New Cheshire East bus review

[iMarkeh]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(06/07/2020 10:48)knutstransport Wrote:  Based on a Knutsford Town Council survey this is how much demand there is for different services from Knutsford:

Town Centre 66%
Macclesfield 52%
Altrincham 50%*
Wilmslow 50%
Knutsford (outside Town Centre) 41%
Northwich 34%*
Airport 27%
Warrington 24%
Holmes Chapel 4%
Other 16%

* Some of this demand is down to Northern not providing a good rail service between Northwich and Altrincham via Knutsford e.g. RMT strikes affecting Saturday services for so long and frequent cancellations due to staff shortages.

Some of the complaints include:
- Re-routing the 88 via Longridge means there's no services to/from the bus stop outside the medical centre on Mobberley Road.
- Infrequent Macclesfield services makes getting to and from hospital appointments difficult.
- 88 bus services no longer offering good connections to London bound trains at Wilmslow.
- An Over ward resident complained about buses being packed at times making it difficult for her to travel on the bus with her weekly shopping.

And there were lots of comments about lower frequency meant they used the bus less - in one case someone said they now have to make journeys by taxi instead of bus and only make around 1/4 of the journeys they made before the cutbacks due to the taxi costing more.

There was actually some praise for the 89 timetable, in that people liked the fact it is more consistent than the old 289 timetable - although perhaps not as much now D&G moved the first Knutsford-Northwich journey to be off-pattern!

The town council consider the reinstatement of a town circular service to be a necessity.

What is clear is there isn't justification for running a hourly frequency to Wilmslow and a 2 hourly frequency to Macclesfield and that Cheshire East were perhaps right to dismiss the idea of a subsided Holmes Chapel-Knutsford bus. However, if there were hourly Knutsford-Macclesfield buses and they provided good connections with trains to/from Crewe at Chelford, perhaps people wouldn't bemoan the lack of a Holmes Chapel bus so much.

The proportion of people saying they were very satisfied with the bus service was a whole 0%, with less than 10% saying satisfied.

The satisfaction makes sense when you consider what the buses looked like a few years ago compared to now.

For Holmes Chapel, I think any route would be more used by Holmes Chapel residents going to Knutsford so the figures I think will be lower. I don't dispute demand may be low but I think for the route, it has been consulted at the 'wrong end'.

For the Airport, I would be interested to hear the reasoning for an Airport bus. I say this because if it's for leisure travel, you might as give up since leisure travel won't be used much. If for commuters (Airport City, Cargo Centre or MIA employees), there is a lot more chance of it happening. I would question the potential routings though as you need to maximise local travel as well as end to end travel. Perhaps Knutsford - Mobberley - Morley Green - Airport?

Macclesfield I think has potential for more services, just the services need to better suit the many shift times. Could AstraZeneca be added back in or was that useless on the 27?

I do agree with the town circular returning. The 300 was quite a good little bus. If it was reduced to hourly around Longridge then in the other 30-35 minutes run round trips to Beggemans Lane or High Legh to help the route serve more areas to benefit more people.

[knutstransport]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(06/07/2020 21:21)iMarkeh Wrote:  For Holmes Chapel, I think any route would be more used by Holmes Chapel residents going to Knutsford so the figures I think will be lower. I don't dispute demand may be low but I think for the route, it has been consulted at the 'wrong end'.

While the survey was conducted by Knutsford Town Council there was the option of filling it in online and it was promoted by the Knutsford Guardian, which is read by people in Holmes Chapel - as well as some of the other villages which may have demand for a bus service to Knutsford.

Holmes Chapel does have bus services to other towns in Cheshire so I don't think a Knutsford bus is essential for shoppers, I think perhaps the more relevant question is would a bus to Knutsford make it easier for those who are unemployed and looking for new jobs.

Quote:For the Airport, I would be interested to hear the reasoning for an Airport bus. I say this because if it's for leisure travel, you might as give up since leisure travel won't be used much. If for commuters (Airport City, Cargo Centre or MIA employees), there is a lot more chance of it happening. I would question the potential routings though as you need to maximise local travel as well as end to end travel. Perhaps Knutsford - Mobberley - Morley Green - Airport?

I think The Hut Group moving from Northwich to Airport City might have affected demand to Airport City. For new vacancies I think The Hut Group are going to have more vacancies which are attractive to people in one of the more affluent parts of Cheshire, than Amazon.

