There have been a number of complaints about the Kingswells bus service since the No 40 became the primary route serving the village last month.

Local councillor Steve Delaney met with First’s management on 7th October to discuss the various issues. The biggest two issues are clearly the length of journey and time keeping. Some sections of the route have insufficient time allocated to them and others have too much, resulting in buses sitting idle at various points on the route.

Residents are particularly unhappy about the No 40 diverting to the Park & Ride site (which happens twice per journey) and the diversion to ARI (rather than stopping on Westburn Road) was also criticised by some people. First have no plans to change either of these diversions.

On a positive note regarding time keeping, First will be analysing relevant data over the next few weeks. The aim is to adjust the timetable (with respect to timing points) and shift any sitting about to parts of the route which will have a lesser effect on passengers. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and it’s likely to be quite a few weeks as changes require to conform to lengthy regulatory timescales.

Steve said, “I use the No 40 myself and have experienced the delays first hand. The Park & Ride and ARI diversions are helpful to some people but disadvantage the majority. It’s unfortunate that these appear to be here to stay”.

“I welcome First’s willingness to take another look at the timetable to try to minimise needless waiting time. This just can’t come soon enough”.