Time to end competition on buses due to pandemic?

[upasalmon]

23 buses per hour works out at one bus every 2 mins 20 secs approximately. Could I suggest when Tier 1, 2,3 ,4 is over you visit the Dale Street area of Liverpool. A Victorian would recognise the street pattern if not all the buildings. Don't forget the local ,non Wirral buses share the same narrow 19th century streets with the daily Invasion. Before 1987 just New Brighton and Heswall buses ran. Passengers used the ferries and the Merseyrail underground (which had reliability problems)
Recently the Birkenhead ferry was suspended and there was UPROAR from people who if they were honest used the tunnel buses, (currently only the Seacombe ferry is running)The ageing Gerry Marsden was dragged out to commiserate. Park And Ride could be the answer but car owners object and there is nowhere to site a car park or an adequate bus station. Perhaps a parkway could be set up in Birkenhead but where will the extra buses or train carriages come from?. Now surely there has been with COVID 19 a reduction in commuters crossing the river. During the lockdown a Sunday service applied on the tunnels, although that wouldn't be adequate in less than normal traffic.
Who'd be a public transport planner in Merseyside?

As opposed to one car every, er, less than a second? I'm certainly against overbussing, but this discussion is completely missing the real problem.

Should this perhaps go a different way, and recommend that the Birkenhead tunnel bans private vehicles completely?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2020 ==

Firstly I can't remove the "quote". The problem is 56,000 drivers will require 600 or 700 buses and lots of EMU carriages in extremis, either that or an intensive New York style ferry service. None of the above is going to happen .

 

[radamfi]

What I don't understand is why we are still paying for buses that are obviously duplicating the train or other bus services. If these services are commercial then fair enough, but now we are in an era when buses are running empty and only survive because of the bailout, surely it would be reasonable to cut duplicate services? At least until buses can run commercially again, people can use the train to cross the Mersey.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Firstly I can't remove the "quote". The problem is 56,000 drivers will require 600 or 700 buses and lots of EMU carriages in extremis, either that or an intensive New York style ferry service. None of the above is going to happen .

They can use the Wallasey tunnel. Which has the added advantage of not chucking cars out into the city centre.

Yes, I'm sure it's congested, but isn't that then light persuasion to use the other options?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

23 buses per hour works out at one bus every 2 mins 20 secs approximately. Could I suggest when Tier 1, 2,3 ,4 is over you visit the Dale Street area of Liverpool. A Victorian would recognise the street pattern if not all the buildings. Don't forget the local ,non Wirral buses share the same narrow 19th century streets with the daily Invasion. Before 1987 just New Brighton and Heswall buses ran. Passengers used the ferries and the Merseyrail underground (which had reliability problems)
Recently the Birkenhead ferry was suspended and there was UPROAR from people who if they were honest used the tunnel buses, (currently only the Seacombe ferry is running)The ageing Gerry Marsden was dragged out to commiserate. Park And Ride could be the answer but car owners object and there is nowhere to site a car park or an adequate bus station. Perhaps a parkway could be set up in Birkenhead but where will the extra buses or train carriages come from?. Now surely there has been with COVID 19 a reduction in commuters crossing the river. During the lockdown a Sunday service applied on the tunnels, although that wouldn't be adequate in less than normal traffic.
Who'd be a public transport planner in Merseyside?

That would be Dale Street that has two multi-storey car parks on it?

The number of buses in the city centre is minimal compared to the number of private cars entering that area. It really isn't the fault of buses that congestion exists. In fact, the road with the worst traffic congestion/lowest road speeds in the city is in Bootle and is almost 100% served by Arriva.

Moreover, why would anyone wish to get off their bus to walk across from a stop in whatever weather to get on a ferry to travel across the river to then be deposited at Pier Head and then walk into the city centre. Even if there was no financial disbenefit, I fear that were Merseytravel to simply truncate 8 buses an hour to stop at some windy ferry terminal, all you would actually do is to make bus travel less attractive. Yes, you'd get more people on the ferries but that's artificial manipulation of those who simply would have no other choice.

