TRANSPORT | Bus Rapid Transit / Cross City Bus Routes

[Isaac Newell]

Originally Posted by M€trol1nk

I was saying previously that when the GOVERNMENT (based in London) were discussing regulating the buses outside of London, the big bosses of companies like London said that they would pull all their buses out of the non-London cities.

The GOVERNMENT backed down and decided against regulating the buses, as such it left the PTE with ZERO powers over companies like Stagecoach.

Then the Government should have called their bluff. There are plenty of smaller operators who could have filled the gap.

Unfortunately the Ministers in charge were probably thinking about their post political careers as directors of companies like Stagecoach. Such is the corruption that exists in the Labour Party.

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by M€trol1nk

Suspect that they are not taking Stagecoach on.

What probably will happen is that it is made very clear that any company trying to block schemes like BRT or Metrolink expansion by massively under cutting them will not have a chance of operating BRT or Metrolink.

There will be nothing to stop any bus company from competing with BRT on cost though - if it costs £2 per journey on BRT (say ran by Stagecoach) there will be absolutely nothing to stop First from running another service along the same route charging £1 per journey - that is exactly how the system is MEANT to work, the competition is supposed to lower prices and create the services people want.

It's dedicated infrastrcure though isn't it? I thought all none BRT buses were being diverted onto Upper Brook or Chorlton Streets, or was that a TIF thing?

[M€trol1nk]

Originally Posted by Isaac Newell

Then the Government should have called their bluff. There are plenty of smaller operators who could have filled the gap.

Unfortunately the Ministers in charge were probably thinking about their post political careers as directors of companies like Stagecoach. Such is the corruption that exists in the Labour Party.

Indeed, I agree.

However, not going to happen, and given the fact the Tories will soon be in power we can say that the status quo will be around for a very long time.

Getting back to the original point that nerd made, a very long time ago, that the ticketing was a major part of making a transport system successful, and then me replying that we have over 60 operators in GM, all with different fare structures, frequencies etc etc it is incredibly hard for the PTE to do very much at all to simplify the fare structure in Greater Manchester given the powers that they hold.

I was not saying anything more, or anything less, simply pointing out the problems that the PTE will have when trying to sort of ticketing across the county.

[M€trol1nk]

Originally Posted by Cherguevara

It's dedicated infrastrcure though isn't it? I thought all none BRT buses were being diverted onto Upper Brook or Chorlton Streets, or was that a TIF thing?

Could have been a TIF thing, or could be a right of way thing (like the Metro Shuttle in the city cente along Cross Street).

Simply make it illegal for any other vehicle to go along Oxford Street other than emergency vehicles and BRT buses at certain times of the day allows for what was originially planned.

Problem is though, as soon as you start allowing cars along the route - as is the case with 99.999% of the bus routes in Manchester, you cannot stop an independent bus operator running buses along that route.

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by M€trol1nk

Could have been a TIF thing, or could be a right of way thing (like the Metro Shuttle in the city cente along Cross Street).

Simply make it illegal for any other vehicle to go along Oxford Street other than emergency vehicles and BRT buses at certain times of the day allows for what was originially planned.

Problem is though, as soon as you start allowing cars along the route - as is the case with 99.999% of the bus routes in Manchester, you cannot stop an independent bus operator running buses along that route.

So GMPTE could play quite hard along certain corridors given certain conditions.

Would it be legal for them to place conditions on the use of bus lanes? I.e. if you use it you must be part of an agreed fare structure or fit your vehicles with technology to feed into those visual display screens?

Or could they sign contracts with an operator to integrate ticketing with the trams, so that bus+tram journeys are promoted by GMPTE on service provided by operators who agree to the fare structure and then promote that operator at the expense of others?

It would be interesting to see what powers the PTEs had if they wanted to make it hard for a specific operator.

[M€trol1nk]

My understand (although this could very well be incorrect) is that anyone can essentially apply for a license to run buses where ever they like ouside of London.

These licenses are held at regional transport commissions.

The North West Regional Transport Commissioner to the best of my knowledge has only ever once revoked a bus operators license, she revoked Bullocks (I think, but am probably wrong) as they were employing workers to work longer hours than was legal and not giving them training in the buses - most were Polish, only with experience of driving cars on the right hand side of the road - one of their drivers killed someone which lead to their license being revoked.