One issue for any airport public transport is that the airport is open most of the day so running a bus from say 7am to 7pm won't cover all demand

Quote:Macclesfield I think has potential for more services, just the services need to better suit the many shift times. Could AstraZeneca be added back in or was that useless on the 27?

AstraZeneca have scaled back the size of their operations at Nether Alderley but that has allowed other businesses to open on that site.

At one time the buses on the 27 were rammed at peak times, which is why the larger Cadets got introduced. However, it's worth remembering at that time morning peak services ran Congleton-Macclesfield-AstraZeneca-Knutsford and the reverse in the evening peak, eliminating the need for those travelling between Congleton and AstraZeneca to change buses in Macclesfield and meaning passengers making that journey were likely to be on the 27 opposed to the 130.

I think, other than the frequency, the main problem with the Knutsford-Macclesfield bus is it's trying to serve too many little villages and hamlets, where it's rare for anyone to board or alight and serving all those villages and hamlets means that the end to end journey time is slow which then makes it unattractive for leisure travel.

Quote:I do agree with the town circular returning. The 300 was quite a good little bus. If it was reduced to hourly around Longridge then in the other 30-35 minutes run round trips to Beggemans Lane or High Legh to help the route serve more areas to benefit more people.

An alternative option could be for the 88 to be split at Knutsford and for buses from Wilmslow to go via Mobberley Rd instead of Longridge, with the Macclesfield bus extending to Mobberley via Longridge and running on an hourly basis. That would retain direct connections between Mobberley and Macclesfield and mean that there's buses along both Longridge and Mobberley Rd. There could then perhaps be short extensions to the routes ending in Knutsford to cover other parts of Knutsford like the Bexton area.

I seem to recall it being said the short lived commercial 88A was hovering around the break-even mark opposed to D&G losing money from running it and the main reason for it being withdrawn was D&G needed to improve their balance sheet after losing a lot of money on their attempt running a Macclesfield-Manchester Airport commercial service.

[iMarkeh]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(07/07/2020 09:50)knutstransport Wrote:  AstraZeneca have scaled back the size of their operations at Nether Alderley but that has allowed other businesses to open on that site.

At one time the buses on the 27 were rammed at peak times, which is why the larger Cadets got introduced. However, it's worth remembering at that time morning peak services ran Congleton-Macclesfield-AstraZeneca-Knutsford and the reverse in the evening peak, eliminating the need for those travelling between Congleton and AstraZeneca to change buses in Macclesfield and meaning passengers making that journey were likely to be on the 27 opposed to the 130.

The Howards 27 didn't serve Congleton on their trips (and the timetable I can see from GHA in 2014 didn't either). The bus served Zeneca from both Knutsford and MAcc directions (1AM trip to Zeneca and 1 return PM trip). This means there must have been demand from Knutsford to Zeneca.

If they brought back the 27 and ran it separately to the 88, you are looking 1 bus all day and if you change the times to put the 35 mins at the Knutsford end, you can run 3 town circular trips. Infrequent yes but it's better than nothing and it's using up dead time.

(07/07/2020 09:50)knutstransport Wrote:  I think, other than the frequency, the main problem with the Knutsford-Macclesfield bus is it's trying to serve too many little villages and hamlets, where it's rare for anyone to board or alight and serving all those villages and hamlets means that the end to end journey time is slow which then makes it unattractive for leisure travel.

I echo this. The issue however is that the areas which fit what you are saying are the same areas who scream the loudest when their bus is taken away. The only way to win is have 2 buses, a stopper and a faster express bus but then you will have complaints that the fast bus doesn't serve them etc.

(07/07/2020 09:50)knutstransport Wrote:  An alternative option could be for the 88 to be split at Knutsford and for buses from Wilmslow to go via Mobberley Rd instead of Longridge, with the Macclesfield bus extending to Mobberley via Longridge and running on an hourly basis. That would retain direct connections between Mobberley and Macclesfield and mean that there's buses along both Longridge and Mobberley Rd. There could then perhaps be short extensions to the routes ending in Knutsford to cover other parts of Knutsford like the Bexton area.

I seem to recall it being said the short lived commercial 88A was hovering around the break-even mark opposed to D&G losing money from running it and the main reason for it being withdrawn was D&G needed to improve their balance sheet after losing a lot of money on their attempt running a Macclesfield-Manchester Airport commercial service.

The 88A was a fantastic route in terms of connectivity and potential. D&G have never made a big song and dance about their services though so it probably wasn't that well known about. Any route which D&G does now will take time to build up since all their services around Wilmslow have lasted no longer than around 3 months before they get cut or drastically changed so no one trusts D&G to actually deliver a long term usable service.