Getting back onto topic, what Merseytravel could support might be things that tangibly help bus operators. Now to be fair, Liverpool is actually better than some cities (probably because of the Georgian/Victorian street plan, and there is lower on-street parking than in other cities (e.g. Glasgow). Remove more of that (e.g Sir Thomas Street) and you both improve the availability of road space AND if parking is less plentiful/easy, you might actually start to encourage people not to drive into the city centre. That is what councils and PTEs should be doing and can be doing NOW. It's what the more enlightened councils ARE doing - see Brighton and Nottingham. However, as you said.... "car owners object" and so it's easy to cast the operators as evil or exploitative with the usual "London style network without the London style funding" tropes.

 

[scotrail158713]

What I don't understand is why we are still paying for buses that are obviously duplicating the train or other bus services. If these services are commercial then fair enough, but now we are in an era when buses are running empty and only survive because of the bailout, surely it would be reasonable to cut duplicate services? At least until buses can run commercially again, people can use the train to cross the Mersey.

Could you not flip that and ask why should the trains be running? People could just get the bus.

 

[radamfi]

Could you not flip that and ask why should the trains be running? People could just get the bus.

Obviously trains are intended to be the primary mode of public transport and buses are there to fill in the gaps.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

What I don't understand is why we are still paying for buses that are obviously duplicating the train or other bus services. If these services are commercial then fair enough, but now we are in an era when buses are running empty and only survive because of the bailout, surely it would be reasonable to cut duplicate services? At least until buses can run commercially again, people can use the train to cross the Mersey.

Because, in general, bus and train services DON'T duplicate one another. Take the 407 as an example. Yes, it operates from West Kirby to Liverpool, and so on a superficial level, it duplicates the Wirral line. In reality, it serves a number of communities where the rail line is peripheral (e.g. Moreton, Meols, Bidston) and the stations located well away from main population. Therefore, it performs the role of local bus service within and from those communities. Even when it then begins to run parallel with the line in Birkenhead (between North and Park), those two stations are some distance apart so the bus really does serve those communities. For example

• Were I to live in Hoylake, the choice would be to get the train to Liverpool (31 mins) or the bus (57 mins in peak).... You'd get the train and I'd suspect most people do.
• Were I to live in Meols, and want to travel to Hoylake, it's 4 mins on the train but the station is peripheral and involves heading away from Hoylake so you get the bus.
• Were I to live in Bidston and want to head to Liverpool, the bus is 31 mins to Liverpool vs the train 20 mins. Bidston station is nearly half a mile from the village centre (10 min walk), and involves crossing a dual carriageway. Even if you're fit enough (and many people aren't), do people fancy a 10 min walk? I doubt it so you get the bus which conveniently stops in the centre of Bidston.

This is a common misnomer that buses and trains compete as usually, it comes down to convenience and if the train is as convenient (proximity), it wins on speed.

Again, wrenching this back on topic (see @GusB - I'm trying ), it's another reason why I get concerned about the dead hand of centralised control, forcing people onto trams or trains because of some perceived duplication.

I know @Bletchleyite feels passionately that we should have better integration in the UK. I agree - there shouldn't be artificial barriers to integration, and we should make it simpler. However, I also feel we should avoid the dogmatic approach that forced integration is the default position. In some parts of mainland Europe, they "do" integration much better and usually because rail/metro/public transport is front and centre of the planning process when building developments.

What the various LAs and PTEs should be worried about is the duplication..... of people driving their cars when there is a perfectly good, reliable public transport available.

 

[radamfi]

Because, in general, bus and train services DON'T duplicate one another. Take the 407 as an example. Yes, it operates from West Kirby to Liverpool, and so on a superficial level, it duplicates the Wirral line.

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

That would be the ultimate integration, and is what the Germans would do in most cases. However, people in the UK hate changing (other than on the Tube, for some reason). So the effect of that, nice and tidy though it would be, would be more cars, just as doing basically the same thing on Tyneside did.