My understanding, and again, I may be wrong, is the only way a bus company can be stopped from doing what the hell they like and charging whatever they like is essentially if they break the law, and break it in quite a major way.

Having confusing fare structure and pissing off the rest of the world does not qualify for a license revokation by the NW Transport Commissioner - who does not even work for the PTE anyway.

[Isaac Newell]

One aspect where Manchester's buses beats London is the ability to but a one day bus pass from the driver.

Something you cannot do in London, you have to find a shop that sells them.

[nerd]

Originally Posted by Cherguevara

It's dedicated infrastrcure though isn't it? I thought all none BRT buses were being diverted onto Upper Brook or Chorlton Streets, or was that a TIF thing?

as I understand it, the Oxford Road corridor (specifcally the reserved section through the Uni) was associated with three distinct sorts of bus service in the Rgional Centre Transport Strategy of a year ago.

(which begs the question, post TIF defeat, of which parts of that Strategy still continue, and which have been abandoned).

- Guided Busway - Leigh to MRI. Oxford Road would form the final section.

- Oxford Road BRT - Christie to Salford Uni.

- Cross City bus corridors - Parrs Wood to Eccles/Prestwich; Chorlton to Middleton, Stretford to Ashton.

It was envisasaged that only services of these three types would use Oxford Road through the university. All other bus services from South Manchester into the city centre would be diverted:

Effectively, what will be provided in establishing the Oxford Road corridor will be a combination of restricted accessibility (bus only routes, bus lanes), signal priority, real-time information, and enhanced bus stops with pre-ticketing machines.

As I undertand it, the PTE would not be able to stop any operator from running a bus service along the corridor - taking advantage of the physical infrrastructure provided - so long as the route corresponed to one of the designated cross-city corridors.

You cannot use the guided busway, unless you have specially adapted buses (and trained drivers). There has, I think, been a degree of debate as to whether current legislation allows the PTE to give one operator an exclusive access to a busway, (i.e. if an operator fits the guidance equipment at their own expense, can they be prevented from driving the route); but the general view is that exclusive operation will be enforceable.

The BRT proposals fall between these two; are they just cross-city services with swankier buses. Could anyone turn up with a standard bendy bus and run a rival service? As I have been arguing, I would like the BRT (and the guided busway) to be seen as Metrolink services, with passengers sold Metrolink tickets that are fully transferable across the network. But that could be difficult to establish if a rival were running the same route selling their own (cheaper at face value) non-transferable tickets for short trips.

In a sense, this gets back to the York experience of the f-t-r buses. First wanted to run the service with a flatrate £1.50 single, £2.00 return policy; but then ran into opposition from students who regarded this as a price rise against the previous £1.00 single on short journeys. So they ended up having to ditch the flat-rate fare, which then led them to conductor sales, rather than pre-payment.

A further three high quality Cross City corridors
have been identified which would operate along
Oxford Road linking Parrs Wood with Eccles and
Prestwich (every 10 minutes), Chorlton with
Middleton every 7-8 minutes and Stretford with
Ashton every 10 minutes.

All other bus routes would be diverted onto Upper
Brook Street or Higher Cambridge Street,
improving accessibility to a wider area.

All general traffic would be diverted off Oxford
Road between Hathersage Road and Grosvenor
Street junctions and servicing of the area would be
achieved via Upper Brook Street and Higher
Cambridge Street.

[M€trol1nk]

A further three high quality Cross City corridors
have been identified which would operate along
Oxford Road linking Parrs Wood with Eccles and
Prestwich (every 10 minutes), Chorlton with
Middleton every 7-8 minutes and Stretford with
Ashton every 10 minutes.

All other bus routes would be diverted onto Upper
Brook Street or Higher Cambridge Street,
improving accessibility to a wider area.

All general traffic would be diverted off Oxford
Road between Hathersage Road and Grosvenor
Street junctions and servicing of the area would be
achieved via Upper Brook Street and Higher
Cambridge Street.

That is the type of quality public transport that we lost on 12th Dec.

[nerd]

This repaort from 2006 describes the intended system. However, the actual implementation has dropped the proposed on-board ticket machines in favour of on-board conductors; which has advantages in terms of customer satisfaction and security, but seriously increased operating cost per vehicle. Consequently the implemented service is using the BRT vehicles only during the day, peaktime and evening services use standard driver-paay buses.

www.etcproceedings.org/paper/download/1753

Unlike the Leeds and York ftr services, the Swansea implementation has included significant elements of enhanced route - notably 3km of dedicated busway that is used both by the Metro and park-and-ride buses. So it is more comparable to what might be expected in Manchester. However, it is still very much a "bargain basement" system compared with the near-tram BRT systems of Translohr, GLT or Philieas.

