Lancaster Park & Ride Improvements Revealed

Lancaster's park and ride service, which began in 2016, has always been hampered by two major flaws: the lack of any bus priority on Caton Road from the car park site to the city and cheeseparing by the County Council that has restricted the service to one-bus operation, meaning only a half-hourly frequency can be offered.  On the plus side, the inability of the same council to provide ticket machines at the car park means that the planned parking charge has never been imposed, leaving users with only the modest bus fare of £1.60 return to pay. (A passenger boarding a local bus outside the car park site would pay £3.70!)

Destinations served in the city are also limited, with pick-up and drop-off points restricted to George Street, China Street (promoted as "for the railway station" but in reality a 300m partly uphill walk away) and the bus station.

Any improvement to frequency or extension to the route would require at least a second vehicle, but it now appears that plans are afoot to bring this about - subject as always to funding being found.

The Royal Lancaster Infirmary, located to the south of the city and shown at the bottom of the map above has always had a problem with parking, both for staff and visitors. Planning permission has been granted for the construction of a new car park at the hospital, but the downside of this is that during construction the current number of parking spaces will be reduced.

As one of a number of mitigation measures agreed between the County Council and the Hospital Trust funding will be made available (by the Trust) to improve the Park and Ride - increasing the frequency and extending the route. The idea is to encourage hospital staff and visitors to leave their cars at the Park and Ride site and catch the newly-extended bus service to the hospital.

The new route is shown in a surprisingly-amateurish plan contained within the Planning Agreement that gives the go-ahead to the car park and shown below:

Park and Ride buses will run directly from Caton Road to the Infirmary, before turning at the Pointer roundabout and returning to the Park and Ride site via Queen Square, China Street and the bus station.  The map refers to a stop on King Street, but this would appear to be an error.

Provision of a second vehicle is intended to allow the frequency to be improved to every 20 minutes during peak hours and every 15 in the off-peak, this disparity reflecting the lack of bus priority and apparent acceptance that car traffic will continue to disrupt the service when it is needed most.

Whilst the Bus Users' Group welcomes the frequency improvements it is concerned that the service may become too skewed in favour of the hospital above other users. Passengers for the city centre will have no option but to travel through the city to the Pointer without the option to alight and the remaining city centre stops at Queen Square and China Street will involve crossing the one-way system to access the shops. At least a contribution of £10,000 will be made to enhance the Queen Square stop with a shelter (it already has a raised kerb).

The Hospital Trust is required to start paying for the improved service as soon as it starts work on the car park and will continue to make the contributions for a further three years after completion. There is, as yet, no firm date for the introduction of the new route and timetable as the Trust have to ensure that they have funding for the car park works in place, although the BUG understands that staff have been informed that construction will start in the New Year.

Transport for the North Chases Rainbows whilst Bus Services Fade Away

The past few years have not been good ones for bus services in the north of England. As elsewhere, a shortage of funding from local authorities has led to large-scale withdrawal of supported services with evening, Sunday and rural services particularly badly hit.  In 2016 Lancashire County Council reduced its spending on buses by £5M per annum, leaving large parts of the county with no buses after six-o-clock or on Sundays.

But for other areas of Transport it appears that money is no object and according to a report in the online newsletter Transport Network,  "Transport for the North" (TfN), a self-styled partnership of local authorities, business leaders and central government agencies has been spending money like water - unfortunately to little effect.

TfN, which describes itself as "England's first sub-national transport body, formed to transform the transport system across the North of England, providing the infrastructure to deliver economic growth" has as one of its key objectives the provision of an "smartcard-based integrated transport ticketing system for public transport throughout the North".  The aim is to replicate the "Oyster Card" system in use on buses, tubes and trains throughout London, although many former users of Oyster Cards now use their contactless bank cards to provide the same benefits.

TfN set itself three targets for phased development and introduction of the scheme.  Phase one - an integrated smartcard across Northern Rail, Trans Pennine and Merseyrail (but not Virgin Trains or East Midland Trains) had an introduction date of the end of 2018.

