The Bus Chronicles: Why it sucks to live in Cheshire or Derbyshire but commute to college in Greater Manchester

Some young people. Possibly with free bus passes.

Because of my day job, I've become increasingly aware over the past few years of a basic injustice that exists when it comes to the cost of 16-18 year olds commuting for education purposes. 

Those under 16 have their own issues, some of which a recent campaign in the Manchester Evening News also highlighted.  Most of the problems stem from the fact that free travel to school is linked to the distance from the students house to the students place of education. If you're in high school and live over three miles away from your school, you will get free travel to school. If you live nearer than that, you will have to pay to travel to school or else walk it or get a lift. Which isn't always possible. 

My high school was two and a half miles away from my house. The only bus was the school bus and if it didn't turn up, you had to walk. Travel on the school bus wasn't free but you could apply for an Under 16's Bus Pass and buy a weekly 'clipper card' at a concessionary rate. So far, so predictable.

The problem came when I enrolled at college and discovered that I was no longer eligible for the concessionary rate of travel.

This was because I was now sixteen and therefore had to pay adult fare. 

The only way to get concessionary travel on the buses as a college student was to apply to what was then the Greater Manchester Transport Executive (GMPTE), now Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), for a Scholars Permit. The scholars permit was free to apply for but you had to state very specifically the two geographical locations you were travelling between. This was because the pass was only for travelling to college, not anything else. If you wanted to go shopping after studying, or travel at the weekend, you'd be paying the full adult fare. Many of my college friends were either unaware of the Scholars Permit, or else couldn't be arsed applying for it. They paid for weekly Megariders on Stagecoach instead, at the full adult fare, as it was less hassle. 

These days, we live in more generous and (in some cases) enlightened times. Those who live in Greater Manchester, ie those who are under the Greater Manchester Authority as led by Andy Burnham, who - it's fair to say - seems to like both buses and young people, are eligible for the Our Pass scheme. For a one off £10 fee, 16-18 year olds (or 25 for care leavers) can have free bus travel across Greater Manchester. But only if they live in Greater Manchester.

This might seem blindingly obvious: Why would you need an Our Pass if you didn't live in Greater Manchester? but.. it's not as straightforward as that.

If you go to college in Greater Manchester, you might well be commuting in from outside the area. An example of this would be sixth form students who live in Derbyshire or Cheshire East who are being educated outside of the area in Stockport (Greater Manchester). Thanks to the random discrepancies and idiosyncrasies of cross boundary travel, they are having to pay to travel to college every day whereas their classmates who live in Greater Manchester are not. 

So, if you live in Hazel Grove, you can get an Our Pass and travel for free.

If you live literally next door in Poynton, you will have to pay.

A student I worked with a couple of years ago was regularly so upset about the basic injustice of this that I was moved to write to TfGM on her behalf. The response I received at the time was helpful and it did pinpoint the essential problem: Money.

TfGM would be willing to extend free travel to college kids commuting in from outside the area, they said, but the local council areas in question would have to pay for it. I would therefore need to take the matter up with Cheshire East council and Derbyshire County Council.

I took it up with both Cheshire East and Derbyshire last summer and, while I did receive a helpful response from Derbyshire, I don't think they'll end up doing it.

I received no response at all from Cheshire East which, given the dire straits the council find themselves in, came as no surprise whatsoever. 

Cheshire East do offer the 16-19 Bus Saver, which means students can apply for a pass and, on production of that pass, they can pay the concessionary rate of £1 per single journey so long as their journey starts in Cheshire East. I think this means that commuting from Macclesfield or Poynton to Stockport would cost £1, but commuting from Stockport to Macclesfield or Poynton would mean having to buy an Adult Bee Anybus ticket on the 391. I have no idea how much Belle Vue, who operate the 391, advertise this ticket. Or how much it costs. 

Derbyshire County Council offer the confusingly named b_line2 card, which gives concessionary travel on buses and trains to 16, 17 and 18 year olds. Access to the scheme ends on the students 19th birthday, which is a bit of a bummer if you fucked up your GCSE's and are doing three years at college. "In most cases these are issued by schools" says the website, adding that those at colleges, doing apprenticeships, or other training courses need to apply themselves. The pass covers travel within Derbyshire, at any time of day and on any day of the week, and it also covers neighbouring counties: But only if travelling on a direct route. So, if you got the 199 from Stockport to Whaley Bridge it would be fine, ditto the 199 from Whaley Bridge to Stockport. But if you were commuting to college in Manchester from Whaley Bridge, you'd be paying for the Stockport-Manchester leg separately. 

