Changes to the Local Link Network

On Monday, 28th November, services 60, 61, 62, 64, and 65 - all operated by Local Link - are receiving a series of timetable and route changes, which may affect you.

The 60/61: these sister services don't really have much of a timetable change, except buses are scheduled to depart 5 minutes earlier from Torquay Strand. You're also not going to see them round Parkhill Road (see the 62) or Daddyhole Road. Instead, they will terminate at Torquay Strand and serve St.Luke's Road North & South. The inbound (61) and outbound (60) routes through Torquay will also be the same in both directions: through Fleet Street and Lucius Street to Chelston

The 62, or "Cockington Village Bus": Ring&Ride is being removed from this service for the current locations, and those stops will be served on a permanent basis. There will be new Ring&Ride stops, subject to availability only: Avenue Road, Cockington Court, and Widdecombe Farm. Therefore, the new route incorporates Hebert Road, Rawlyn Road, Croft Road, Fleet Street and Parkhill Road. The terminus and starting point is to be changed to Torquay Harbourside. The service will run Monday to Friday until March, and then Monday to Saturday throughout the summer.

The 64/65: these won't be in the same timetable together anymore. They'll also be every hour, increasing from every 2 hours! The routes will be the same, and will still run Monday to Saturday. The timetables are much improved.

Potential problems identified:

The 61 allows a seemingly excessive 12 minutes from St.Luke's Road, compared the the 60 in the other direction, which allows 5 minutes. There ought to be a lot of waiting time at The Strand, which could see buses waiting there for up to 12 minutes (arriving at timetabled time of xx:40 and leaving xx:45, but with 7 minutes extra added). For a fairly minor service, that seems quite a lot of time, especially when the 12's get just 10 minutes at Brixham.

The 62 will have Widdecombe Farm as a ring and ride stop. Not only is that way off the normal, scheduled route, but the waiting time at Torquay Strand the service gets is just 2 minutes. Considering the new rule for the Ring&Ride is it being "subject to availability", will the bus ever be available to add an extra 3.5 miles onto the route (14 minutes total there and back)? The park is already served by the 67 Flyer, but only The Willows bound, as it's off of a dual carriage way.

Anyway, all in all, the changes are positive, and (only if well publicised with the timetables at stops updated) should prove further successful.

Over and out.