The first stages of phase two,including  adding bus and light rail fares to the mix was to be complete by Spring 2019  and Phase 3, the setting up of a system to co-ordinate and operate the integrated smartcard system across the north was to be ready by the end of last year.

TfN has not stinted in its efforts to spend money on the project.  A total of £9.6M has been spent in 2018-19 with "tens of millions" being held in reserve for future spending.

So, what do the bus and rail passengers of the North of England get for their millions?  The answer is "not a lot".  Bear in mind that the Oyster Card, which TfN are seeking to replicate, allows ticketless travel by all modes of transport throughout Greater London. It also includes an automatic capping system whereby once the cost of the journeys made during a day or a week reaches the level of a daily or weekly travelcard all further journeys during that period are free, just as they would be with a paper ticket. The advantage,of course, is that you don't have to calculate in advance how much travel you are likely to make and decide whether or not to invest in the daily or weekly ticket.

And how far has TfN got towards replicating this?

The existing "Walrus" smart card is only valid on Merseytravel services and does not offer any capping or pay-as-you-go facility.

Trans Pennine's smartcard can be used for travel between any two stations for a week or longer periods up to a year. It offers no other functionality and is merely a plastic version of a paper ticket.

Northern's smartcard is similarly merely a plastic season ticket.

A spokesman for TfN apparently told Transport Network that developing an integrated smartcard system was proving "extremely complex" but that they were working with the Department for Transport and operators to find a way forward.  However, the business case for developing the system for operating the scheme has been awaiting government approval since February.

What nobody seems prepared to admit is that replicating the London system elsewhere in England is bound to be fraught with difficulty.  London's multiple bus and rail operators all work under the control of a single organisation - Transport for London - which franchises the network. There is one simple zonal fares system for tubes and a flat fare on all bus services.  Compare that with the North, where each train operator has a separate franchise agreement with central government, which also sets many - but not all - of the fares and where all of the multiple bus operators have complete commercial freedom to set fares, together with a duty to maximise returns to shareholders.

TfN is always going to find introducing an "integrated fares system" difficult and the Bus Users' Group can't help but wonder whether the £9.6M spent so far - to no effect - would have been spent improving bus services that people actually want to use.

Another Bus Stop Success

Following the Bus Users' Group's involvment in procuring new bus stops on service 11 in Marsh we have had another success, this time assisting local people at Denny Bank - on the A683 - to get some certainty over where buses will now stop to pick them up.

The bus stops at Denny Bank serve not just the isolated row of houses that line one side of the A683 Caton Road from Lancaster, but also residents of Halton, who walk there from the village to catch buses towards Ingleton and Kirkby Lonsdale as an alternative to travelling into Lancaster on the 49 and out again.

But there has always been some uncertainty over where they should wait, with passengers and bus drivers often having different ideas.

Denny Bank bus stop (centre of photo) with unmarked stop opposite on Street View

The stop for buses towards Lancaster is clearly marked (although usually blocked by parked cars). Google Maps shows a stop directly opposite, but this is not marked on the ground in any way. The southbound stop is labelled "both directions" but of course that isn't easily visible from the other side of the busy A683.

Halton residents had previously asked Stagecoach to mark the stop but told the Group that they had had no response. But knowing who to ask is key to achieving a solution and an email to the right person in County Hall resulted in an early promise to get a pole and flag erected just before the trees on the northbound side of the road in the photo.  It also appears that whereas the southbound stop is officially named "Denny Bank", its northbound equivalent is "Denny Beck" and LCC have also promised to put this right.

It has to be said that Halton residents would have preferred a stop farther back towards the junction with Denny Lane to avoid the walk along the A683 but road safety considerations precluded that and hopefully the new stop sign will make things better for passengers and drivers.  The BUG takes the view that uncertainty is one of the biggest barriers to persuading people to travel by bus and uncertainty as to where the bus will stop has to be one of the biggest barriers.

We have found Lancashire County Council easy to deal with on the matter of bus stops and very quick to respond, usually in a positive manner.  The Group will be happy to take up any further bus stop issues with them if they are brought to our attention.