Manchester Buses

GMITA discuss service changes... and now we know what they are!

Yesterday we had a few PDF-related problems that meant we couldn't cover the service changes being discussed at today's GMITA Transport Network Committee meeting. Turns out the nice-looking full-colour maps now included in the document are probably the problem with Apple's Preview software unable to display them. One download of Adobe Reader 9 for Mac later and we're ready to go...

12 (Middleton - Moorclose Circular) - JP Travel
129 (Middleton - Hollin Circular) - JP Travel

JP Travel's two long circular services and being split into three shorter routes which should improve reliability. Service 12 is being rerouted to only serve Middleton town centre and Moorclose (and increased from every 30 minutes to every 20 minutes), with new service 13 picking up the slack by linking Middleton and Higher Boarshaw. Service 129 is left to concentrate on linking Middleton and Hollin.

The new routes omit the previously-served Hereford Way and Mills Hill areas, although GMPTE are talking to the operator about getting one of the new services rerouted to resolve this problem.

Night Bus 200 (Shudehill Interchange - Piccadilly) - Stagecoach Manchester

Believe it or not, this service has actually been registered to run from the 25th of January, so appears to have been running with no publicity for nearly a month. Running on Friday and Saturday nights between 1am and 3am, the service replaces Stagecoach nightbuses that were withdrawn from 25th January.

319 (Stockport - Reddish) - Stagecoach Manchester

This service is withdrawn and replaced by extended service 374, which additionally serves Tesco Extra at Portwood.

343 (Oldham - Hyde) - First Manchester

Evening and Sunday journeys are rerouted along Lees Road instead of Greenacres Road, Durham Street, Stamford Road and St John's Street to improve reliability. The withdrawn section of route will now be covered by extended service 415.

353 (Ashton-under-Lyne - Uppermill) - Speedwell Bus
354 (Ashton-under-Lyne - Diggle) - Speedwell Bus

With an evening frequency of every 135 minutes(!) it's not surprising that these services aren't well used. In order to improve the situation, GMPTE are changing the service to run every two hours each, creating an hourly frequency along shared sections of the route. Unfortunately, this means service 354 is curtailed to run between Ashton and Uppermill. Saddleworth Local Link is available for the "less that one passenger per journey" that uses this part of the route. We know that this is a statistical turn-of-phrase but we imagine some horrible headless, one-armed creature catching the bus between Uppermill and Diggle. Well, it is up in the hills :)

374 (Stockport - Hazel Grove) - Stagecoach Manchester

Extended across Stockport town centre to Reddish, replacing withdrawn service 319 and additionally serving Tesco Extra at Portwood.

375 (Rose Hill - Mellor)

GMPTE want to introduce hourly Sunday daytime journeys to this service.

388 (Ashton-under-Lyne - Hawk Green) - First Manchester

GMPTE want to curtail this Sunday daytime service to run between Ashton and Gee Cross only, renubered 389 to fall in line with the Monday to Saturday service. The remainder of the route would be served by new service 375, service 330 or services 383/384.

415 (Middleton - Oldham) - First Manchester

Evening and Sunday journeys are extended across Oldham town centre to cover Greenacres Road, Durham Street, Stamford Road and St John's Street; previously covered by service 343.

435 (Rochdale - Busckstones) - Rossendale Transport

Tendered Evening and Sunday journeys are to be withdrawn due to low usage. Additionally, Some commercially run Monday to Saturday daytime journeys are due to be withdrawn by the operator. GMPTE are looking for an operator to take these on journeys on a tendered basis.

436 (Rochdale - Cutgate Circular) - Rossendale Transport

Due to low usage, the 0750 Mon-Fri and 1545 Schooldays journeys are withdrawn.

440 (Rochdale - Syke Circular) - Rossendale Transport

Mon-Sat daytime frequency reduced from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes.

442 (Rochdale - Castleton Circular) - Rossendale Transport

Rerouted in Sudden. Sections of the route no longer served continue to be served by the Kirklees Local Link.

500 (Bolton Metroshuttle) - Bluebird

In order to improve the attractiveness of this recently introcudes free service, it will be rerouted to additionally serve Trinity Street Sainsbury's carpark.

512/513 (Bolton - Bury) - Arriva Manchester

Route changes in Bolton, Farnworth and around Royal Bolton Hospital in order to improve reliability.

