Manchester Metrolink Service Patterns

[tbtc]

We know that the new Metrolink lines are being built and the proposed frequencies on each line, but has anyone seen a guide to which routes will be paired up?

For example, all Rochdale services to run to Manchester Airport, all Oldham services to run to East Didsbury (that kind of thing)...

 

[Nym]

South Manchester Line:
5tph off peak, 10tph peak. From the looks of things running into Piccadilly Gardens

Oldham Loop Line: 5tph Rochdale, 5tph peak only additionals to Shaw, by the looks of things will either run through to Piccadilly or Media City UK

Airport line: 5tph, not a clue where to, no additional peak services.

East Manchester Line: 5tph off peak, 10tph peak. Currently looking like terminating at Piccadilly Gardens, but may join onto the E Didsbury Services,

Yes, that will mean that by 2016 there will be, running between cornbrook and piccadilly gardens (if the 2CC doesn't get built) or St Peter's Sq if it does.

Peak:
10tph from Alt'ham
10tph from Eccles & Media City
10tph from East Didsbury
5tph from Manchester Airport

And if the Trafford Park & Port Salford line is built, add at least another 5tph onto that.

40tph, on two tracks, this is going to be fun

The 2CC route has also been revided to include 4 platforms at St Peter's and run via a slightly diferent route to Victoria. From the looks of the artists impressions that I have seen the're leaving the possiblility open to extened the Metrolink down Oxford St and Oxford Road, to a logical terminus on Wilmslow Road in Fallowfeild, but from the facings of the junctions, it wouldn't work out too well as the excess of services is from Cornbrook, not Victoria or Piccadilly Gardens

From Victoria Peak: 20tph
From Piccadilly Peak: 25tph
From Deansgate Castlefeild Peak: 35tph

 

[tbtc]

the excess of services is from Cornbrook, not Victoria or Piccadilly Gardens

From Victoria Peak: 20tph
From Piccadilly Peak: 25tph
From Deansgate Castlefeild Peak: 35tph

Thanks for your answer, the part I've quoted is the bit which confuses me, working out how the three ends will tie up like this.

I'd wondered whether the second city centre route would be to take all "Cornbrook to Victoria" services (to try to avoid jams at the "triangle" at Piccadilly Gardens)?

I wonder what Stagecoach think of the plans, since the new lines are all going to impact upon their bus routes (apart from the Rochdale/Oldham line which directly replaces a train line)

 

[Nym]

Oh trust me, theres plenty of demand to go around...

The major bus routes being replaced by the south Manchester line (in stagecoach land) have plenty of demand to go around, and will remain to haver plenty afterwould.

The 86/87 Chorlton via Upper or Lower Chorlton Road services stop by at the RNCM where they pick up a lot of passengers, there is a large student population in Chorlton. They will continue to use the buses, the same with the, 47, 47A, 147 and 50 to East and West Didsbury, a lot of passengers on these routes are traveling between the OR corridor, fallowfeild and didsbury, the buses will simply be slightly less busy.

For how busy I've seen the 50 at peak times (The express Manchester - East Didsbury via Kingsway) bus, I don't think it will make any diference to service frequency, or how busy these buses are, as the metrolink serves quite a diferent market, and the 50 is always rammed anyway, have seen it once at E Didsbury where they where setting off two or three at once because there wans't enough space on one bus.

Also, Stagecoach run the trams and the buses

Getting the metrolink into oldham is only going to win back passengers that got shoved onto buses in the first place, that take 1 hour peak to get into Manchetser, as apposed to the NR services that took less than 20. One thinks they really should have built another line and station into Oldham aswell as this metrolink line, (Ashton U Lyne - Mumps anyone?) If nothing else but to cater for the massive Oldham - Manchester flow.

The 216 - 219 & 230 - 237 (East Manchester Line buses), similar situation, the're always rammed, and they probebly will stay rammed as they serve more detinations 'off route' if TfGM comes up with intergrated ticketing then some of these bus services would possibly turn into feeder services for the metrolink stations, but I don't think thats going to happen any time soon in GM, you still can't even buy a through ticket from the Metrolink to another Gm station, I think thatwould be the next step with so much metrolink in Manchester now.

