Bee Network Service/Route Discussion

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Slightly off topic, but just thinking about potential development of cross (GM) boundary services - particularly with the proposed new town development in Adlington, Cheshire.

The developer is talking about improvements to public transport in the area...so logically this would include services into Greater Manchester. My understanding is that would need a service permit from TfGM and in deciding whether to grant a permit the proposed service would have to pass the following tests:

• the proposed service will benefit persons making journeys on local services in the area to which the franchising scheme relates; and
• the proposed service will not have an adverse effect on any local service that is provided under a local service (franchised) contract in the area to which the franchising scheme relates.

So...if (for example) a new service were to connect Adlington New Town, Poynton, Hazel Grove, Stepping Hill and Stockport (which would be an obvious one) then TfGM may well refuse the permit if it would extract income from existing services (192) between Hazel Grove and Stockport. Would this mean that the only way to get a new service would be to run non stop from the GM boundary to the final destination (or follow and unserved route to the destination). Both of which seem to me to make it more unlikely that a service would succeed commercially.

Is my thinking correct ?

It really annoys me that not just being satisfied with the huge land area that is Greater Manchester in its ten constituent council areas, TfGM now seem to view cross-border bus services as fair game. I wonder how the Merseyside transport entity that seeks bus deregulation will view such matters and the Lancashire County Council administered adjoining areas, which included the Adlington area referred to above, to these transport bodies are now under the political control of Reform UK who may well have some thoughts on that matter.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Is that one of the betterments the Bee Network was going to happen when Burnham talked of these when the Bee Network first began?

It is the price of the drive for maximum reliability and on-time performance. Once you are getting towards the 90% level of the reliability you are trying to accommodate traffic on what are "bad days" which means that for the more common average days you will have buses waiting for a few minutes at points and you good days it will be more. It does depend on the route and the area as to how big the fluctuations are, and there will often be a couple of journeys where the timings are just wrong and a fix can have a big impact but on a lot of routes there becomes a line where getting the stats up anymore involves adding in more running time than the average journey needs.

I am currently looking at one of our big routes which runs down a major trunk road and has very variable reliability and on many journeys over 50% are on time (which may include some good days where they are waiting time as the stats won't pick that up) around 30% hovering around the 5-8 min late and around 20% where it is over 10-mins late. So to fix that 30% just out of the window probably means 20-30% that are on time now having to wait for 2/3 mins but to fix that last 20% probably means 50% having to wait 5 mins or more whilst 30% probably have 2/3 min waits. So to get above 90% on time we would have to inconvenience, to a greater or lesser extent, 70% of our passengers on this particular route and we would never be able to get perfection as it is prone to major and unpredictable delays (last week we experienced delays of 30-60 mins out of the blue due to a single set of traffic lights located on a section of road it wasn't easy for car drivers to avoid due to the local road network not having alternative roads so traffic just blew up). And just to indicate how difficult this stuff is to predict elsewhere in the company we managed to have all 6 buses on a 10-min frequency city service stuck on the same 250m stretch of road in a housing estate due to a road closure not on the bus route because all the parents who going to/from dropping their kids at school had to divert away from this road onto the bus route (or along the road at the end the buses were trying to turn out onto) meaning nothing moved for nearly an hour, all with little warning - this morning, now the parents know not to do what they did yesterday, there doesn't appear to be anything like the delay though they are still taking twice as long to do that stretch than they normally would it isn't taking an hour to do 200m.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2025 ==

Slightly off topic, but just thinking about potential development of cross (GM) boundary services - particularly with the proposed new town development in Adlington, Cheshire.

The developer is talking about improvements to public transport in the area...so logically this would include services into Greater Manchester. My understanding is that would need a service permit from TfGM and in deciding whether to grant a permit the proposed service would have to pass the following tests:

• the proposed service will benefit persons making journeys on local services in the area to which the franchising scheme relates; and
• the proposed service will not have an adverse effect on any local service that is provided under a local service (franchised) contract in the area to which the franchising scheme relates.

So...if (for example) a new service were to connect Adlington New Town, Poynton, Hazel Grove, Stepping Hill and Stockport (which would be an obvious one) then TfGM may well refuse the permit if it would extract income from existing services (192) between Hazel Grove and Stockport. Would this mean that the only way to get a new service would be to run non stop from the GM boundary to the final destination (or follow and unserved route to the destination). Both of which seem to me to make it more unlikely that a service would succeed commercially.

Is my thinking correct ?