Total length of route = 15km
current bus service off-peak = 75 mins
Metro service off-peak = 55 mins.
Service frequency = 12 mins.
Vehicle capacity = 100 (42 seats).
Total number of vehicles needed = 10.

Total cost of vehicles = £3.3m
Budgeted cost of route upgrade = £11m.

The infrastructure works ran 12 months over schedule - so I am fairly sure that there were also budget overruns - but nothing has been published on actual costs. Plus the budgdetted costs have not included either ticketing or real-time information systems. It is probably reasonable to estimate that the full cost of the Swansea system (inncluding vehicles) was around £18m; or £1.2m per km.

This ought to deliver a route with a capacity of 500 persons per hour in each direction.

By comparison, a tram system running a 15km route with 10 vehicles, segregated but not grade-separated; might be expected to run at a 6 minute frequency, with a total capacity per vehicle of 200. Such a tram service would provide a peak capacity of 2000 persons per hour in each direction; but (on the basis of the cost/km of Metrolink 3a) would cost around £225m, or £15m per km, including vehicles.

So, if we regard the Swansea Metro as effectively 25% of a tram service (the tram has double the capacity, and double the service speed), we can see that overall the bus capital costs are still around a third of the tram costs.

Other considerations:

Compared to a conventional driver-pay 18m bendy-bus, the 18.7m ftr provides front doors rearwards of the front wheels. Consequently peak-period boarding (especially for wheelchairs and buggies) is a lot easier. However (compared to a tram, or one of the high-cost BRT systems) the ftr does not provide level boarding from platforms - as there is no automatic system for secure docking of the vehicle exactly aligning with the boarding platforms. Wheelchair access to the front door therefore requires the deployment of an extendable ramp, and there is no wheelchair or buggy access through the rear door.

Fuel economy on the York/Leeds/Swansea buses has been poorer than expected (the air-con uses a lot of fuel, and the bodywork design is not very fuel-effcient). Hence the continued tendancy in all three cities to run services using conventional buses at periods of low demand.

Vehicle lifespan is not known for certain yet. BRT systems in Latin America tend to report fairly short life-spans for the vehicles - but these tend to be much more heavily laden than in European usage. Still, it is likely that the operator will need to be replacing vehicles every 10 years (compared to 40 years for a conventional tram)

On the other hand, maintenance expenditure on route infrastructure is likely to be relatively low - compared to a tram, but especially compared to high-cost BRT. (Where bus systems have adopted guided docking, the corollary has tended to be very high rates of track wear around stops, which - if not continually kept in full repair - have tended to disable the docking functionality). And other bus services can also benefit from the enhanced route.

It will be interesting to see the degree to which proposed Bus enhancements for Manchester corresond with the Swansea Metro type of service.

[Gavin]

Quote:
A further three high quality Cross City corridors
have been identified which would operate along
Oxford Road linking Parrs Wood with Eccles and
Prestwich (every 10 minutes), Chorlton with
Middleton every 7-8 minutes and Stretford with
Ashton every 10 minutes.

All other bus routes would be diverted onto Upper
Brook Street or Higher Cambridge Street,
improving accessibility to a wider area.

All general traffic would be diverted off Oxford
Road between Hathersage Road and Grosvenor
Street junctions and servicing of the area would be
achieved via Upper Brook Street and Higher
Cambridge Street.
That is the type of quality public transport that we lost on 12th Dec.

Diverting the 42 bus off Oxford Road to increase accessibility? Rubbish. The middle of the University area is Oxford Rd. That's where people want to go. That little scam was all about making money on the proposed BRT because people would be forced to get it as the routes their now would be diverted onto congested routes, further away from where people wanted to go.
And who would make the money from the BRT at the expense of StageCoach etc..? the PTE. That's why they proposed it.

[nerd]

Originally Posted by Gavin

Diverting the 42 bus off Oxford Road to increase accessibility? Rubbish. The middle of the University area is Oxford Rd. That's where people want to go. That little scam was all about making money on the proposed BRT because people would be forced to get it as the routes their now would be diverted onto congested routes, further away from where people wanted to go.
And who would make the money from the BRT at the expense of StageCoach etc..? the PTE. That's why they proposed it.

