Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

[Brickmill]

RE: Arriva North West - Winsford Depot

(16/12/2017 04:30)mr t Wrote:  Spot on, absolutely every journey is different every day and every week, this is what passengers and PTEs do not understand, It is impossible to predict 100% accurate. Yes there is the "average journey" during lunchtimes, evenings and early mornings, but each week could be affected by bank holiday, football match, bingo nights on, school parents evenings, school shows/meetings, sponataneous roadworks that always spring up unannounced, something in town on, something at the arena, something on in the park, which then obviously affects journeys either through extra passengers or extra other traffic which all affects journey times, then we have emergency incidents breakdowns, mr white van man who will stop in a lane meaning a bus has to wait 30secs-60secs to get past, or taxi driver, or parkings at schools. It is unfair of TGM to expect an operator to have accuracy so well for every single journey and then give them 5 minute layover, then moan when they are late! Especially on long journeys like 130 which is 2 hours long nearly. The only way around it would be to vastly over estimate journeys and give each one 2.5 hours instead which then results in stopping at timing points...but then what if something happens in the city centre and its been on time all the way there, then gets held up for 5 minutes but has no recovery time then. Absolute joke that TFGM

As I've said elsewhere, in the case of the 130, Parker Street is controlled by Manchester City Council TROs not TFGM slot restrictions - albeit TFGM would do something similar. It might also be worth remembering that 130 is one of the longest surviving services wholly or partly in GM. Rightly or wrongly, Stagecoach and Arriva have "bitten the bullet" and truncated or even withdrawn such services eg. the 22 and 32, because they now its impractical with all the imponderables you mention above (though I'm not sure what bank holidays have to do with it, as they have a seperate schedule).
Trouble is, amongst your hyperbolic criticism of the system, you don't suggest a practical solution, other than inferring 130s should be allowed to park on the stop for considerably more than 8 minutes every hour.