I suspect TfGM would try and suggest the developer paying them to extend one of their services if they wanted a link to Stockport, though as they have control over whether such a service could be provided there is the risk of them rinsing the developer and taking money from other transport provision. TfGM have been relaxed about permit services so far but since they were probably all existing services we don't know how they would react to an entirely new service and any position may change if a new person was put in charge with a different view. They also may look at a corridor like the 192, where the frequency is so high that a couple of buses coming in from the countryside may not make much impact, differently to another corridor where a lower frequency Bee Network service could be more at risk and so a greater protection given. This tendency isn't just in franchising, we have seen it when dealing with a new housing development where the city council got quite involved in the planning of a service from the development that was outside their area in the county because they wanted to co-ordinate times between the new service and an existing city service down a shared corridor (even though frequency is not compatible, one be 20-mins with AI scheduling and the other 30-mins headway originally) leading to a compromised timetable for the development.

This is always the risk with the franchising model, you create hard borders (even if you have two franchised areas together) where different organisations will have different objectives and will at the end of the day act in the best interests of their organisation and residents and with much less regards to the needs of neighbouring areas.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I suspect TfGM would try and suggest the developer paying them to extend one of their services if they wanted a link to Stockport, though as they have control over whether such a service could be provided there is the risk of them rinsing the developer and taking money from other transport provision. TfGM have been relaxed about permit services so far but since they were probably all existing services we don't know how they would react to an entirely new service and any position may change if a new person was put in charge with a different view.

Whilst cross-border services to Stockport are mentioned aspirationally, please bear in mind that Stockport has no direct bus services to other areas inside Greater Manchester such as Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, Bolton and Wigan. I have not forgotten Salford, but did not want to over-egg matters.

 

[mangad]

Whilst cross-border services to Stockport are mentioned aspirationally, please bear in mind that Stockport has no direct bus services to other areas inside Greater Manchester such as Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, Bolton and Wigan. I have not forgotten Salford, but did not want to over-egg matters.

I wouldn't have expected Stockport to have any bus links to Bury or Rochdale. To me the sensible approach seems to be that each borough should have links to its neighbouring boroughs. So has Stockport got links to Tameside, Manchester, Trafford, Cheshire East, High Peak? Yes. Has it got the right links to each borough? That's an a different question.

 

[johncrossley]

I am currently looking at one of our big routes which runs down a major trunk road and has very variable reliability and on many journeys over 50% are on time (which may include some good days where they are waiting time as the stats won't pick that up) around 30% hovering around the 5-8 min late and around 20% where it is over 10-mins late. So to fix that 30% just out of the window probably means 20-30% that are on time now having to wait for 2/3 mins but to fix that last 20% probably means 50% having to wait 5 mins or more whilst 30% probably have 2/3 min waits. So to get above 90% on time we would have to inconvenience, to a greater or lesser extent, 70% of our passengers on this particular route and we would never be able to get perfection as it is prone to major and unpredictable delays

Why don't you do what they do in London and keep buses at even intervals instead of rigidly sticking to a timetable?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wouldn't have expected Stockport to have any bus links to Bury or Rochdale. To me the sensible approach seems to be that each borough should have links to its neighbouring boroughs. So has Stockport got links to Tameside, Manchester, Trafford, Cheshire East, High Peak? Yes. Has it got the right links to each borough? That's an a different question.

Are you old enough to temember the Trans-Lanc Express service 400 that ran S tockport-Tameside-Oldham-Rochdale-Bury-Bolton quite some long years ago?

The person in an earlier posting about a development in Adlington wanting a cross-border bus service from there to Stockport.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Why don't you do what they do in London and keep buses at even intervals instead of rigidly sticking to a timetable?

Because London works to different rules, they aren't under the TC for service reliability, so they can define their own performance. Also the service is only half-hourly (& interurban with a particular focus that means that some passengers are fairly time critical) so can't work under the same rules as London uses for high frequency services, our passengers can read a timetable (& we give them one to use) and expect the buses to try and turn up when we say they will and my point was the variability is variable so the one in front may not be delayed as much (and so on) so gaps are not consistent and holding a bus that is on time to even with a gap for a late running one just annoys passengers more.

 

[johncrossley]

Because London works to different rules, they aren't under the TC for service reliability, so they can define their own performance. Also the service is only half-hourly (& interurban with a particular focus that means that some passengers are fairly time critical) so can't work under the same rules as London uses for high frequency services, our passengers can read a timetable (& we give them one to use) and expect the buses to try and turn up when we say they will and my point was the variability is variable so the one in front may not be delayed as much (and so on) so gaps are not consistent and holding a bus that is on time to even with a gap for a late running one just annoys passengers more.

Are you talking about a Bee Network route here? I now notice your location is Leicester, so maybe not.

