Further highlighting why cross-town services aren't a good idea. I agree the 90 needs to be split, but you won't like to hear that the Walton end most likely wouldn't support a 30min frequency...
I think a cross town service has a place, and out of the peak times it works fine. What it really needs is a way to split it during the peaks to allow better reliability, or at least ensure common connections are made. The 90 at the Walton / Somersall end can be pretty busy, but unfortunately a lot are ENCTS users so I suspect it would fall in to the category of a busy service that doesn't cover its costs.
I do feel it's also a bit daft that the service up Chatsworth Road basically stops in the early evening, and there is practically nothing on Sunday. The diversions a few months back showed it's viable to operate the 84 via Somersall Lane and Walton Back Lane. I know these are tendered, so hopefully EMCCA can do something with a combined service for Somersall and Holymoorside evenings and Sunday, then cover Walton and Boythorpe separately. The 91 not passing the local supermarket makes it fairly useless to most. If the 90B hadn't been extended to Markham Vale then there would have been running time to do Walton Shops, but now it would be a bit tight.
Even the X17 has issues with bunching up, particularly a problem in the summer with Matlock Bath being packed.
The X17 has massive issues. I really don't know how the TC hasn't raised this as there is rarely a day where something doesn't go wrong. Totally not the fault of the drivers, the service just passes too many pinch points and traffic hotspots. The weekday peaks and all the weekend services really could do with some more time building in for recovery, or a less complex journey pattern so the knock-ons are less pronounced.
Does it justify 2x hourly Sheffield to Matlock? Could one be split in Chesterfield for operational purposes?
The first trip seems to have been cancelled for another reason, as its trip round Walton the first time was only 10 minutes late. The vehicle then missed a whole 90B trip followed by dead-running to Staveley to pick up the return trip, missing Markham Vale entirely. The second trip ran exactly on time by the looks of things.
The problem seemed to stem from delays to the 16:27 90A ex Markham Vale. This bus runs out to Somersall, then back in to town and out again at 18:08 to form the first 91.
There are very often problems, as any minor delay means this in and back out run becomes difficult to do in the time available. Daft thing is the bus sits in Somersall for 8 minutes before becoming the 91, but as drivers are often going to be late leaving Chesterfield runs get dropped.
I'd prefer to drop the outbound part of the 90A (17:32 ex Chesterfield) and keep the 18:08, as otherwise you have a very long gap until the 91 at 19:17. Otherwise, why not re-time that last 90 to 18:17 so the recovery time is in the town centre. It would connect better with the X17 from Sheffield and give gaps of 45 minutes then 1 hour rather than 36 minutes and 69 minutes.
Better still, extend the 17:20 X17 ex-Sheffield out to Somersall pretty much as it used to be. Timings would still work for it to operate the first 91 in to town and you'd not have the daft situation where the peak time departure from Sheffield misses the last bus out to this suburb by 3 minutes, with the next one over an hour later.
