First, we head to the High Peak’s version of Wigan… Glossop. It sits in a strange position at the foot of the Peak District National Park meaning it’s somewhat shielded from the rest of the High Peak by the, er, peaks but its residents (most are seemingly commuters to the City Centre via train) sorely wish it could be part of Manchester. Indeed, its train station, alongside Hadfield, is managed by TfGM and included in plans to be part of Bee Rail, but its bus network is mostly operated by High Peak Buses from Dove Holes near Buxton, overseen by Derbyshire County Council’s pen-pushers in Matlock an hour’s drive/over 30 miles away. Matlock is closer to Nottingham than it is to Glossop!
This sort of landlock situation forces most kids to attend schools just over the border in Greater Manchester (Hollingworth, etc) meaning that they are more likely to then progress onto GM colleges, for example Clarendon Ashton or Tameside College via the 237 – soon to become Bee in T3.
However, whilst teens living in Ashton can kind of get to Glossop and back for free using Our Pass (you try enforcing the GM boundary with angry teenagers at 5pm!), their friends living in Glossop can’t travel to Ashton free of charge – a little awkward when in a group I guess.
But thankfully, Mayor B has struck a deal with his East Midlands counterpart Mayor Claire Ward to dish out Our Passes to Glossop’shire yoofs, much to the disapproval of DCC leader Barry Lewis who said the plans were “unfair” to kids in the rest of the Peaks. But those protestations didn’t stop the East Midlands County Combined Authority who are bashing out a deal with the college bus providers in the area. Glossop’s only recently gained a McDonald’s so they really are catching up with the times!
A driver was assaulted on 31st July after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Protestors outside the Oldham Rd Holiday Inn in Failsworth caused him to stop, pelted the bus with objects, and consequently assaulted him. Police investigating. How that’s a peaceful protest, I’ve no idea. Sickening.
Time for GMCA/TfGM and operators to beef up driver security NOW.
The start date for the 24-hour service on the V1 and 36 was finally confirmed for 1st September. At least an hourly service, which for the V1 presumably means just 4 extra departures (0100, 0200, 0300, 0400) at the end of the current service day slotting between the current 0000 and 0500 departures from the MRI. 0000, 0100, 0200, 0300 between 2300 and 0400 from Leigh.
You know, just in time for the peak summer.
In the BNC July meeting’s report pack, some more details were given as to what the security situation would be:
- Team(s) of 2 officers with a vehicle [a van, I guess] per team to cover city centre loadings/drop-off [nothing in the quieter fringes!]
- Use of buses with enhanced CCTV
- Introduction of a ‘safe word’ for drivers to use
- Clear promotion onboard of Live Chat functionality for use both onboard and for onwards journeys
- Pilot with Strut Safe, a UK charity that offers a free (national) phone service to talk to anyone walking alone or to feel safer during their journey
- Consideration of using a single deck vehicle on Service 36
All sensible ideas.
Total cost of just running the night service for the rest of the year? An estimated cool £1.2m. TravelSafe/etc costs not accounted for, as that part was ‘restricted’!
The Oldham Times digested what some of the CRSTS funding for Oldham and the 409 could mean – apparently Bee’s busiest route. Let them explain.
The £50m of funding was discussed in the BNC meeting at the end of July.
The tram line between Market St and Victoria is currently closed for track renewal works at Shudehill.
The replacement bus service for the emergency Rochdale line closure finally staggered into life. Operated by a mix of Tyrers, Diamond/Preston Bus, and Transpora.
It seems the transport network and TfGM escaped relatively unscathed from the major IT meltdown from the CrowdStrike catastrophe 3 weeks ago. The only impact being its Local Link operation unable to take new bookings. I think all back to normal now.
A year ago, Manchester City Council appointed LDA Design to come up with some ideas on how to improve Piccadilly Gardens in a £25m revamp. Reports last week suggested that the bus station could move. Where to? Only God knows.
Mayor B rebuffed the suggestions on his Radio Manchester phone-in saying nothing has been decided.
New location suggestions on a postage stamp please. Going to hazard a guess that a postage stamp is the likely size of the new bus station, with 0 layover bays!
TfGM have started the ‘network reviews’ in the T1 area. CBW explain better.
More noise from what remains Manchester’s biggest waste of time now, the Co-Op Live Arena. The first big test of their dreams to host UFC fights for a televised American audience took place on the evening of 27th July when they hosted UFC304. TfGM organised free shuttle buses from 2200, every 5 minutes until 0200, running from London Rd to the arena, and after a short break return shuttles from 0400, again every 5 minutes, until 0800. Bravo.
In a surprise move, GNW have what PR busy-bodies would call ‘soft launched’ the location of a new depot. Denton depot – specific address unknown at the mo – was sneakily added into their website’s recruitment page a few weeks ago with a message stating that it is due to be operational by 2025. So I guess they’ll be using it for their T3 awards and for T2 schools moving from Heywood. It’ll take GNW up to 4 depots. Unsure how many discs etc at this time, but I think will make it equal pegging of 4 each between Stagecoach and Metroline in terms of Operating Centres.
Time to run through the report pack from the last BNC meeting at the end of July.
- More money flung into the Get Me There pit/’integrated ticketing’. This time £7.3m to provide ‘multimodal contactless’.
- A whopping £25m for ‘IS and ticketing systems and equipment assets required for the implementation of bus franchising’. Exactly how expensive are these new Ticketers?!
- £2.1m to take the Rochdale section of the ‘Quality Bus Transit’ (now called ‘Improving Journeys – Orbital Bus Routes’) from Outline Business Case to Full Business Case. GMCA looooove paperwork. Main construction of whatever the scheme becomes is due to start autumn next year.
- New stop on the busway at Mosley Common. I’m not sure what’s wrong with the current one.
- An audit of 4,300 bus stops has been completed to identify bus stop improvements. A whopping 4 have been “upgraded” so far.
- “Work on the second phase of delivery is now underway, which migrates the Metrolink back office (which does the fare capping calculation so the customer doesn’t have to) on our existing contactless system to the same as bus uses which will allow the third phase to commence. The third phase is the multi modal element, so a customer can tap on and off across Metrolink and bus and know they will be charged the best value fare.” GMT’s Metrolink side integrating more with Ticketer? Lovely.
- 3 new potential Metrolink stops: Cop Road in Oldham, Sandhills in Collyhurst (Homes England providing £0.15m) and Elton Reservoir in Bury. Key aim for the tram-train project is the ELR route. I hope they still allow the ELR to operate over the route once they send Metrolink down it or else it wouldn’t really be a ‘train route’. You could have steam and diesel trains from Bury depot following trams! Useful in a power cut, or when the link to the rest of the network gets severed by a landslip or something…
- £16.2m for on-street electric car charging, installations expected to start 2026.
- Noticed a small line in a budget table for ‘Metrolink Renewals (incl. TMS replacement)’. Could they be ditching TMS already?! Turns out if it’s broken, don’t fix it! TMS is, in my opinion, the sole reason for the whole network being so slow. The activation loops are just too close to the signals to allow a continuous movement at speed. Oh and the fact it can’t operate a level crossing barrier…
I’ll be honest, reading the report sent me to sleep. I’ll continue adding stuff of interest I see when I can.
