Cheshire East Local transport engagement

[iMarkeh]

RE: Cheshire East Local transport engagement

(25/11/2020 14:58)knutstransport Wrote:  It's important to consider why they want a bus service. If it's shopping then a bus to any town with a supermarket is adequate e.g. people living in High Legh can't complain they need a bus to Altrincham for shopping if they have a bus to Warrington. If it's medical reasons then it's less straight forward. For instance, NHS outpatient services are offered at Knutsford Community Hospital and each of the specialists are generally only there for one half day per week so a bus on Wednesday only is no good if you need to see the gastro specialist, as he's only there on a Tuesday. I'm also aware at Wilmslow Health Centre some of the NHS outpatient services are offered at evening surgeries, great for the people who work normal office hours but not-so-good for those working without cars if the last bus leaves too early.

No bus can serve everyones needs though and it goes back to the point that buses can't run for one or two people. They need to run where it makes financial sense to run them. Just because it's a tender, doesn't mean it's acceptable to be very lightly used.

(25/11/2020 14:58)knutstransport Wrote:  I was talking about Knutsford and Wilmslow, not little villages like Styal, Ashley & Mobberley. For an evening service it could be more viable to serve Knutsford station where you can get 50+ alighting a single service from Manchester, than Wilmslow where there's numerous trains and 80 people could be spread across 5 services each arriving at different times. (Not to mention Knutsford station bus stop is on the A road between Knutsford and Macclesfield, which the B road towards Wilmslow and the over ward part of Knutsford branches off so no diversion is required to serve the station.)

88 evenings could work but I got the impression they want to aim to meet trains at most of the stations.

(25/11/2020 14:58)knutstransport Wrote:  Yes but as D&G have most of the Cheshire East contracts it's how many of the subsided bus services in Cheshire East are currently run, so very relevant for the purpose of this survey. Reworking the timetables could make the difference between a token service to a village being possible with an ordinary bus and saying people in said village need to pre-book for Flexilink, subject to availability.

I disagree partly there. Just because that's how D&G run, they are now under new ownership and if/when Centrebus get a grip of D&G, things might change. It's also worth noting that other companies do run some CEC contracts and I think that there could be potential for some other services to be ran by other companies. What suits D&G doesn't suit everyone else and that is why alternative bids and negotiations happen. One of the issues CEC has is that a lot of the services have a high PVR or they are all linked with other services so D&G win by default due to the operations (dead millage or PVR). If CEC changes how it does things with the upcoming review, it might end up as lots of lower PVR services being put out as route specific tenders and not bigger combined ones.

It's a bit of wait and see as to how CEC will end up doing things. Perhaps this consultation is just there to keep people in jobs and to try and prove to residents that they are listening. Nothing may come of it but also huge changes could come about.