Things may have been quiet on here recently

but do feel free to read back at some of the comments people have left to previous posts. A lot of it's very interesting! As soon as I have the spare time I'll be writing more about Manchester's bus services.

Competition flares up again

Yes, it's been a few months since my last post. That's mainly because I've not had much to write about. Being the kind of person who's interested in such things, I keep up to date with GMPTE's bus service changes information. When I came back from holiday in August there was a vast number of bus service changes lined up including, interestingly, a new Manchester-Chorlton circular service 85C/86C from GM Buses running every 10 minutes in each direction during Mon-Sat daytimes and every 30 minutes during evenings and Sundays, plus evening and Sunday journeys on the 86 route to Hardy Lane in Chorlton every 30 minutes.

When I read this a few thoughts went through my mind. Firstly I thought "I wish I still lived in Chorlton with all those extra buses!", then I thought how strange it is that when other changes by Stagecoach are taken into consideration the poorly served Hardy Lane area now has a much better service in the evenings than during the day. I also thought "Oh dear, here comes another bus war".

The Manchester Evening News loves a bus war because they can run stories about the havoc they cause. This time things are a bit different. Headlines like this and this show that people are sick of bus wars causing more problems than they solve.

One problem that hasn't been reported, though, is that Stagecoach actually appear to be running more buses than they have in their official timetables. Chorlton Bus Station is apparently frequently jammed this week by overtime-earning Stagecoach drivers running extra journeys on the 85 and 86 to try to get rid of the competition. Surely this shouldn't be allowed? If anyone knows, let me know.

Things have reached a new peak today with the Traffic Commissioner imposing an official limit on bus departures from Piccadilly Gardens. This will undoubtedly cause problems at stops such as the 42 stop and the one for the 84/99/101/104/105/109/111 services. Expect hastily revised timetables in the next few weeks and maybe more buses running from places like Albert Square.

A heated debate ran in the comments section of this blog a few months ago about some form of re-regulation of buses in Manchester. Surely this weeks' events in Manchester will cause that argument to return to the forefront of public debate?

This week's changes

A slew of service changes have kicked in this week. Back when I started this blog on the day Shudehill Interchange opened I bemoaned the lack of links from south Manchester to Shudehill, thus making cross-city travel inconvenient unless your northern destination is served from Piccadilly. Arriva have made a move in the right direction with the extension of the 16 and 16A services across to Shudehill via the Northern Quarter during Mon-Sat daytimes. Only one bus every 30 minutes, but it's a start.

Also of note is the first of First's new 'feeder' services (mentioned in a recent 'Buses' magazine article). Service 67L takes some of the strain off frequent service 67 by serving parts of Irlam though Mon-Sat daytimes. However, GMPTE's online timetable library hasn't updated with the details yet so I can't comment further.

Other than those two there's just a few changes of operator on tendered routes, including Arriva no longer operating the 177, 178 and late evening 109. They have however increased the frequency of the commercial service 263 from every 15 to every 12 minutes. They've also introduced evening and Sunday journeys on the 263 every 30 minutes - something I'm amazed they didn't do before!

Many thanks for all the comments on my last post. I'll be tying them into a more conscise argument in a separate post when I've got time.

Bus Wars Reignite

Recently we've been through quite a quiet period in terms of competition in Manchester.  We had JP Travel's 118 service launching an every 20 minute frequency between Piccadilly, Moston and North Manchester General Hospital, causing First to modify their 51 service to directly compete with it, but apart from that and Ashall's Coaches having a brief dalliance on the 263 Manchester - Altrincham service, not much has occurred, competition-wise in the last year.

That is, until this month when GM Buses (that'll be UK North pointlessly using another name then) increased their prescence on the 192 route with a bus every 5 minutes between Manchester and Stepping Hill Hospital Monday-Saturday and introducing Sunday journeys too.  Bear in mind that Stagecoach was previously running a bus every 3-4 minutes on this route and there's now a frequency of something like evry 2-3 minutes on the 192.  Competition is fierce between the companies and the stop outside Spar on Piccadilly in the city centre is chocablock with buses trying to pick up passengers all day.  Meanwhile, UK North/GM Buses/whatever they call themselves next complain about Stagecoach allegedly blocking stops so they can't pick up passengers and both companies launch ultra-cheap loyalty tickets providing a week's travel on the route for a pittance.

Of course, this can't go on forever.  The numbers don't add up, you can't run that many buses forever on a route unless they're picking up a healthy number of passengers.  Whilst it does provide an amazingly frequent service for people travelling down the A6 while it lasts it shows up the other extreme of the problem with privatised bus services.  While I'm in one part of Manchester struggling with too few buses, another part of Manchester has too many!

"We Want Our Buses Back"

Thanks to Emma's 'Nightmare of the X84 Bus' blog for this link:
We Want Our Buses Back.

When the service number isn't enough...

Recently I've noticed a strange new trend in Manchester.  Several services in Manchester now have numerous routes depending on what time or day it is.  I'm not talking about slight changes, I'm talking about hugely different routes!

For example, service 188 runs from Sportcity to Manchester Royal Infirmary during weekday daytimes, Chorlton to Belle Vue during Monday Saturday evenings and Chorlton to Piccadilly on Sundays!  Where's the sense in that?  The daytime route is almost completely different from the route the rest of the time!  Other culprits are the newly revised service 54 and also service 84 which takes three different routes beyond Chorlton depending on the day and time.

So, my call to people planning bus routes at the operators and at GMPTE is to *please* stop confusing people and use some different service numbers!  What's wrong with 189, 54A, 84A and 84B?  It would certainly help people know where their bus was going!