603 (Newton - Ashton Heath) - Wigan Buses
607 (Wigan - Ashton Heath) - Wigan Buses

That regular annoyance for bus drivers, too many parked cars, is causing delays to these services in Ashton Heath. As a result, certain journeys are curtailed to terminate at Ashton instead.

Additionally, a new Bolton Local Link service and two Airport Shuttles from the Airparks terminals at Handforth and Thorley Lane are to be discussed by the Committee.

GMITA to discuss service changes... but we don't know what they are (UPDATED)

Tomorrow sees the first 2009 meeting of the GMPTA GMITA Transport Network Committee.  Normally at this stage we can report on what's on the agenda but this time there's a problem.  You see the service changes are contained in a PDF document of GMITA's site that won't open (Item 11 on this page). It's crashed both the PDF readers we've tried it in.

We can guess that alterations likely to be discussed include changes to JP Travel's Middleton services as these are listen on the GMPTE Service Changes page. Recent changes registered with VOSA (the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency) include changes to Arriva's Altrincham network in April, although these have only been registered with VOSA in the last two days and details are sketchy.

The only change we can see on GMITA's site relates to service 435 (Rochdale - Buckstones) but we'll discuss that with all the other changes when we can. Hopefully GMITA's web wizards will update the PDF in time for us to give you more details tomorrow. If anyone has any information please do get in touch.

UPDATE: It was just us... or rather it was just Apple Preview's inability to handle the maps GMPTE are now putting in the PDF for the benefit of GMITA members. A quick download of Adobe Reader to our Macbook and all's sorted. We'll publish our thoughts about the changes in a new post shortly.

Stagecoach ticket prices to increase from 1st March?

There's nothing on their website, but we've received word that Stagecoach Manchester are to increase ticket prices from Sunday 1st March.

The details we've received indicate that the following prices will apply:
Megarider £11 (up £1)
Dayrider £3.50 (up 20p)
Dayrider Plus one £5.00 (up 20p)
The online price for Monthly Megariders will be £40 (up £4).

If these prices are accurate that's a pretty hefty increase for the Megarider. It's gone up by 50p every year for the past decade so a double increase is not good news. It's still £4.50 cheaper than First Manchester's equivalent ticket though.

We haven't seen the new Stagecoach prices advertised anywhere yet but (assuming this is accurate information) we'd expect posters to appear on buses next week.

[Image credit: Smabs Sputzer on Flickr]

Cheshire loses peak link to Manchester

For many years passengers in Middleton and Poynton have enjoyed a peak-period link to Manchester thanks to service 191. Changes due at the end of March will see this link lost.

Stagecoach Manchester have announced on their website that they have lost the contract with Cheshire County Council to provide a link between Middlewood and Stockport. Stagecoach ran peak journeys through to Manchester on a commercial basis. The new operator, Bakerbus, does not intend to maintain this link. The Middlewood - Stockport service is to be renumbered 391 and will run to a revised timetable.

Stagecoach intends to continue running service 191 between Stockport and Manchester during peak periods while passengers on the 391 can change onto service frequent 192 in Hazel Grove to travel into Manchester. Alternatively, they could still take the train from Middlewood Station for a much quicker journey!

Direct bus links between Cheshire and Manchester have been eroded over the past few years. Most recently Arriva Manchester's service 130 (Manchester - Macclesfield) was cut back to an hourly frequency on Saturdays while last year evening journeys were curtailed to run East Didsbury - Macclesfield only.

[Image credit: Zawtowers on Flickr]

Concessionary fare heading for 80p... or 50p... but not Free

The concessionary bus fare in Greater Manchester looks set to increase by 10p in April. Having been set at 70p for the past two years, increased costs are forcing the newly-named GMITA to pass on an increase to the public.

Councilor Matt Colledge, chair of GMITA, is calling on the government to introduce a flat child fare on 50p. "We want to keep the concessionary fare as low as possible. We haven’t raised the fare for two years and I am loathe to see an increase now but our hands are tied" he says.

Any capping of the concessionary fare would not be introduced any time soon, meaning that from April families of school children will have to pay an extra pound per child per week for school travel (assuming one bus each way per day). The over 60s and the disabled, who previously paid the concessionary fare, have enjoyed free travel across England for the past two years in a hugely popular scheme.