[djb]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(07/07/2020 23:08)iMarkeh Wrote:  The Howards 27 didn't serve Congleton on their trips (and the timetable I can see from GHA in 2014 didn't either). The bus served Zeneca from both Knutsford and MAcc directions (1AM trip to Zeneca and 1 return PM trip). This means there must have been demand from Knutsford to Zeneca.

If they brought back the 27 and ran it separately to the 88, you are looking 1 bus all day and if you change the times to put the 35 mins at the Knutsford end, you can run 3 town circular trips. Infrequent yes but it's better than nothing and it's using up dead time.

I echo this. The issue however is that the areas which fit what you are saying are the same areas who scream the loudest when their bus is taken away. The only way to win is have 2 buses, a stopper and a faster express bus but then you will have complaints that the fast bus doesn't serve them etc.

The 88A was a fantastic route in terms of connectivity and potential. D&G have never made a big song and dance about their services though so it probably wasn't that well known about. Any route which D&G does now will take time to build up since all their services around Wilmslow have lasted no longer than around 3 months before they get cut or drastically changed so no one trusts D&G to actually deliver a long term usable service.

The 27 extension to congleton being referred to was over 10 years ago when bakerbus were the operator.

Another issue now is the alderley park shuttle, which will have abstracted passengers from the 130 (or 88/27 if it diverted back)

[iMarkeh]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(08/07/2020 06:57)djb Wrote:  The 27 extension to congleton being referred to was over 10 years ago when bakerbus were the operator.

Another issue now is the alderley park shuttle, which will have abstracted passengers from the 130 (or 88/27 if it diverted back)

Presumably if the buses were put back on though and they were there to stay, the shuttle wouldn't be needed. If you had an unreliable bus service which was chopped and changed every 3 months though, would you want staff travelling on that or a shuttle which you control and is guaranteed month on month?

[knutstransport]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(08/07/2020 06:57)djb Wrote:  The 27 extension to congleton being referred to was over 10 years ago when bakerbus were the operator.

Another issue now is the alderley park shuttle, which will have abstracted passengers from the 130 (or 88/27 if it diverted back)

The 27 peak time extension to Congleton was in place from 1997-2012. Bakers won the contract twice on 5 year terms and then Bowers/High Peak continued to run it until their 5 year 27 contract expired and they had a go at running a reduced service commercially, which only lasted a few months before GHA decided to have a go at running it commercially. Bakers did run the vehicles in service from Biddulph (where their depot was) in Congleton but the Biddulph extension ended when Bowers/High Peak took over.

[knutstransport]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(07/07/2020 23:08)iMarkeh Wrote:  I echo this. The issue however is that the areas which fit what you are saying are the same areas who scream the loudest when their bus is taken away. The only way to win is have 2 buses, a stopper and a faster express bus but then you will have complaints that the fast bus doesn't serve them etc.

It used to be the 27B ran to a 2 hourly schedule via Beggarmans Lane and Over Peover and the 27 ran to a 2 hourly schedule direct via the A537, with the exception being at peak times where the 27A operated. The 27A journeys didn't always follow the same route - there were some that followed the 27 route except with the AstraZeneca extension and others that followed the 27B route minus the Beggarmans Lane extension but plus the AstraZeneca extension!

I think going back to the days when Starline and Stevensons ran Macclesfield-Knutsford there was a 26 Macclesfield-Knutsford-Northwich which ran to a fairly direct route to Knutsford and that was interworked with a 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford which went a bit more round the houses.

[Rick Hunter]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review
The 27 wasn't chopped and changed every 3 months, it was on an alleged 5 year contract which in the case off Howards ended up being 18 months. During that time only 1 person used to get on and off at Astra Zeneca. Now part of the 88 it isn't chopped and changed with D&G either. There have been slight tweaks to the running times and timing points to improve punctuality which in the main do work. I seem to remember the Beggarmans Lane journeys also going round Queensway in Knutsford.

(08/07/2020 07:10)iMarkeh Wrote:  Presumably if the buses were put back on though and they were there to stay, the shuttle wouldn't be needed. If you had an unreliable bus service which was chopped and changed every 3 months though, would you want staff travelling on that or a shuttle which you control and is guaranteed month on month?