Not nessesarally from outside Manchester but I think it should be possible to buy a ticket from for example, Farnworth to Sale. Although, there is a really easy way to get intergrated ticketing between national rail and metrolink, force Metrolink to join ATOC, fares would remain to be set by TfGM as with rail services, and through ticketing will be possible again. Even just having them not in ATOC but through ticketing available between the networks as is available in the TfL network would be nice, I don't use the metrolink primeraly because of the lack of through ticketing.

Heh, next steps for Metrolink should be re-opening some of the orbital trackbeds around Manchester.
Ashton U Lyne - Oldham
Bolton - Bury - Rochdale (Castleton)
Bolton - Walkden - Eccles
Oldham - Greenfeild?

 

[WatcherZero]

You know you can ask for a return ticket from any rail station to a metrolink station? You also now can get a ticket from a Metrolink station to a GM rail station as those rail zone tickets are finally back in the machines. I tend to buy the rail ticket which of offpeak return Wigan-Manchester + all day tram though its price is exactly the same as buying the two tickets seperately.

 

[umontu]

I'm looking forward to seeing if I can use the new network but surely at moments like this (the need for a second city crossing) it becomes more favourable to segregate the traffic.

Would a tunnel instead of a street crossing be likely to work or ever exist? Might mean a quicker crossing, it's not like the trams can't be run through a tunnel.

 

[WestCoast]

I'm looking forward to seeing if I can use the new network but surely at moments like this (the need for a second city crossing) it becomes more favourable to segregate the traffic.

Would a tunnel instead of a street crossing be likely to work or ever exist? Might mean a quicker crossing, it's not like the trams can't be run through a tunnel.

I'd have thought a tunnel would be useful but obviously requires a lot of £££££s which never seem to be forthcoming outside London for this type of scheme.

Perhaps something similar to the old Pic-Vic tunnel proposals, but for the tram?

 

[WatcherZero]

The road the existing City Crossing runs across (Mosley st) is planned to be closed to all traffic except trams in the future so will become segregated from everything except pedestrians though it will still have to cross a couple of perpindicular roads via traffic lights. Currently Mosley st is Tram/bus only northbound and tram/bus/car southbound. Several times collisions have occured when drivers (usually disqualified or drunk) try to turn northbound instead of Southbound from the side road next to the Gallery into the path of an oncoming tram which isnt expecting their paths to cross.

 

[umontu]

I had a feeling money would be the problem and even with pedestrians it's difficult to navigate.

If the pic-vic idea was to resurface, as it has, again would it not make sense to somehow link these? I don't mean run metrolink trams on NR lines but still killing two birds with one stone sounds favourable to only slightly widening the bottle neck.

What's the top speed of the trams through pedestrian zones, does anyone have a better memory than me?

I'm also wondering where the two stations on metrolink's plans are going, Arndale seems logical for on of them.

 

[WatcherZero]

They shifted the plans around slightly so one of the stations is the existing St Peters Square which is moved from the end of the square nearest Manchester Central to the opposite end nearest Piccadilly Gardens and expanded to two island platforms, the second station is at Exchange Square outside the entrance to the Arndale where the big wheel is at the moment.

 

[Nym]

It's all locally set speed limits, most of them that I've seen where running on a pedestinanised area like Piccadilly Gardens would be 12 or 15km/h, 20 - 30km/h on CC street running, like near the courthouse. Street running is limited to 50km/h and segregated 80km/h IIRC

 

[umontu]

They shifted the plans around slightly so one of the stations is the existing St Peters Square which is moved from the end of the square nearest Manchester Central to the opposite end nearest Piccadilly Gardens and expanded to two island platforms, the second station is at Exchange Square outside the entrance to the Arndale where the big wheel is at the moment.

Ah, I see.

