As we have previously mentioned in this study, the bus station is a very busy place. There are a few reasons for this, mainly because people need busses to travel and Bretonside bus station is the heart of the Plymouth bus network. Currently the Plymouth bus network has over 550 busses operating its 86 major destinations. These destinations include Exeter and Derriford hospital. Most of these bus services operate out of the Bretonside bus station. Such a high amount of services operating out of one place means that, that place will get very busy during the services operating hours.
This leads me onto my first point, to monitor the flocking of people at Bretonside bus station you simply have to look at when there are the most bus services in the area. These times are pretty obvious, 8am to 9.30am to capture the morning work rush, and 3.30pm to 6pm to capture the afternoon work rush. At these times the bus station is inhabited with many different types of people, from students to old age pensioners.
There are another couple examples of when the bus station gets busy due to flocking of people. The first of these examples is late at night, this is when the white rabbit closes, and people leave the club. They then hang around in the bus station talking for about 10 minutes. These people soon leave the bus station though.
Another example can be either early in the morning, before the rush, or late at night, after the rush. These two different times are normally when the London to Plymouth coaches get in, one example of the coaches that are regularly full is the “Megabus”. When the people leave the coaches, there are quite a few people that still hang around waiting for lifts etc.
The flocking of busses are quite easy to map, they are almost exactly the same as when the people flock to the bus station. Mainly at the rush hour times though. Obviously the busses don’t operate during the times the white rabbit is open. There is one difference between the busses and the people, and that is that early in the morning the busses go there as their first stops, however at the time they start the people aren’t really in Plymouth City centre compared to later in the day.
