DeCamp ending commuter service effective April 7th

[checkmatechamp13]

16 hours ago, willypguy said:

NJ Transit does things that just do not make sense. 

They need to take the old Market St lines (145/148/160/164) out of Wayne, and give these to Oradell and Westwood. Then give the Essex County legs to Wayne.

I would not want to be that poor driver who has to deadhead from Heller Parkway in Newark to Westwood Garage at the end of the day after dealing with whatever traffic there was coming out of NY. Or, West Caldwell to Westwood. That’s a hike. 

Does anyone know if these new Essex County legs are going to be closed door? Or open door? 

I would assume open-door, given that they didn't put any restrictions on the timetables.

As for the deadhead, as long as they're getting paid, I don't think the drivers care about a long deadhead (I mean, a 60 minute trip and a 45 minute deadhead, or a 90 minute trip with a 15 minute deadhead, it's still the same amount of time in the seat). I mean, they have the 114 and 116 coming out of Ironbound...It's just generally inefficient and they should change it for that reason.

[553 Bridgeton]

Open door no restrictions. This is njt now they are hoping to carry local passengers as well. I think decamp should have lifted that. Maybe they could have held on and only ran peak buses and cut weekends. 

[46Dover]

So the operators are out of Ironbound and Oradell.  Only reason being I guess since those lines come out of Gate 208 and both depots lay over on the 4th floor

[checkmatechamp13]

So I took the 199D (which was based out of Ironbound). Bus was mostly full (I counted 7 empty seats leaving PABT, though somebody mentioned that the second departure of the morning had standees). Most people got off along Ridge Road (especially at the #30/40 terminal. I wonder if most of those people just lived in the general area, or if some were transferring to the local bus to continue to points south). Only 4 of the people continued into Belleville/Newark.

Apparently they're only stopping at current NJT stops (so there's no stops along Belleville Turnpike/Rutgers Street or Belleville Avenue). If we need any stops installed, we need to contact the municipality. 

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 3/24/2023 at 12:38 PM, RailBus63 said:

Doesn't NJT provide buses to the privates but no subsidy?  As the articles have noted, De Camp is upset that NJT got COVID money from the Feds but refused to share with the private operators. 

 

The buses ARE the subsidy. They turn a huge capital investment into a freebie.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 3/24/2023 at 2:16 PM, JLiu15 said:

If NJT takes over the DeCamp lines they could operate out of Wayne; 30 buses for Oradell and 20 buses for Wayne should be enough.

Maybe NJT will finally bite the bullet and start using 200-series numbers (which they've avoided at all costs until now).

[JAzumah]

15 minutes ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Maybe NJT will finally bite the bullet and start using 200-series numbers (which they've avoided at all costs until now).

NJT has services designated in the 200s internally IIRC. I saw a list of them close to 20 years ago on BusChat.

[SouthJerseyMan]

This is an excellent point that the 'free' buses that private operators get from NJT are the subsidy. 

[checkmatechamp13]

11 hours ago, JAzumah said:

NJT has services designated in the 200s internally IIRC. I saw a list of them close to 20 years ago on BusChat.

Yes, I know offhand the go25 and go28 are listed as the 250 and 258 respectively on MyBusNow. 

[RailBus63]

On 4/14/2023 at 10:46 AM, Gotham Bus Co. said:

 

The buses ARE the subsidy. They turn a huge capital investment into a freebie.

It may be a 'freebie' but it's still only a small cost of providing the service compared to labor, fuel, maintenance and overhead expenses. Even using those 'free' buses on the weekends for charters can't be coming close to offsetting this if the operator isn't consistently running full buses on the weekdays.  

[JLiu15]

On 4/14/2023 at 10:48 AM, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Maybe NJT will finally bite the bullet and start using 200-series numbers (which they've avoided at all costs until now).

191D, 192D, 195D and 199D can become 101, 102, 105, and 109 respectively. Those numbers aren't used and will go with the other interstate Essex County routes (107 & 108)

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 4/14/2023 at 10:45 PM, checkmatechamp13 said:

Yes, I know offhand the go25 and go28 are listed as the 250 and 258 respectively on MyBusNow. 

Internal numbers can be whatever NJT wants them to be. I would have chosen 325 and 328 for go25 and go28.

 

[JLiu15]

On 4/24/2023 at 5:25 PM, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Internal numbers can be whatever NJT wants them to be. I would have chosen 325 and 328 for go25 and go28.

 

I'm guessing they numbered go25 250 because 250 and go28 258 because 258

[B35 via Church]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:09 AM, JLiu15 said:

I'm guessing they numbered go25 250 because 250 and go28 258 because 258

Then why not 255 for the #go25 or 280 for the #go28....

[checkmatechamp13]

I saw on a local Facebook page that the 7:50am #192D has had a double bus added (Rather than adjust the PDF schedule on the spot, and just split the 7:50am into a 7:40am and an 8am, since it's not incorporated into the pick or GTFS feed anyway)

In any case, it's good news that ridership is picking up so quickly, and hopefully that is the case on the other routes as well.

[jass]

On 4/29/2023 at 12:33 AM, checkmatechamp13 said:

I saw on a local Facebook page that the 7:50am #192D has had a double bus added (Rather than adjust the PDF schedule on the spot, and just split the 7:50am into a 7:40am and an 8am, since it's not incorporated into the pick or GTFS feed anyway)

In any case, it's good news that ridership is picking up so quickly, and hopefully that is the case on the other routes as well.

 

Do you mean they just run the two buses together at the same time?

[checkmatechamp13]

19 hours ago, jass said:

Do you mean they just run the two buses together at the same time?

Pretty much

[Cait Sith]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:58 PM, JLiu15 said:

191D, 192D, 195D and 199D can become 101, 102, 105, and 109 respectively. Those numbers aren't used and will go with the other interstate Essex County routes (107 & 108)

Bumping this topic for this specifically.

These will be the official designations as of September.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:58 PM, JLiu15 said:

191D, 192D, 195D and 199D can become 101, 102, 105, and 109 respectively. Those numbers aren't used and will go with the other interstate Essex County routes (107 & 108)

On 7/26/2023 at 6:02 PM, Cait Sith said:

Bumping this topic for this specifically.

These will be the official designations as of September.

 

In theory, the 199D and 199K trips could get separate numbers (109, 110).