by the club management that is frustrating. I’d like a far more proactive, creative, collaborative approach to help improve the transport issue. There will always be a bottleneck of sorts as you have 30k people leaving at once but I’m convinced we could improve the situation with a bit of creative thinking.

You’ve basically described Seagulls Travel.

As a user of ST I don’t think it’s right that I can’t divert my travel subsidy (c£50 of my season ticket) towards the cost of this, considering they are an official club partner

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Even something like the EDF P&R where it is free but you do have to pre-book would help with the situation you're talking about. Don't see anything wrong with people walking to use the service but the organisers knowing how many intend to use it would help ensure they can provide the appropriate levels of service.

That would work much better if the stewards there actually checked that people had pre-booked their tickets. While they check the car park tickets, nobody bothers checking the bus ticket you are supposed to show and just wave you on. At recent games I have seen loads of people just walk up and jump on and I would be surprised if they have all booked.

 

[dazzer6666]

That would work much better if the stewards there actually checked that people had pre-booked their tickets. While they check the car park tickets, nobody bothers checking the bus ticket you are supposed to show and just wave you on. At recent games I have seen loads of people just walk up and jump on and I would be surprised if they have all booked.

Maybe they already allow for walk-ups within the overall bus capacity planning anyway..... isn't it simply a case of buses running for a certain time period. Bet they're not all full.

Shuttle buses should be freely available to anyone - we're all contributing to the cost.

 

[jackalbion]

Maybe they already allow for walk-ups within the overall bus capacity planning anyway..... isn't it simply a case of buses running for a certain time period. Bet they're not all full.

Shuttle buses should be freely available to anyone - we're all contributing to the cost.

Anyway isn’t most of the problem with the buses traffic when it comes back on the return dead leg, surely adding more buses is just going to make the traffic worse.

 

[Horses Arse]

Anyway isn’t most of the problem with the buses traffic when it comes back on the return dead leg, surely adding more buses is just going to make the traffic worse.

Bus lanes and the police doing something about the slip road to prioritise the buses would help - let them up the left hand lane to turn right at the roundaout would be great. There's always a couple of motorcycle police sitting on their arses letting people cut in dangerously, they could do something useful instead. (Caveated by they are working really hard, we don't know the constraints they work under, teams of people doing the right thing etc etc etc)

 

[dstanman]

Club must know how many walk on's there are at top of Mill Road. Could they put on a couple of double deckers that go via the bypass straight to top of Mill Road and then used to support Race Course P&R. Would take a bit of pressure off Mill Road single deckers.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Where are they getting these buses from? It would have to come out the available buses for the Park and Ride, therefore still having a long wait. I think I've said it before but these problems are not something the club can solve in the short to medium term, if at all, its in the hands of local bus operators, local rail operators and ultimately the government.

What's changed since last season when a full compliment of buses got fans to the Spurs game with no trains?

Or even the (i think, one possibly two) games this season when both EDF park and ride and Pyecombe were open?

 

[jackalbion]

What's changed since last season when a full compliment of buses got fans to the Spurs game with no trains?

Or even the (i think, one possibly two) games this season when both EDF park and ride and Pyecombe were open?

Well they did get people TO the game, coming back it took hours. I’d have to find out the games they ran the EDF park and ride, I expect there’s no engineering works locally on those days. The EDF park and ride is a good start, but I think there must be a logistical issue to do with driver/vehicle availability about why it can’t run every game. The bendy buses are probably the big one for the mill road P&R because you can’t stuff a load of double deckers up there because of the bridge.

EDIT: The Tottenham game there was a train strike so no need for engineering works anywhere, so that’s where the available buses came from.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Well they did get people TO the game, coming back it took hours. I’d have to find out the games they ran the EDF park and ride, I expect there’s no engineering works locally on those days. The EDF park and ride is a good start, but I think there must be a logistical issue to do with driver/vehicle availability about why it can’t run every game. The bendy buses are probably the big one for the mill road P&R because you can’t stuff a load of double deckers up there because of the bridge.

EDIT: The Tottenham game there was a train strike so no need for engineering works anywhere, so that’s where the available buses came from.

So actually the issue is that there's not enough buses if there's local engineering work on the railways?

So they should be ok to source buses on for Brentford (albeit not from EDF if workers are using it) ?

 

[dazzer6666]

Bus lanes and the police doing something about the slip road to prioritise the buses would help - let them up the left hand lane to turn right at the roundaout would be great. There's always a couple of motorcycle police sitting on their arses letting people cut in dangerously, they could do something useful instead. (Caveated by they are working really hard, we don't know the constraints they work under, teams of people doing the right thing etc etc etc)

Doesn’t work for the racecourse buses……queue on the Drove post-match is usually awful. Personally would make those who park in the farm shop (on observation I believe you have to be in the top 3% of impatient people globally to be able to park there) wait a bit longer to leave.

 

[jackalbion]

So actually the issue is that there's not enough buses if there's local engineering work on the railways?

So they should be ok to source buses on for Brentford (albeit not from EDF if workers are using it) ?

I was told they are putting plans in place, whatever that means . I’d imagine so yes.

 

[Beach Hut]

Club must know how many walk on's there are at top of Mill Road. Could they put on a couple of double deckers that go via the bypass straight to top of Mill Road and then used to support Race Course P&R. Would take a bit of pressure off Mill Road single deckers.

Which bit of the lack of bus drivers don't you get?

Post Covid loads have found better paid jobs

 

[tronnogull]

Club must know how many walk on's there are at top of Mill Road. Could they put on a couple of double deckers that go via the bypass straight to top of Mill Road and then used to support Race Course P&R. Would take a bit of pressure off Mill Road single deckers.

That is a good idea. Could also do the same thing at the Amex end.......have the P&R bus drop off at the 25 bus stop at the University and avoid all the delay getting into and out of the Amex.

 

[Horses Arse]

Doesn’t work for the racecourse buses……queue on the Drove post-match is usually awful. Personally would make those who park in the farm shop (on observation I believe you have to be in the top 3% of impatient people globally to be able to park there) wait a bit longer to leave.

I'd ban the farm shop from renting that space out for parking. Dangerous for the mass of pedestrians walking that way. Plus, they were very anti stadium so I'm sure they don't really want to benefit financially from it really....

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Which bit of the lack of bus drivers don't you get?

Post Covid loads have found better paid jobs

Quite. Same with hospitality staff. Plus Brexit has put the brakes on supply of resource.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Again - people saying there aren't the bus drivers,

We've proved in the last 14 months that the club have been able to pull in the buses and drivers when they've needed to. It's not as simple as "oh it must be the Government to blame"