Cheshire East Local transport engagement

[knutstransport]

RE: Cheshire East Local transport engagement

(25/11/2020 14:36)iMarkeh Wrote:  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.

It's important to consider why they want a bus service. If it's shopping then a bus to any town with a supermarket is adequate e.g. people living in High Legh can't complain they need a bus to Altrincham for shopping if they have a bus to Warrington. If it's medical reasons then it's less straight forward. For instance, NHS outpatient services are offered at Knutsford Community Hospital and each of the specialists are generally only there for one half day per week so a bus on Wednesday only is no good if you need to see the gastro specialist, as he's only there on a Tuesday. I'm also aware at Wilmslow Health Centre some of the NHS outpatient services are offered at evening surgeries, great for the people who work normal office hours but not-so-good for those working without cars if the last bus leaves too early.

Quote: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.

I was talking about Knutsford and Wilmslow, not little villages like Styal, Ashley & Mobberley. For an evening service it could be more viable to serve Knutsford station where you can get 50+ alighting a single service from Manchester, than Wilmslow where there's numerous trains and 80 people could be spread across 5 services each arriving at different times. (Not to mention Knutsford station bus stop is on the A road between Knutsford and Macclesfield, which the B road towards Wilmslow and the over ward part of Knutsford branches off so no diversion is required to serve the station.)

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

Yes but as D&G have most of the Cheshire East contracts it's how many of the subsided bus services in Cheshire East are currently run, so very relevant for the purpose of this survey. Reworking the timetables could make the difference between a token service to a village being possible with an ordinary bus and saying people in said village need to pre-book for Flexilink, subject to availability.