Following a long time in the wilderness...

...I've decided to resurrect this blog over at http://manchesterbus.typepad.com. See you there!

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!