On behalf of West End constituents, I recently contacted Stagecoach Strathtay regarding the operation of the Service 73. Constituents have complained that on a regular basis passengers are having to change buses at Whitehall Crescent – so when a resident travels back to the West End from Broughty Ferry, a change of buses is necessary midway through the journey as the bus travelled on from Broughty Ferry terminates in the City Centre.
The other complaint regarding Service 73 is the difficulty getting a bus at the Seagate travelling back to the West End between 3pm and 3.30pm and buses then not sticking to timetable.
Stagecoach Strathtay has updated me as follows:
"I assure you that we work very hard to minimise any delays or disruptions to our passengers. Unfortunately due to the amount of roadworks recently there have been times that our buses have been delayed. To combat this we have input extra buses into the route in the afternoon peak to reduce the delays for as many of our passengers as possible. This may have contributed to passengers having to change bus at Whitehall Street although I have checked this and at the most this practice has happened two or three times a week.
With regard to there being a problem getting a bus at the Seagate between three and three thirty again we have had problems with roadworks but I assure you that we have never had at any point no buses going to the Seagate between three and three thirty and there would never have been a problem getting a bus at this time they may have been a few minutes late but this is why we are putting extra buses out which may run only to Whitehall Street and turn there and then run back towards the Ferry.
We have a new timetable coming into effect at the end of May and we have put a lot of time and effort into this to ensure that going forward the service will run as close to timetable as is possible and hopefully stop all the problems you are being told about."
I was pleased to be advised of the new bus timetable being introduced at the end of next month and hope it is the solution to the issues on Service 73.