Back in late-May 2017 I found myself with some time to kill in the north-west of the Greater Manchester conurbation. What better idea than to go and ride on the newest kerb guided busway in the UK, from the town of Leigh, opened just over a year ago. There are two services currently operating on the busway, branded Vantage by First Manchester, with route V1operating from Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) to Leigh and the V2 from MRI to Atherton.
1. INFRASTRUCTURE
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| The Leigh terminus is the bus station, which seems to be one of the more recently modernised bus stations in the Greater Manchester conurbation. All ticketing is done on-vehicle and is normal First Manchester fares. |
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| V1 service loading at Leigh bus station. |
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| Park and ride site on the outskirt of Leigh town centre. All the stops on the kerb guided section follow this model of being more akin to a rail/tram stop with larger shelters, a platform type kerb and a supposed real-time information display (more later). |
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| The two services come together at Astley Street. The V2 from Atherton does not run on any guided sections between Astley Street and Atherton. Astley Street has another park and ride facility, and is also served as an interchange by non-guided bus routes.
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| Cars encroaching on to guided busways has been something of an issue in recent years, with cars driving on to Manchester Metrolink also something of a trend following the substantial expansion of the Metrolink network in recent years. Therefore plenty of signage is provided on the entry to guided sections. Unlike the Luton-Dunstable guided busway there are no speed limit signs on entry. |
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| Car traps are provided at the entry to the guided sections too. |
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| The Busway does seem unduly hilly and twisty when a much straighter alignment looks achievable. On the Sunday of my visit the adjacent footpath was busy with walkers/runners/cyclists etc. |
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| Another typical stop on the Busway. |
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| Less than halfway from Leigh to Manchester the Busway ends, at the junction with Newearth Road. |
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| The one stop on Newearth Road is more conventional in design. There has not been an 'end to end' approach to passenger facilities for the Vantage service. |
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| However there has been some attempt at creating bus priority measures end-to-end. This is the East Lancashire Road. |
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| However when the space (or money) runs out the Vantage service rejoins the main carriageway on the East Lancashire Road. in the morning peak I expect this is extremely busy. |
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| As the Vantage routes approach Salford they are subject to numerous speed bumps. Again a full end-to-end approach has not been adopted. Putting speed bumps in bus lanes on busy radial routes is both crazy and loses a lot of the attempt at creating a higher quality, smoother service. This road is used by many bus routes, I think if traffic calming must be installed a speed cushion , which a bus can straddle, would be more appropriate. |
2. SERVICE
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| A fleet of Wright bodied Volvo B5LH buses have been branded for the Vantage service. |
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| Interiors featuire large comfortable leather seats with branding for Vantage. Downstairs the seats are more conventional bus seats, although still in purple leather. |
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| Smart wood effect floors are provided, and the corporate purple of First Group slips through in the chair legs! |
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| The Vantage route from Tyldesley in to Manchester. |
3. IN OPERATION
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| At-stop timetable information produced by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) from Astley Street to Manchester is rather unhelpful listing the V1 and V2 separately when they operate an identical route and combine to a higher frequency. |
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| The timetable format used by First Manchester is much more user friendly in both layout of the timetable and presentation. |
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| The timetable on a Sunday is half hourly to both Leigh and Atherton, resulting in a quarter hourly service over the common section. Therefore the sight of two vehicles running together westbound suggests major delays..... |
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| Especially when it happened again! |
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| The information screen at the westbound stop was not working, so no ability to pass any information on to customers.... |
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| Not that the working screen eastbound was much use. Every bus appeared with Chorlton Upon Medlock as its destination before later changing to the MRI. Chorlton Upon Medlock does not feature on any timetable or map produced by either TfGM or First Manchester! Each V2 bus arrived three minutes before it was expected, whilst the 12:15 V1 service counted down 3 3ins...1 min....bus approaching....and then disappeared off the screen, with no bus. Therefore these are not real time, and who knows where the data on them is coming from. |
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| So the next departure on the V2 was bursting at the seams. |
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| Passengers who were jammed in standing downstairs certainly were not being treated to a VIP experience. |
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| Loadings were such that the bus drove past this girl (who's expression I love)..... |
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| And straight past these people...... |
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| And stopped short of these people..... |
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| And these, who somewhat expectantly started walking towards the bus. |
4. CONCLUSION
I left the Leigh Guided Busway feeling somewhat disappointed. There are people who want to use it: every bus stop had a queue, and there were plenty of cash fares going over the cab door, so it can only be a profitable operation (there have been frequency increases on weekdays post-launch). But I also saw too many people walking away when buses didn't turn up, when there was no information when they might turn up, and many intending passengers passed by an already full bus.
The infrastructure does not provide an end-to-end rapid transit experience. with the journey time and reliability benefits that should bring. It relies on running with regular traffic, which on a weekday will be a detriment to reliability, and the Salford area inexplicably is speed bumped. TfGM/Salford City Council need to address these ridiculous pieces of infrastructure for the benefit of all bus passengers.
The at-stop electronic displays are neither use nor ornament. Where they work they are not providing accurate or real time information; many did not work. The provision of accurate real time information for a 2-route bus network should not be expensive or rocket science, and TfGM and First Manchester need to get this working.
I think First have the right idea by taking this beyond a conventional bus service. Premium bus products appear to be doing well: Stagecoach Gold, Arriva Sapphire and West Midlands Platinum all seem to be expanding to more and more routes. Vantage has by far the nicest interiors of any, with USB charging and wifi provided. Drivers were consistently well presented and friendly. But then it's let down by TfGM applying its conventional bus information standards which are stuck in the 1980s. I don't know how the guided busway is accessed, i..e if First Manchester have any kind of sole access rights, but it seems that applying more Vantage and less GMPTE style branding would be a good thing.
And finally reliability. Whoever told the guv'nor "yes sir we're ready for marathon day" was plain lying. Half hour gaps in what already looks like an inadequate frequency combined with buses being not just full, but standing throughout the lower deck, does not provide a remotely tolerable experience for the new users to public transport that guided busways and Vantage should be attracting, let alone the promised 'VIP experience'. Add to that the forty-or-so people left behind on one trip. Am I being harsh? The day I visited was five days after the bombing of the Manchester Arena, and on the day of the Manchester Marathon/Half Marathon. Both should surely justify more resource? It seems that a quarter hourly frequency on Sundays in inadequate in any case.
#WeLoveMCR but not enough to get you there.
