But how many of those passengers actually ‘care’ which station the train takes them to? I’d argue at least off-peak the majority won’t. They’re just want ‘Manchester’.
I used to work in Bolton a few years back and depending if it was Pic/Vic I’d either just change at Salford Cresent which had a frequent service to both from the same platform, or just stay on the train and walk back the twenty minutes, often this was faster than waiting in Bolton for a specific train
Those off peak passengers might not care which Manchester station they travel to, but going home they want to know which station to travel from for the quickest journey. Preferably without having to interrogate an app or study a timetable, then trying to decide "should I risk a dash for the 1612 from Victoria, knowing if I miss it I've got to wait till 1712, or should I amble over to Piccadilly for the 1643?"
For the occasional traveller, much better to have a train every 30 minutes from one station than 1tph from each of two.
Post-Covid, the railway should aim to make the timetable more attractive (=simple) for such leisure travellers, rather than for the (ex-)daily commuters who know the times of their regular trains by heart but have now got used to WFH.
I agree with the above two posters - the vast majority of people want central Manchester - we should stick to the basics.
I'd be fine if Sheffield's half hourly service to Manchester dropped me in Victoria rather than Piccadilly (as long as it didn't take significantly longer due to the single track line and diversion via Denton) - I'm not too fussed about which side of the city centre - just as I'd be fine if EMR started using Waterloo or Liverpool Street for their Sheffield services as long as there was no significant time penalty - the important thing is that there's a half hourly service from Sheffield to Manchester - rather than something more like a 20/04 minute service eastbound due to the path from Manchester Airport (on the Clethorpes services) not matching the path from Liverpool (on the Norwich service).
Same goes for other lines - I think that the majority of people would prefer a simple half hourly Manchester service than two badly spaced services (which means one will be significantly busier than the other)
Similarly, consistency of which station to go to for the train home. Fine to have Bolton services running from both Pic and Vic, given the high frequency of trains to Bolton, but daft for places like Southport or Blackpool to have one Pic train per hour and one Vic train per hour, meaning passengers don't know which way to go (
@Greybeard33 gives a good example) -
Oddly, whilst people are insisting that their local trains should be priorities for Piccadilly rather than Victoria, when there was a thread about Deansgate recently, the view seemed to be "Deansgate station is badly situation, the actual attractions on Deansgate are much closer to Victoria which is a much better located station"! But you'll never suit all of the people with a station location - heavy rail is all about finding a large enough number of people heading in roughly the same direction to warrant a service - it's not flexible enough to be all things to all people.
Similarly, we can't cater to all of the cross-Manchester demands - I'm sure that there are people in Sheffield who'd want a direct service to Manchester Airport/ Liverpool/ Blackpool/ Lake District/ Wales etc but you can't meet all of these demands - the more important thing is to provide a good balanced simple service into central Manchester and then a good balanced simple service from central Manchester to all of those other places. Got to realise that, sometimes, a through service exists between two places more because of it being operationally simple to balance the two together a generation ago, rather than any significant demand (just like there aren't many people in Bury wanting a tram to Altricham!)
A point to note is that airports don't necessarily have a "flat" demand profile.
Heathrow, for example, has a huge spike in passenger arrivals between about 0500 and 0900, with overnight long haul flight (in large capacity aircraft) turning up.
Manchester might have similar spikes - e.g. early Ryanair/easyJet departures, or evening arrivals, where "non-Takt" services would meet particular times of demand outside the core operating day.
An example would be the early/late Cambridge-Stansted XC workings that are surprisingly well patronised, given Ryanair's flight cycles.
That's a good point - yet people would rather have one train per hour than a focussed service based on when the Airport demand is highest - frustrating!