 

[mangad]

Are you old enough to temember the Trans-Lanc Express service 400 that ran S tockport-Tameside-Oldham-Rochdale-Bury-Bolton quite some long years ago?

I am and I rode on it at least once. And it's also long gone. A fact that doesn't surprise me given it would easily be 35 miles in length, and took over 2 hours from end to end. I can't imagine how many people actually did the whole thing on a regular basis. Probably not that many.

The person in an earlier posting about a development in Adlington wanting a cross-border bus service from there to Stockport.

If you look at Adlington on the map, the closest major towns are Macclesfield, Wilmslow and Stockport. Which seem obvious places for public transport connections. But then Stockport and Macclesfield are already connected by train with Adlington. And notably the only bus to serve the village appears to be a free bus to get people to the Treacle Market. Unless Cheshire East council want to divert some of the 391 journeys, I can't imagine Adlington's going to get a bus to Stockport any time soon - and it won't be TfGM blocking anyone on that.

 

[Steve440]

I am and I rode on it at least once. And it's also long gone. A fact that doesn't surprise me given it would easily be 35 miles in length, and took over 2 hours from end to end. I can't imagine how many people actually did the whole thing on a regular basis. Probably not that many.



If you look at Adlington on the map, the closest major towns are Macclesfield, Wilmslow and Stockport. Which seem obvious places for public transport connections. But then Stockport and Macclesfield are already connected by train with Adlington. And notably the only bus to serve the village appears to be a free bus to get people to the Treacle Market. Unless Cheshire East council want to divert some of the 391 journeys, I can't imagine Adlington's going to get a bus to Stockport any time soon - and it won't be TfGM blocking anyone on that.

The actual running time of the 400 was 1 hour 44 minutes from Stockport to Bolton. I wouldn't have thought that you could drive the route in a car now in that time!
See timetable here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ieddCjbN0AAm7245lJthj5EbbDHxv4Bn/view

 

[Tim33160]

The Trans Lancs Express 400 was generally used by those with concessionary fares and didn't continue after D-reg as it wasn't commercially viable.
Several attempts to run it commercially were tried by various operators but none lasted

Bee Network is unlikely to try it - it may be "nice to have" but not a necessity

 

[mangad]

The actual running time of the 400 was 1 hour 44 minutes from Stockport to Bolton. I wouldn't have thought that you could drive the route in a car now in that time!

It depends when you look in history. I looked at a timetables hosted on the Rail Media timetable archive. The first they have - from 1974 - was 1 hour 44 minutes. But in the 2002 timetable - the last one they had from First Manchester - shows journeys being scheduled as 2 hours 4 minutes from Stockport to Bolton, and 2 hours 9 minutes the other direction.

Blue Bus took on the route the next year and according to their first timetable some of their journeys were timed to be just under two hours. But they only ran it for a year.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2025 ==

The Trans Lancs Express 400 was generally used by those with concessionary fares and didn't continue after D-reg as it wasn't commercially viable.
Several atte

The 400 ran all the way to 2004 - GM Buses/GM Buses North/First Manchester predominately until 2003. Blue Bus took it on after but only for just over a year before it was axed.

 

[Djb1]

Slightly off topic, but just thinking about potential

I am and I rode on it at least once. And it's also long gone. A fact that doesn't surprise me given it would easily be 35 miles in length, and took over 2 hours from end to end. I can't imagine how many people actually did the whole thing on a regular basis. Probably not that many.



If you look at Adlington on the map, the closest major towns are Macclesfield, Wilmslow and Stockport. Which seem obvious places for public transport connections. But then Stockport and Macclesfield are already connected by train with Adlington. And notably the only bus to serve the village appears to be a free bus to get people to the Treacle Market. Unless Cheshire East council want to divert some of the 391 journeys, I can't imagine Adlington's going to get a bus to Stockport any time soon - and it won't be TfGM blocking anyone on that.

i suspect they would just extend the middlewood terminating 391s to adlington (or through to macclesfield via adlington since it would require an extra bus to do it and it would have enough time)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

i suspect they would just extend the middlewood terminating 391s to adlington (or through to macclesfield via adlington since it would require an extra bus to do it and it would have enough time)

Adlington from my knowledge of that area is "very Green Belt" and would attract housing developments of the type you find in Tytherington, with multi-car residents.

 

[Djb1]

Adlington from my knowledge of that area is "very Green Belt" and would attract housing developments of the type you find in Tytherington, with multi-car residents.

I suspect so. But if Adlington New Town (or whatever they call it) got approved it would undoubtedly come with a section 106 provision for a bus service.