It's all locally set speed limits, most of them that I've seen where running on a pedestinanised area like Piccadilly Gardens would be 12 or 15km/h, 20 - 30km/h on CC street running, like near the courthouse. Street running is limited to 50km/h and segregated 80km/h IIRC

Thanks, 80kmph is the top speed so that makes sense.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

MESSAGE FOR NYM

You quoted buses 47 and 47A in an early answer on this thread.

I regret to inform you that the latest revamping of Manchester centre buses has led to the final demise of the bi-directional 46 and 47 circular routes, which is a great pity as this route goes back a very long time indeed. The replacement would appear to involve possible joinings, but with change of existing routes, of services 84 and 42A, to which is supposed to give a new link to Reddish, but the logic of that particular reasoning totally evades me.

 

[Nym]

MESSAGE FOR NYM

You quoted buses 47 and 47A in an early answer on this thread.

I regret to inform you that the latest revamping of Manchester centre buses has led to the final demise of the bi-directional 46 and 47 circular routes, which is a great pity as this route goes back a very long time indeed. The replacement would appear to involve possible joinings, but with change of existing routes, of services 84 and 42A, to which is supposed to give a new link to Reddish, but the logic of that particular reasoning totally evades me.

Well, I've been driving round Greater Manchester now for over two years, so thats proberbly why my bus route knowlage outside of the Oxford Road corridor and my local routes in Bolton are a tad out of date. I don't tend to use buses in South Manchester, parking is readily available and cheap south of Fallowfeild.

After consulting a bus map I was meaning to mention the routes 42 and 42A.

So to correct what I said before, the loadings of the 50 may be affected by the S Manchester Metrolink Line, but much less so the loadings of the

42, 42A, 43, 130, 142, 143, 171, 179 and X57.

I'd sat it will more affect the loadings of the expressish busses up Princess Road from Southern Cemerery, such as the 101
http://www.tfgm.com/pdfmaps/network/2_manchester_south_180411.pdf

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I saw the line to Droylsden briefly on the route out of Piccadilly from the viaduct as I was on a York bound First TPE that left very early in the morning from Platform 1.

Is there to be a new-style Metrolink station at Manchester Piccadilly which will co-ordinate any new cross-city conjoined routes, which may be an extention of the existing Metrolink station?

I have not studied the Metrolink system as my main interest is in hard rail, but the recent expansions of the system has changed my perception of light rail.

 

[umontu]

According to what I've seen there is to be a new reversing tunnel, which suggests the current one is to be used for the exit out to New Islington station, other than that I don't think there is to be a huge amount of changes to Piccadilly.

I did go looking for a picture that was online of the tunnel out the other side of Piccadilly, can't find it now think it was on Flickr but it seems similar to the other side and comes out below the Network Rail portacabins.

 

[jonesy3001]

If you click on the link below,most of the pics are from the new turning circle outside piccadilly and the extensions to ashton,chorlton,droylesden and oldham.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=866944&page=400

 

[umontu]

If you click on the link below,most of the pics are from the new turning circle outside piccadilly and the extensions to ashton,chorlton,droylesden and oldham.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=866944&page=400

Cheers for that!

 

[jonesy3001]

No problem from page 400 onwards are all pics of whats going on at the mo

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

We know that the new Metrolink lines are being built and the proposed frequencies on each line, but has anyone seen a guide to which routes will be paired up?

For example, all Rochdale services to run to Manchester Airport, all Oldham services to run to East Didsbury (that kind of thing)...

The corporate planning of TfGM will want the three lines currently under construction to be further advanced before they will issue any DEFINATE published proposals on through running, as done on the Bury to Altrincham line at present. Note that there is no Bury to Eccles service at present, although both routes are fully operational as seperate entities.

This does not mean that there has not been much thinking by TfGM in the eventual planning of routes, as traffic movements of road vehicles will have to be planned for and total congestion, if not gridlock, of the areas in the city centre of Manchester,is not allowed to happen. Bodies such as the Police and the emergency services will most certainly have to be involved in any such preliminary and final discussions.

I will gladly be corrected if such a document, published by TfGM, is in the public domain.