 

[CBlue]

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

Are taxpayers paying twice if the bus is a commercial service?

Privately operated companies don't bother running routes for the fun of it, hence why so many services carry on through the tunnels to central Liverpool as that is what passengers want. The same could be said for a bus service that duplicates a railway line - locally to me Stagecoach gave up running Cambridge-Royston because the Great Northern rail service was quicker and more frequent. Amusingly the route now operates again under local authority funding.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are taxpayers paying twice if the bus is a commercial service?

In a way, yes, because if the railway has fewer passengers because a commercial bus is sniping them then higher subsidy is required.

That was the exact scenario that played out while Express Motors was mucking about on the Conwy Valley. OK, you can argue to bin the train off in favour of bus, but unless you do it does effectively waste subsidy.

 

[radamfi]

Are taxpayers paying twice if the bus is a commercial service?

There are no commercial services at the moment. Buses are only running because of the taxpayer bailout.

 

[6Gman]

I do not know if there is really a problem with too many buses in the Birkenhead Tunnel, never having seen the responsible highway authority complaining about it. However, there are means at the Local Authorities' disposal to deal with the problem if they so wished. The fact that they haven't used these powers may indicate that they wouldn't do anything about it in a regulated environment either. Perhaps the politics get in the way?

I've used the Birkenhead Tunnel a few times (always by bus) and thought it worked well. Little congestion, plenty of services. In a list of "problems facing the bus industry in the UK" I'd list it at number 38,243,876,452.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2020 ==

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

Are you familiar with the layout of the relevant stations?

I'm in the middle of Liverpool and want to go to somewhere on the Wirral. I walk down to the bus stop (the streetname escapes me, is it St Thomas Street?); it's within a few minutes walk of the city centre. I get on the bus, open my paper, get off where I need to get off.

OR

I walk to Central, Moorfields or James Street. At the latter two getting to the station entrance is just the start! Shall we say they are not passenger friendly!

I get off at Hamilton Square, then walk down to (presumably) Woodside bus station. Which is a cold, draughty Godforsaken hole of a place. Then, and only then, I get on the bus, open my paper etc.

 

[upasalmon]

All I will say is that buses, and earlier in the 20th century trams met the ferries In 1990 the Pier Head Bus Station closed starting the madness underlying this topic. This genie isn't going back to the bottle and I accept that with total frustration! Time for bed!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

Exactly as @Bletchleyite says....

That would be the ultimate integration, and is what the Germans would do in most cases. However, people in the UK hate changing (other than on the Tube, for some reason). So the effect of that, nice and tidy though it would be, would be more cars, just as doing basically the same thing on Tyneside did.

As I explained before, you have a number of stops/locations that are simply some distance from the nearest station. As well as those with impaired mobility who cannot walk the distances involved easily, a lot of people especially in the autumn/winter months are not going to walk distances in the cold/wet/dark through choice.

Therefore, they are going to get the bus from places even between Birkenhead Park - Birkenhead North.

Let's just say that someone lives in Birkenhead Park near the Arriva depot and wants to go to Liverpool. They can:

• Walk 10 mins to Birkenhead Park (0.5 miles), then say 3 mins interchange time, and then train to Liverpool (Moorfields) being 10 mins = 23 mins
• Bus to Birkenhead (let's just say it runs from the bus station to Hamilton Square) 10 mins, then interchange time 3 mins, then to Moorfields by train 10 mins = 23 mins
• Bus 407 all the way to Crosshall Street in Liverpool = 19 mins

Why would they want the inherent hassle of a multi-stage, multi-modal journey? As @Bletchleyite says, we Brits don't like it. The Europeans probably aren't so keen but it's more culturally engrained and again, much of their development and infrastructure is set up to facilitate this.