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Are you talking about a Bee Network route here? I now notice your location is Leicester, so maybe not.

No, I was using a route that I actually schedule and is on my desk currently for a review to illustrate the difficulty of getting that balance between maximum reliability and keeping the flow going - I don't work for a Bee Network contractor. That said even with the London suggestion of regulating via the headway rather than just times you would still end up with a bus sitting on stop waiting time often if the bus in front is held up, or running slow due one issue or another, to keep the headway and to the passenger it makes little difference whether it is waiting time to match a timetable or maintain headway they are still waiting.

 

[Statto]

It depends when you look in history. I looked at a timetables hosted on the Rail Media timetable archive. The first they have - from 1974 - was 1 hour 44 minutes. But in the 2002 timetable - the last one they had from First Manchester - shows journeys being scheduled as 2 hours 4 minutes from Stockport to Bolton, and 2 hours 9 minutes the other direction.

Blue Bus took on the route the next year and according to their first timetable some of their journeys were timed to be just under two hours. But they only ran it for a year.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2025 ==



The 400 ran all the way to 2004 - GM Buses/GM Buses North/First Manchester predominately until 2003. Blue Bus took it on after but only for just over a year before it was axed.

The most useful section of the 400 was Ashton - Stockport section were there was not a equivilant direct stopping version (even the 7 vears away from the old 400 route between Denton & Ashton) although most passengers using the old 400 were going to the Towns along the route, most of which is covered by the 409 & 471, rather than end to end.

 

[citybus2500]

It depends when you look in history. I looked at a timetables hosted on the Rail Media timetable archive. The first they have - from 1974 - was 1 hour 44 minutes. But in the 2002 timetable - the last one they had from First Manchester - shows journeys being scheduled as 2 hours 4 minutes from Stockport to Bolton, and 2 hours 9 minutes the other direction.

Blue Bus took on the route the next year and according to their first timetable some of their journeys were timed to be just under two hours. But they only ran it for a year.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2025 ==



The 400 ran all the way to 2004 - GM Buses/GM Buses North/First Manchester predominately until 2003. Blue Bus took it on after but only for just over a year before it was axed.

Did Houston Ramm (The Coachmasters) compete on here as well? Looks back and finds 456 between Rochdale and Wigan via Bury and Bolton, so not a direct copy.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

How long did the 401 run? I think it ran from Stockport to Middleton.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

How long did the 401 run? I think it ran from Stockport to Middleton.

The 401 ran (according to https://www.railwaymedia.co.uk/Timetables/GM400/n-dsNsRq) ran from
24/5/1993 (Bolton - Middleton - Stockport) - 29/5/2001 (just Stockport - Middleton) - 17/9/2001 (withdrawn)

 

[Statto]

Originally the 401 was Wigan - Oldham, then got changed to Bolton - Stockport as part of the Trans Lancs Express, difference from the 400, the 401 went via Middleton, & Chadderton to Oldham, then went via the 330 route Ashton - Stockport

 

[M60lad]

Houston Ramm (The Coachmasters) 456 route was actually quite a number of established routes linked together as can be seen:

Rochdale-Bolton (471)
Bolton-Leigh (582)
Leigh-Wigan (Current 610 but then 600)

I did find it odd that for some reason that while the route followed well established direct routes from Rochdale-Leigh that when it got to Leigh it was routed by the then 600 route via Lowton, Golbourne, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Bryn instead of following a more direct route from Leigh-Wigan via Hindley.

Another thing odd about 456 was the timetable as from Rochdale most journeys throughout the day were every 20 minutes but coming out of Wigan you had 3 buses an hour with 2 running every 20 mins and the 3rd 15mins behind the 2nd one (:00, :20 & :35).

 

[Parebunks]

Stumbled on arguably the biggest Bee Network route change so far whilst clicking through bustimes - the X50 Manchester to Trafford Centre is replaced from the 4th Jan with a new 30 running via Ordsall Lane and a loop of the quays instead of Castlefield and Chester Road, as well as a more comprehensive evening service.
Not sufficiently familiar with the area to comment on the change itself, but moderately disappointing that TFGM is yet to publicly communicate it. Seems to be something of a pattern given how hard it is to find Christmas running information on the website - a bit more on day-to-day comms and less on flashy launches and press might be prudent.

 

[markymark2000]

Seems to be something of a pattern given how hard it is to find Christmas running information on the website - a bit more on day-to-day comms and less on flashy launches and press might be prudent.

I'm sure it wasn't that long ago that the almighty Mr Burnham was sat doing demonising private bus operators for not properly informing customers of change, and/or failing to consult with passengers over changes. Oh how the tables turn. One rule for them, another rule for TFGM.

