Similarly continuing the links down Great Howard Street are a joke. The current 2 service hardly carries anyone, the Isle of Man terminal bus before that was a waste of time. The 136 hardly picks anyone up that couldn't use another bus service.
The Isle of Man ferry terminal bus was always rammed when I used it. And of course it would be: the Isle of Man to Liverpool ferry route is predominantly foot passengers, and it is a long old walk from the new ferry terminal into the city centre.
Given the regeneration occurring in the ten streets area and around the new Isle of Man ferry terminal, I'd say a regular bus along that stretch of road is badly needed. It'll be interesting to see if this is replacing the 2 and, if so, whether they will take the opportunity to extend the route to somewhere like Bootle New Strand where it would be more useful.
It depends on the type of DRT. If you have something like the old Wiltshire Wigglybus, where you had a defined core route but that people could book a variation from the route (within reason), then that worked which is what I think you're alluding to in your final comment.
The tech-driven aggregation of volumes model doesn't work. As you say, you're likely to have one person having it as a personal taxi.
Without wishing to go too far off topic, the DRT in the north of the Isle of Man works to an extent because it has fixed times at the main traffic centres but can deviate from the route according to demand.
But generally aggregation of volumes simply doesn't work, as you say. If there is a notable volume of passengers all wanting to go to the same place at the same time then you may as well run a scheduled bus. If there isn't then, as you say, you're effectively running a cheap taxi service.
From what I saw of the Speke DRT scheme the buses either had at most 1 or 2 people on them or they were parked up in Morrisons car park.
