Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

[Jw88]

RE: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

(15/09/2026 14:27)MTL0201 Wrote:  The Sunday 407 needs retiming as that goes a few minutes behind the 438A which is bonkers considering both routes are hourly on Sundays

407 departs Birkenhead for Moreton around xx45
438A departs Birkenhead for Moreton & West Kirby xx41

It's not great going from Moreton either

407 departs Moreton Cross for Birkenhead & Liverpool xx18
438A departs Moreton Cross for Birkenhead & Eastham Ferry at xx16

My suggestion is keep the 438A times as they are, but retime the 407 to run about 30 minutes later so that's better co-ordinated with the 438A frequency between Birkenhead & Moreton.

As for the 407 Liverpool-Birkenhead Sunday shorts that's so buses don't spend so long on layover in Liverpool but this is surely an error.

xx32 from Liverpool arrives in Birkenhead at xx45,
xx57 from Liverpool arrives in Birkenhead at xx21.

How does one take 13 minutes with the other one taking 24 minutes on exactly the same route?

https://merseytravel.adidocdn.dev/timeta...5Oct26.pdf

I am unsure of why the 407 shorts though the tunnel will take longer, that will lead to longer layover times.

It is a shame they did not try and interwork the 407 with a trailed evening and Sunday service on the 464 if timetabling allowed, instead of going back and forth through the tunnel on short routes to and from Birkenhead Bus Station, where there are plenty of buses going the same way

It is a waste of resources to run one bus behind the other, there are many examples of this across the network with large gaps then two routes come in the space of 2 - 5 minutes, while changing, the current 423 and 471/472 overlap each other between Liverpool and Arrowe Park minutes behind each other then no bus for 30 minutes, although, it looks the problem still persists, with a 4 minute gap between services 413/471/472 before a 26 minute gap before the next bus. Spacing out the times was something i hoped franchising would have achieved.