 

[M60lad]

Not to sure whether what I've been told is actually right but from what I can gather Christmas Eve in Manchester is normal service with virtually normal finishing times and this is from TfGM themselves when I asked them on X (Twitter).

 

[WibbleWobble]

I did find it odd that for some reason that while the route followed well established direct routes from Rochdale-Leigh that when it got to Leigh it was routed by the then 600 route via Lowton, Golbourne, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Bryn instead of following a more direct route from Leigh-Wigan via Hindley.

Another thing odd about 456 was the timetable as from Rochdale most journeys throughout the day were every 20 minutes but coming out of Wigan you had 3 buses an hour with 2 running every 20 mins and the 3rd 15mins behind the 2nd one (:00, :20 & :35).

The 600 was always the busier of the Leigh - Wigan routes, plus it meant buses could start or finish in Ashton for the two secondary schools there.

As for departure times from Wigan, that would be down to stand slot availability at one of the bus stations.

It was basically there to give drivers work outside of a school times and liven up otherwise dead mileage given they were based in Rochdale and moat of their work was in the Wigan and Bolton boroughs. Although it was just useful during the period First Manchester drivers were striking!

 

[mayneway]

Not to sure whether what I've been told is actually right but from what I can gather Christmas Eve in Manchester is normal service with virtually normal finishing times and this is from TfGM themselves when I asked them on X (Twitter).

Yes TFGM tried it last New Year’s Eve with services running as normal (some till after midnight) and felt it was a success so it’s being rolled out onto Christmas Eve this year.

 

[py_megapixel]

Stumbled on arguably the biggest Bee Network route change so far whilst clicking through bustimes - the X50 Manchester to Trafford Centre is replaced from the 4th Jan with a new 30 running via Ordsall Lane and a loop of the quays instead of Castlefield and Chester Road, as well as a more comprehensive evening service.
Not sufficiently familiar with the area to comment on the change itself, but moderately disappointing that TFGM is yet to publicly communicate it. Seems to be something of a pattern given how hard it is to find Christmas running information on the website - a bit more on day-to-day comms and less on flashy launches and press might be prudent.

Change will have some winners and losers in my view.

It will create some decent new connections and the late evening timetable is much improved. The X50 has been in decline for a while now - I think at one point its commercial operator (Stagecoach I think) withdrew it without replacement and it was awarded in a tender to Diamond, who ran it with single deckers that were often lightly loaded. It duplicates the tram for its entire length except the little section near the end through the Trafford Park industrial areas that has been incorporated into the 30, but even those aren't too far from the tram stops Village, Parkway and Barton Dock Road. So it's an obvious candidate for rearranging to do something more useful.

The main losers will be anyone who travelled from the city centre to that bit of Trafford Park and can't switch to the tram for whatever reason. Their journeys will be extended by about 10 mins, which is pretty significant when you consider it was only about 20 mins to start with.

Agree re. your comments about publicity. Service information is one of several broad categories where IMO most of the bus industry in this country needs to take a long hard look at itself and TfGM is no exception.

 

[Pinus contorta]

The 600 was always the busier of the Leigh - Wigan routes, plus it meant buses could start or finish in Ashton for the two secondary schools there.

As for departure times from Wigan, that would be down to stand slot availability at one of the bus stations.

It was basically there to give drivers work outside of a school times and liven up otherwise dead mileage given they were based in Rochdale and moat of their work was in the Wigan and Bolton boroughs. Although it was just useful during the period First Manchester drivers were striking!

There are 3 secondary schools in Ashton. Quite a big catchment as well. Didn't realise it was about balancing out Drivers Hours.

 

[citybus2500]

Stumbled on arguably the biggest Bee Network route change so far whilst clicking through bustimes - the X50 Manchester to Trafford Centre is replaced from the 4th Jan with a new 30 running via Ordsall Lane and a loop of the quays instead of Castlefield and Chester Road, as well as a more comprehensive evening service.
Not sufficiently familiar with the area to comment on the change itself, but moderately disappointing that TFGM is yet to publicly communicate it. Seems to be something of a pattern given how hard it is to find Christmas running information on the website - a bit more on day-to-day comms and less on flashy launches and press might be prudent.

There is Salford section 106 money and has been in planning for over a year and there was consultation. Minds, it looks like the original proposal has been amended as it was due to pass under one of the lower bridges in the area (a Stagey E400 yes, a new EV decker no) so it was to become single deck.

At times the X50 can be extremely busy, especially during peak periods around Trafford Park where it is the only service. It will be interesting to see how this service copes.

And aren't we still 3 weeks away from the start date?