"Anti-competitive"

I've been meaning to post this for a few days but haven't had time! Following on from my last post and my e-mail to Stagecoach, I received a prompt response. Apparently, if Finglands and Stagecoach both worked together to provide a better service they would be guilty of being 'anti-competitive', hence they have to run against each other! Absolutely ridculous!

Calls for re-regulation of bus services in major conurbations are increasing and I agree with them! This article indicates that the government may be thinking the same way. Let's hope something comes of it and this stupidity is resolved.

A logistical nightmare

It's amazing how much you rely on a fast and frequent bus service when you have one. Then when you move house you realise how poor a lot of bus services are. I've recently moved. Where I previously lived there was a bus to Piccadilly (the 86) at least every 5 minutes through the day and every 10 minutes in the evening. Now I live on the 41 bus route, which has some journeys run by Stagecoach and some by Finglands. They seem to run to time but because there are two operators, the six journeys per hour aren't scheduled sensibly. Rather than run every ten minutes they run something like this...
Finglands bus
2 minute gap
Stagecoach bus
18 minute gap
Finglands bus
2 minute gap
Stagecoach bus
18 minute gap
etc etc...

Ridiculous! I can walk a bit futher down the road and catch a 109 (every 30 minutes) or a 114 from over the road (every 30 minutes) but it really does make getting a bus a logistical nightmare - risk walking for another bus or stand and wait for a 41.

Oh and at peak times the 41 takes an hour to get to town!

Yesterday I decided to try getting the tram from Sale into town instead. My journey went like this:
Bus 19A to Sale: £1.50
Tram into Manchester: £3.00 return
Taxi back to my house from Sale because I just missed the 41: £4.50

I saved a load of time but it cost me £9!

I vow to find a solution! Writing to Stagecoach and Finglands to ask them to work together to provide a better service will be a start!

A deserted Sunday

Shudehill Bus Station was all but deserted when I got down there yesterday afternoon. Lots of proud GMPTE officals standing round. It is actually a very nice bus station,warm and comfortable and similar in style to the new one in Hyde. The only confusion as to the new arrangements that I saw was on Cross Street where people were still waiting for buses that will never turn up! As I said yesterday though, the true test of these new arrangements will be to see what Deansgate is like at about 5.30pm tonight!

I decided to start this blog on a whim yesterday. Since then I've decided to find out if there are any similar blogs out there and I found this one: The Nightmare of the X84 Bus, about one woman's bad experiences of travelling in West Yorkshire.

Shudehill - The Big Day Arrives...

Hello and welcome to Manchester Bus Blog. To be honest, I'm not sure how often this will be updated or who will read it - it's just a way of getting across my thoughts about public transport in Manchester.

So today is the 'big day' - apart from this blog being launched Shudehill Interchange has opened finally. Now this *would* be cause for celebration usually, unfortunately it has coincided with the closure of parts of Corporation Street and Cross Street. Apparently it's something to do with accidents that have occurred leading the council to believe pedestrianisation to be the best solution. Great, except that buses towards Bridge Street, that previously just ran down Corporation Street, Cross Street and John Dalton Street (in the main bus dominated roads) will be sent past Victoria Station and down Deansgate! Have you seen Deansgate at Rush Hour? I reckon there will be some serious delays for people heading towards Salford at peak times.

In addition, it appears that Victoria Station Approach will now be much more heavily used, being served by buses in both directions. It's quite a narrow road, is it really a sensible idea to have tons of buses per hour running down such a narrow road?

So, the council and GMPTE appear to have not thought this one through fully! Especially when you think about the fact that stops on Cross Street will no longer be served by buses, forcing shoppers and office workers to walk further to catch their buses!

So, north Manchester and Salford appear to have got a bad deal from the new arrangements. How about Stagecoach's south Manchester services that previously used Corporation Street and Cross Street? Well, their services have been rerouted to terminate at Albert Square or Spring Gardens. This won't cause as many operational problems as the Deansgate debacle, but it will mean again that passengers will have to walk further to their buses.

That's not my main gripe with Stagecoach though - they could hardly help the closure of Corporation Street and Cross Street. My main gripe is that Stagecoach have actually cut their services from today.

- The 87 and 87A have been withdrawn and partially replaced by rerouted services 46 and 47. This maintains service levels on the old 87/87A route but adds more pressure to the already heavily used 86 route along Upper Chorlton Road and Manchester Road in Chorlton. The estates most poorly served and badly abused by bus companies in Manchester (Arrowfield Road and Hardy Lane in Chorlton) are now served during Monday to Saturday daytimes by service 84, meaning the 84 now has *three* different routes depending on what time of the day/week you catch it! There's simplicity for you!

- They've also withdrawn service 45 (partially replacing it by introducing evening & Sunday journeys on the 44) This means that while people on Parrs Wood Road finally have an evening service again, people in Didsbury village have lost their link to the Airport and there's one less bus per hour serving the Airport during Monday to Saturday daytimes.

- The peak service to Ashton-upon-Mersey, the 230, is withdrawn and one morning journey on the 258 peak express service from Flixton has been cut.

Admittedly, they have improved peak services on the 85, 108 and 109, and maybe the 230 and 258 journeys that have been cut weren't used heavily, but getting rid of services at the same time as rerouting buses away from one of the main shopping streets in Manchester doesn't seem to be working towards more people using the bus, does it?

Looking at this all happening on one day, it makes me pray even more for a more integrated transport policy in the future - maybe even including the London-style tendering for all routes that GMPTE have been pushing for...

I'm heading off to the city centre now, so I'll post my first impressions of the new bus station and city centre routing arrangements later...