The proposal would not have limited Oxford Road to the BRT; but would have lmited it to cross-city bus services. Hence through services between Didsbury and Eccles/Salford UNI/Prestwich would have run through Oxford Road; but services that terminate in the City centre (as the 42 does currently) would not. I would have thought this made sense. If you stand on Portland Street, you can see a number 42 at least once a minute, and they are all nearly empty.

[macc]

Closing Oxford Road to all traffic except a BRT which runs every 10 minutes and cross city buses (I didn't know there were any!) will not provide a better service though. Most people who travel to the Uni don't live in Eccles, they live in Fallowfield and the other suburbs of South Manchester.

The beauty of the buses on the Oxford/Wilmslow Road corridor is if I have a stagecoach pass I could wait at a stop in Fallowfield or Withington and get on the first 42,43,142 or 143 that comes along, which at any normal time of the day would be usually every minute or two.

I would hope the BRT would add to these options rather than replace them.

Diverting the 42 (and the rest) away from Oxford Road:

A. makes me walk from Upper Brook Street
or
B. makes me wait up to 10 minutes for a BRT when I used to have a bus every minute.

This isn't offering a better service; it's preferable the way it is now. Could it be that they think that students and other regular users simply wouldn't use a BRT where there is a magic bus or Finglands that goes to the same place for half price the price? And to counter this they divert the cheap buses to locations you don't actually want to go to.

Most students use the Magic bus/Finglands rather than Stagecoach because it's cheaper even though it's slower.

[Gavin]

If you stand on Portland Street, you can see a number 42 at least once a minute, and they are all nearly empty.

Because nearly all of the passengers got off in the Uni / Oxford Rd area. That was pretty much my point. They are very busy through Rusholme and into Oxford Rd.

[nerd]

Originally Posted by macc

Closing Oxford Road to all traffic except a BRT which runs every 10 minutes and cross city buses (I didn't know there were any!) will not provide a better service though. Most people who travel to the Uni don't live in Eccles, they live in Fallowfield and the other suburbs of South Manchester.

The beauty of the buses on the Oxford/Wilmslow Road corridor is if I have a stagecoach pass I could wait at a stop in Fallowfield or Withington and get on the first 42,43,142 or 143 that comes along, which at any normal time of the day would be usually every minute or two.

I would hope the BRT would add to these options rather than replace them.

Diverting the 42 (and the rest) away from Oxford Road:

A. makes me walk from Upper Brook Street
or
B. makes me wait up to 10 minutes for a BRT when I used to have a bus every minute.

This isn't offering a better service; it's preferable the way it is now. Could it be that they think that students and other regular users simply wouldn't use a BRT where there is a magic bus or Finglands that goes to the same place for half price the price? And to counter this they divert the cheap buses to locations you don't actually want to go to.

Most students use the Magic bus/Finglands rather than Stagecoach because it's cheaper even though it's slower.

You make a sound point about cheap fares - which I suspect is actually they key issue for the PTE. As I understand it, the BRT and the Cross-city buses are all envisaged as being pre-payment only (like most bus routes in central London). Ideally, I think, they would seek to re-route all of the 42,43,142 and 143 along the cross-city routes, alongside the BRT.

But are there many people who would be unwilling to ride the 42 etc, if it crossed into Salford, rather than terminating at Piccadilly Gardens? And would students be unwilling to buy weekly/monthly/annual travel passes - evne if these were offered at a student discount?

[staticmeltdown]

Originally Posted by Gavin

And who would make the money from the BRT at the expense of StageCoach etc..? the PTE. That's why they proposed it.

I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong idea about the PTE!

[staticmeltdown]

Originally Posted by macc

Closing Oxford Road to all traffic except a BRT which runs every 10 minutes and cross city buses (I didn't know there were any!) will not provide a better service though. Most people who travel to the Uni don't live in Eccles, they live in Fallowfield and the other suburbs of South Manchester.

The beauty of the buses on the Oxford/Wilmslow Road corridor is if I have a stagecoach pass I could wait at a stop in Fallowfield or Withington and get on the first 42,43,142 or 143 that comes along, which at any normal time of the day would be usually every minute or two.

I would hope the BRT would add to these options rather than replace them.