[knutstransport]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(08/07/2020 10:24)Rick Hunter Wrote:  The 27 wasn't chopped and changed every 3 months, it was on an alleged 5 year contract which in the case off Howards ended up being 18 months. During that time only 1 person used to get on and off at Astra Zeneca. Now part of the 88 it isn't chopped and changed with D&G either. There have been slight tweaks to the running times and timing points to improve punctuality which in the main do work. I seem to remember the Beggarmans Lane journeys also going round Queensway in Knutsford.

I'm not sure all the D&G 88 changes could be described as minor changes. OK changing the standard pattern departures from Macclesfield to xx:45 and the departures from Knutsford to xx:58 are. However, changing the last bus from Macclesfield to Knutsford from 17:45 to 18:15 isn't a minor timing change if you finish work in Macclesfield between 17:00 and 17:30. Sending the 16:50 Altrincham to Northwich service to Macclesfield instead isn't a minor change - although probably a welcome improvement if you work in the Knutsford area and live in Chelford or Macclesfield. I also don't think routing peak time buses to not go through Over Peover village is a minor change if you live there. Also originally there was a c.08:45 Altrincham to Macclesfield bus in the 88 timetable, that got changed to two separate services with a 35 connection time in Knutsford - I'm not sure that's a minor change.

Howards did not get the 27 route as soon as GHA went bust. They got the Saturday service first and ran it to the weekday timetable minus the AstraZeneca diversions. Then they took over the weekday service from High Peak. Then they were awarded the new '5 year contract' which saw timetable revisions like earlier last services on Saturdays.

Regarding Queensway you may recall selected 300 Knutsford circular services went that way. High Peak decided to withdraw those journeys, at the same time they decided to withdraw their 27 commercial service. Cheshire East wrote a timetable for a 2 hourly 27 service with some Queensway extensions to replace what High Peak had withdrawn and put it out to tender. GHA decided to register that timetable commercially - they then later added in extra journeys using a vehicle between it's morning and afternoon school run which led to a strange timetable where it was hourly from 9am to 3pm but less frequent at peak times!

I recall one day close to the deadline for step entry single decker buses, GHA had a 50 seater coach on the 27 service and it left Knutsford bus station for Queensway with a single passenger on board!

There was also a short lived 87 Knutsford circular which D&G operated using the 88A layover - which ran Knutsford bus station to Lilac Avenue to Queensway to Knutsford bus station, which obviously ended when the 88A was withdrawn.

[iMarkeh]

RE: New Cheshire East bus review

(08/07/2020 10:01)knutstransport Wrote:  It used to be the 27B ran to a 2 hourly schedule via Beggarmans Lane and Over Peover and the 27 ran to a 2 hourly schedule direct via the A537, with the exception being at peak times where the 27A operated. The 27A journeys didn't always follow the same route - there were some that followed the 27 route except with the AstraZeneca extension and others that followed the 27B route minus the Beggarmans Lane extension but plus the AstraZeneca extension!

I think going back to the days when Starline and Stevensons ran Macclesfield-Knutsford there was a 26 Macclesfield-Knutsford-Northwich which ran to a fairly direct route to Knutsford and that was interworked with a 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford which went a bit more round the houses.

We can look back at how the 27s used to run 10 years ago and revert the bus network and all go back in time to when buses ran just because they can or we can try and adapt to new passengers and try to secure the long term services making the service as viable as possible to try and keep the subsidy low. Beggermans Lane was kept on for a wheelchair users wasn't it?
Macc to Knutsford could be better on the Howards 27 timetable and as I say, I would move the spare time to Knutsford for the bus to do other things or it could be used for drivers breaks. The difficulty now is that the 88 wouldn't work without the extensions because the increased running time over GHAs 88 timetable.

(08/07/2020 10:24)Rick Hunter Wrote:  The 27 wasn't chopped and changed every 3 months, it was on an alleged 5 year contract which in the case off Howards ended up being 18 months. During that time only 1 person used to get on and off at Astra Zeneca. Now part of the 88 it isn't chopped and changed with D&G either. There have been slight tweaks to the running times and timing points to improve punctuality which in the main do work. I seem to remember the Beggarmans Lane journeys also going round Queensway in Knutsford.

No, the 27 wasn't changed regularly. The comment was more to do with the 130 and given the way D&G have been with the 130, people lose faith that the 130 will ever run longer than a few months before withdrawal threats kick in or a big timetable recast messing up peoples commute.

I'm interested that only 1 person only used the 27 to AstraZeneca. Glad I asked the question to be fair, I wasn't to know that otherwise.