It's encouraging to think our politicians want to make things better for school children, who make up a big portion of bus travelers during peak periods. The thing is, though, we've heard this all before. Back in October 2007 GMPTA called for a 50p flat fare and nothing happened. Local Labour MPs went even further in the same month, calling for school children to travel for free. It's one thing to call for something. It's very different to make sure it's seen through.

GMPTA gets mightier, becomes GMITA

From Monday the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority will be no more. The organisation, comprised of local councilors who oversee the region's public transport policy, is consigning its name to history to make way for the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority. The same is happening to the other five English Transport Authorities at the same time.

Why the name change? The Local Transport Act 2008 introduced a number of new powers for transport authorities to take advantage of. These include the ability to work more closely with bus operators under 'Quality Contracts' which can be used to ensure bus services integrate more closely with other forms of transport such as trains and light rail.

The change from a Passenger-related name to an Integration-related one may seem pointless but it should hopefully reflect an increased focus by the authority of making all our region's modes of transport work together better, something that's certainly needed. The Authority also has a new, less stuffy looking ,website available now at www.gmita.gov.uk.

The question remains though, which of the new Integrated Transport Authorities has the best name?
Greater Manchester: GMITA (could be pronounced: Gee-mighter)
South Yorkshire: SYITA (could be pronounced: Sighter)
West Yorkshire: WYITA (could be pronounced: Whiter)
West Midlands: WMITA (could be pronounced: Womighter)
Tyne & Wear: TWITA (could be pronounced: Twighter)
Merseyside: MITA (could be pronounced: Mighter)

Our vote's with Tyne & Wear, the bunch of Twighters.

First and Manchester Met team up for safer school buses

American-style yellow school buses have becoming increasingly popular in Greater Manchester over the past few years. You've probably seen them around the region with text on the outside, lined up with each seat, saying things like "Future TV presenter?" and "Future architect?". The only time we've sat on one while accompanying a school trip, the text on the outside for our seat read "Future Surgeon?". We hope not! A blogger's hand is not a steady hand!

Anyway, safety issues of bloggers performing operations on people aside, First Group are working with Manchester Metropolitan University to run a course aimed at improving safety on yellow school buses around the country. BusAndCoach.com reports First's Chief Executive Moir Lockhead as saying "Yellow school buses are a safe and secure means of transporting our young people to and from school. By joining forces with MMU to provide such an important course for our staff, we are increasing the safety of our young passengers even further".

[Image credit: hugovk on Flickr]

All change at Wythenshawe - new bus station on the way

If you'd like to step back in time to the early 80s you could build a time machine... or you could just head over to Wythenshawe Bus Station. Like an ugly triangular wart, this monstrosity of a transport interchange has depressed the people of south Manchester for too long. Now it looks like that's going to change.

GMPTA's Policy Committee has released £20,000 to begin design work on a replacement. The plan is part of a wider scheme to regenerate Wythenshawe town centre.

Councillor Glynn Evans, Chair of Manchester City Council’s Wythenshawe Area Committee, said: “Wythenshawe people should have the very best in transport facilities and we will do everything we can to support the delivery of a new state-of-the-art bus station. This funding is a welcome step in the right direction.”

The new bus station could be completed in just two years. It's good to see that despite a "No" vote in the TIF referendum leading to no 'big bang' investment, smaller schemes can still go ahead in Greater Manchester. As we've previously mentioned, Rochdale is also due a new bus station soon.

[Image credit: Wythenshawe Bus Station in 2007 by Gene Hunt on Flickr]

Arriva Wythenshawe gets investment... and extra legroom

Arriva's Wythenshawe fleet has long been on the receiving end of criticism from us here at Manchester Buses. Despite having a good number of low-floor single deckers, the majority of routes have been served for too long by an aging army of East Lancs EL2000 Darts and Mercedes Benz 709D minibuses. These vehicles suffer from poor reliability and incredibly small amounts of legroom for most passengers.

Now it looks like things are starting to change. Following recent investment at the Manchester city centre depot, we're now seeing Optare Solos appear on Wythenshawe's routes. One was spotted on the 19 (Altrincham - Manchester Airport) yesterday while a reader has recently spotted them on the 266 (Altrincham - Sale) and 370/371 (Altrincham - Stockport).

This is most definitely good news. Arriva have stated that they aim for a fully low-floor fleet in the North West by 2011. Let's hope they make it as our legs can't handle those old Darts much longer!

By the way, the Solo in this photo may well be a Manchester depot-based example but we grabbed a quick snap of it in Sale this afternoon.