Diverting the 42 (and the rest) away from Oxford Road:

A. makes me walk from Upper Brook Street
or
B. makes me wait up to 10 minutes for a BRT when I used to have a bus every minute.

This isn't offering a better service; it's preferable the way it is now. Could it be that they think that students and other regular users simply wouldn't use a BRT where there is a magic bus or Finglands that goes to the same place for half price the price? And to counter this they divert the cheap buses to locations you don't actually want to go to.

Most students use the Magic bus/Finglands rather than Stagecoach because it's cheaper even though it's slower.

There's massive downsides at the moment too though - waiting up to 10 minutes (or 20 at night) waiting for the right bus company to come (rather than the right bus) whilst other company's vehicles sail past is pretty annoying, especially as you've no idea how long you'll be waiting and whether it'd be worth just paying extra to get there on time.

[spoonsbeatfish]

Originally Posted by macc

Closing Oxford Road to all traffic except a BRT which runs every 10 minutes and cross city buses (I didn't know there were any!) will not provide a better service though. Most people who travel to the Uni don't live in Eccles, they live in Fallowfield and the other suburbs of South Manchester.

The beauty of the buses on the Oxford/Wilmslow Road corridor is if I have a stagecoach pass I could wait at a stop in Fallowfield or Withington and get on the first 42,43,142 or 143 that comes along, which at any normal time of the day would be usually every minute or two.

I would hope the BRT would add to these options rather than replace them.

Diverting the 42 (and the rest) away from Oxford Road:

A. makes me walk from Upper Brook Street
or
B. makes me wait up to 10 minutes for a BRT when I used to have a bus every minute.

This isn't offering a better service; it's preferable the way it is now. Could it be that they think that students and other regular users simply wouldn't use a BRT where there is a magic bus or Finglands that goes to the same place for half price the price? And to counter this they divert the cheap buses to locations you don't actually want to go to.

Most students use the Magic bus/Finglands rather than Stagecoach because it's cheaper even though it's slower.

"Buses
will run at least every five minutes
between Parrs Wood and Piccadilly
Gardens, and every five minutes
between Christie Hospital and Salford
Crescent. In addition, a further 6 buses
an hour service will operate in the peak
between Christie Hospital and the MRI.
This means that the core section of the
route can offer a bus every one–to-two
minutes (peak) and every two-to-three
minutes (off peak)."

TIF proposal for Oxford Road BRT

And though sometimes there can be a bus every 10 seconds (e.g. 9am, 10am morning lecture rush) there can also be times when you are waiting for quite a while for a bus. That combined with now just using the first bus that comes instead of waiting for your company I think will usually make for less waiting.

I would imagine they will offer a cheaper year long student card like stagecoach do, which saves on collecting money from bus stop machines etc as well as making it a bit easier for students not having to buy a ticket every day/week/month. I hope they would keep the prices low but seeing how much they've raised in the last 5 years (£2 a week - £6 a week) I'm not so hopeful.

[spoonsbeatfish]

I think the option to take the bus via Albert Square to Deansgate as well as the Picc Gardens will be useful saving a walk once you get into the city centre.

The routing of the Picc gardens bus via the station, providing a direct link from Fallowfield etc to Manchester's main train station and a direct link from uni which runs more frequently should also be useful.

[JohnnyLeigh]

This 'guided busway' that they've been talking about for years is a joke, Leigh has a population of 45000 and it has no train station. We already have 2/3 bus routes to Manchester - WHICH they changed to make the journeys longer (from 40 minutes to over an hour) to try to bully us into 'wanting' this waste of money and space.

If Greater Manchester, the borough, the govt, whoever, gave us a train station we'd be much happier - we're supposedly the biggest town in the country without one (though googling this proves inconclusive, we're certainly the biggest town in the whole of the North West without one as Skem with a pop of 39000 is the 2nd largest trainless town).
And its not like we're some medium sized town in the middle of the nowhere, we're effectively in a conurbation with Atherton, Tyldesley, Astley, Lowton, etc... which puts us with a combined population of over 100,000 with only a couple of measly, poorly connected stations in Atherton. And we are equi-distant from Liverpool and Manchester, a prime location, but treated with contempt.

Leigh bus station is good, and pretty big. Bring back the normal 40minute bus route to manc, and add a route to Liverpool while they're at it!
Scrap this dreadful guided busway idea and lay an 8 mile rail extension from Wigan to Leigh - much, much more sense - especially seen as how we're supposedly in the same borough.