If you stopped the bus running through, even in these Covid times, there's every chance that rather than get the direct bus or the convoluted routes I mention, they'll simply use the car (and remember, with WFH and furloughing, there are quite a few cars sat on drives that are now available for someone's other half to use). Do that for long enough and they'll be gone forever.

 

[radamfi]

Why would they want the inherent hassle of a multi-stage, multi-modal journey? As @Bletchleyite says, we Brits don't like it. The Europeans probably aren't so keen but it's more culturally engrained and again, much of their development and infrastructure is set up to facilitate this.

If you stopped the bus running through, even in these Covid times, there's every chance that rather than get the direct bus, they'll simply use the car (and remember, with WFH and furloughing, there are quite a few cars sat on drives that are now available for someone's other half to use). Do that for long enough and they'll be gone forever.

So what are you supposed to do if there isn't a direct bus? People work in all kinds of locations these days, not just the city centre. What are they supposed to do?

If someone is using the car today, does that mean they are lost to public transport forever?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

So what are you supposed to do if there isn't a direct bus? People work in all kinds of locations these days, not just the city centre. What are they supposed to do?

If someone is using the car today, does that mean they are lost to public transport forever?

That's a different argument. You are talking about the removal of a direct bus that exists now; removing it would be a disincentive to use public transport. In what way would making those journeys multi-stage (when they currently aren't) promote patronage?

As for the wider point.... Public transport works well as a mass mover of people; it can never seek to cater to every permutation or journey. The fragmentation of workplaces to out of town locations (e.g. retail parks, business parks, etc) has been a major challenge for the last 40 years. It's why bus networks more than ever tend to work on a hub and spoke system (with few orbital routes) because the focus is on getting people to/from the centre. Trying to cover every possible orbital requirement is very difficult because there are few destinations with the critical mass of patronage, save for major hospitals or the biggest out of town shopping centres.

And yes, there's a very definite risk that if you force a person to use, or even buy a car, you have lost them.

 

[L401CJF]

Coming from somebody who drives crossriver buses, why shouldn't buses go through to Liverpool and terminate in Birkenhead just because trains are frequent? Under normal circumstances the buses are busy and make a tidy profit on Crossrivers, why should people have to get on a 437 in say Greasby- which isn't near Merseyrail, and then change in Birkenhead for a connecting train to Liverpool? Not only would they then have to buy a bus and train ticket each day (or a trio pass if regular) which costs considerably more than a bus operator weekly pass, plus add the hassle of changing onto a train when they could just get the one bus?

Yes buses and trains are frequent between Birkenhead and Liverpool, but let's not forget most passengers arnt travelling from Birkenhead, they're travelling from everywhere else on the route, a direct transport link is surely favourable than splitting journeys into 2 halves? If Merseyrail goes down for whatever reason, everybody pours onto the crossriver buses to get back over the water. Yes rail replacement services will turn up eventually, but it would be a lot more chaotic without the service bus to assist too.

 

[upasalmon]

Please read post #65. I miscounted the Wallasey Tunnel figure and the good news is that 407 could be rerouted via Wallasey tunnel taking the total to 13 p.h. The single journey 420 would remain. The full 6 bus p.h 437 would carry on too, even though it would raise my Birkenhead quota to 16 buses per hour. That's all, folks!

 

[carlberry]

But surely there is duplication between Birkenhead and Liverpool? We (the taxpayers) are paying twice. Once for the train and once for the bus. There is a train something like every 5 minutes between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Surely that's enough? That bus can run between Birkenhead and West Kirby.

The bus isn't provided by taxpayers. If the trains are not full then reducing the number of trains would save the taxpayer serious money, if they are full then theres no issue.

 

[radamfi]

That's a different argument. You are talking about the removal of a direct bus that exists now; removing it would be a disincentive to use public transport. In what way would making those journeys multi-stage (when they currently aren't) promote patronage?

