Cheshire East Local transport engagement

[iMarkeh]

RE: Cheshire East Local transport engagement

(25/11/2020 13:17)knutstransport Wrote:  There are pensioners in Holmes Chapel who bemoan the lack of a bus to Knutsford, which there hasn't been since Tomlinson Travel stopped running the 47 Holmes Chapel to Warrington a number of years back. At the time it was withdrawn the council said it was possible to get between Holmes Chapel and Knutsford with one change at Chelford (at that time the 27 bus was hourly) and if you didn't want to risk a missed connection in Chelford you could do the longer journey via Wilmslow (at the time the 88 bus was half-hourly.) Obviously that's a journey harder to make by public transport now, so it may put people off making it unless they absolutely have to make it but then if they do have to make it then they have to use a combination of bus+train or make a very long, indirect and expensive train journey.

It's a case of people all wanting buses to every town up and down the country and they aren't used so they get cut and the free loaders than winge 'social isolation'. What. 1 day per month extra you will be isolated because that is all you used to get that bus anyway.

(25/11/2020 13:17)knutstransport Wrote:  I doubt it's that simple.

For instance, Mobberley village is a long walk from Mobberley station and the two points aren't connected, so that may mean some people from Mobberley travel to Wilmslow for the train. However, Mobberley is also an affluent village so those passengers may prefer to go by car or taxi, opposed to the bus. I doubt someone from Chelford would get a bus to Macclesfield to get a train to Manchester because Chelford station isn't a long walk from the village. For other villages there is no station, not even a long walk away.

It's not that simple but speaking generally, integration overall isn't worth much and that includes major interchange stations. You only have to look around the UK at where buses integrate to trains and you will see that even in areas like Reading with very high bus usage and very high train usage, the amount of people connecting between modes, is low.

(25/11/2020 13:17)knutstransport Wrote:  Wilmslow and Macclesfield both have Intercity trains, maybe that results in more bus journeys to those stations or maybe it results in less, as perhaps long distance passengers are more likely to be business travellers who can put a taxi or car parking on expenses unless there's a bus every 5 minutes.

Also, Wilmslow didn't have a local bus service in the evenings even before the bus cuts, while Knutsford did. Perhaps if people feel less comfortable walking home from the station late at night they are more likely to use a bus.

You could also compare level of rail usage at Knutsford, Poynton and Buxton and see that for similar sized towns the level of rail usage can be vastly different.

People don't like walking home from the station late at night so that could be some scope for improvement but generally speaking, you need to look at the potential usage. Very few people use the trains from some of the rural stations at the best of times, let along nights where trains can often not have anyone board/alight at the rural stations. You are prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on buses to integrate with trains despite the passenger numbers per train being extremely low in most cases. If you want to fund that out of your pocket, go for it but why should everyone else prop up a bus network because old doris has winged that she can't use the bus (for free) to get to the train station once per month. Buses run where and when a decent amount of people want to travel. They aren't there for one or two people to use a couple of times per month. IF you want a door to door mode of transport, that's called a Taxi. It's old people winging for buses as they can use them for free vs a taxi which costs them.

(25/11/2020 13:17)knutstransport Wrote:  Buses sitting around waiting - see any timetable for a D&G Bus service for an example of that. D&G will timetable a bus to take 15 minutes to get from A to B if it takes 8-12, depending on traffic conditions, for longer routes that can mean a bus taking 65 minutes for a journey possible in 55. That means either there's long layovers, inter-working (which can mean an accident on one route can affect punctuality on multiple routes) or a reduced frequency e.g. a service every 90 minutes instead of one every 60.

That's a company specific decision about how they want to run their network. That's not a bus industry standard way of working.