As for the wider point.... Public transport works well as a mass mover of people; it can never seek to cater to every permutation or journey. The fragmentation of workplaces to out of town locations (e.g. retail parks, business parks, etc) has been a major challenge for the last 40 years. It's why bus networks more than ever tend to work on a hub and spoke system (with few orbital routes) because the focus is on getting people to/from the centre. Trying to cover every possible orbital requirement is very difficult because there are few destinations with the critical mass of patronage, save for major hospitals or the biggest out of town shopping centres.

And yes, there's a very definite risk that if you force a person to use, or even buy a car, you have lost them.

So does that mean there's no point improving public transport because if they are lost to car usage, they are lost for good?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2020 ==

The bus isn't provided by taxpayers. If the trains are not full then reducing the number of trains would save the taxpayer serious money, if they are full then theres no issue.

Buses are being heavily subsided through the bailout at the moment. I'm not talking about the pre-Covid times where most routes were commercial.

 

[6Gman]

All I will say is that buses, and earlier in the 20th century trams met the ferries In 1990 the Pier Head Bus Station closed starting the madness underlying this topic. This genie isn't going back to the bottle and I accept that with total frustration! Time for bed!

Yes, I can remember the Pier Head Bus Station too.

But time moves on; the city has moved on.

And running the buses to a pier head that's basically a tourist attraction makes no sense.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The bus isn't provided by taxpayers.

As things stand it is.

 

[carlberry]

Obviously trains are intended to be the primary mode of public transport and buses are there to fill in the gaps.

Why? Trains are inflexible, expensive and, in a lot of cases, less environmentally friendly. They are excellent at moving large numbers however sacrificing everything at the altar of trains makes public transport less inviting for lots of people especially when railway stations are badly positioned.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

So does that mean there's no point improving public transport because if they are lost to car usage, they are lost for good?

Eh?

In what way is making a passenger make two journeys instead of one, and it taking longer, an improvement?

 

[AB93]

The bus isn't provided by taxpayers.

As things stand it is.

Yes, but that's a very poor argument to withdrawing what were previously very viable services.

What happens when things start to return to some sort of normality and people return to offices, etc? And they find their bus service is gone.

I doubt Grant Shapps is too worried about the in-the-grand-scheme-of-things tiny amount of support money being used on previously competitive services. Certainly when considering that the money going to prop the railways up (less passengers than buses pre-Covid) is vastly more than the bus industry.

 

[radamfi]

Why? Trains are inflexible, expensive and, in a lot of cases, less environmentally friendly. They are excellent at moving large numbers however sacrificing everything at the altar of trains makes public transport less inviting for lots of people especially when railway stations are badly positioned.

Trains have shown to be effective at getting people out of cars and have had a big increase in usage over the last few decades, unlike buses.

 

[upasalmon]

I need to reiterate I'm not arguing for a return to the bus/ferry/bus co mmutes but a separate city centre bus station to take tWirral services. Heaven knows where but it has to be PLANNED and as in ALL bus facilities a FINITE number of buses has to be agreed on. A congestion charge might be a way forward but the tunnel tolls are unpopular.. In this game every silver lining has a pawn ticket.

 

[radamfi]

Eh?

In what way is making a passenger make two journeys instead of one, and it taking longer, an improvement?

You said "there's a very definite risk that if you force a person to use, or even buy a car, you have lost them." That surely means that people who have already been lost to cars cannot be won back.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2020 ==

As things stand it is.

Do you suspect that there is likely to be a change to the rules of bus deregulation in the not too distant future?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Trains have shown to be effective at getting people out of cars and have had a big increase in usage over the last few decades, unlike buses.

Yes but that's rather a two dimensional assessment. Trains and buses have equally important roles.

You said "there's a very definite risk that if you force a person to use, or even buy a car, you have lost them." That surely means that people who have already been lost to cars cannot be won back.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2020 ==

Yes - if you withdraw the direct 407 and make it a more convoluted journey involving a change and it taking longer, then that may mean that you could lose passengers permanently.

Now, back to the question I asked, in what way is making a direct bus journey of 19 mins into a bus/walk/train journey of at least 23 mins an improvement to the passenger?