What we currently have does feel very much like a two tier system. One that has evolved by accident, and which impacts a comparatively small amount of students, but one that exists all the same. 

Given that a report by MP's recently called for free bus travel for under 22 year olds in order to help them into work and into education, and that such a scheme already exists in Scotland, it seems I'm not alone in thinking about this. It will be interesting to see what happens next. 

Photo by Simon Maage on Unsplash

The Bus Chronicles: The 'No more twirlies' bus pass trial

I was very pleased to hear that TfGM and the Bee Network will, throughout August, lift the barrier on pensioners travelling for free before 9:30am. Admittedly, it's only being done on a trial basis and they want to monitor how often it's being used and how much it's likely to cost before they decide whether to abolish the 9:30am start time forever or not, but it's still a start.

For one thing, it means my dad now doesn't have to pay to take one of our cats to the vet for an operation at 9am later this month. It would, had the restriction already been lifted, also have meant that one of my friends didn't have to pay to travel to Chorlton for a mutual friend's funeral back in June. 

It does seem to have belatedly occurred to transport operators that just because people are of retirement age they might still have to get up early in the morning for things like appointments, funerals, or - let's be honest here - work.

Similarly, with the lifting of the travel cap at midnight, it also seems to have occurred to transport operators that retired people might have a late night social life as well. 

This is all to the good. 

The Bus Chronicles: Four of the fuckers at once

On Friday, I had the pleasure(?) of catching the 192 to Hazel Grove in order to collect the remainder of the cat's prescription from the vets after work.As such, I was party to the usual puzzling conundrum: Why is it, when you actually want to go to Hazel Grove, there is never a 192 coming down the road that is actually doing the full route?

In fairness, I think I'd just missed one, but when you're standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus for a good fifteen minutes or so and three 192's to Stepping Hill Hospital go past, it does get annoying. Especially as it reminded me of all of those times last November when I was waiting at the same bus stop, trying to get to the hospital at night. When all of the 192's that came along were going to Hazel Grove, not the hospital.

Eventually, the welcome sight of a big yellow double decker bearing the legend 'Hazel Grove P&R' homed into view. Followed by another one. And another one... and another one.

As the gentleman who had just arrived at the bus stop put it: "Four of the fuckers at once."

I don't feel he meant it as a compliment.

The actual journey was quick and uneventful, which is so remarkable on both counts that it really does deserve to be set down on record.

And then there was the 45 minute walk home, in blazing heat, from the vets. 

Both Hazel Grove and Offerton are ludicrously badly linked when it comes to buses. They are literally next to each other but there's no connecting bus. Similarly, there is no connecting bus between Hazel Grove and Bramhall to the other side of HG. On paper, HG seems well connected because the 192 (the Bee Network's busiest and most frequent bus route) runs through it. But it only runs through the centre, not the outskirts of what is not so much a village as a small town. 

To provide a bit of local history here: Back in the 1800's, Hazel Grove was three separate villages: Bullock Smithy, which is now the centre of Hazel Grove, Norbury, which is now the bit of Hazel Grove that sits next to Bramhall, and Torkington, the bit that sits next to Offerton. You can see echoes of the three old names throughout the area. At some point, they were brought together as one large village under the name Hazel Grove, a name I've never discovered a satisfying or plausible origin story for. The name Hazel Grove is, alas, almost certainly the justification for the metal sculpture outside Sainsbury's at the border of Great Moor and Hazel Grove. 

Because it was such a long walk, and I have a new mp3 player to break in, I had my headphones in for the duration. This served to remind me of how certain songs just really work when it comes to walking. In this case, weirdly, Nitan Sawhney's 'Days of Fire'. I found myself thinking about songs that really work in odd situations: Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab', for example, used to get played a lot in my old launderette in Heaton Moor, and is weirdly brilliant for shunting piles of washing around to. Similarly, on a very full on shift on a Saturday at the University Library, I discovered that Rachel Stevens' 'Some Girls' is fantastic for emptying a book sorter to. And then there is the oddly effective way that Carly Simons' 'Why?' works when you're pushing a supermarket trolley around the store. 

I don't think anyone can actually write, or playlist, a song deliberately according to whether you are walking, washing, book sorting, or supermarket shopping. But I know when I've come up against bad choices: Both The Ting Tings 'That's Not My Name' and Kate Nash's 'Foundations' really, really don't work in supermarkets, for example. That said, the time the Co-Op in Heaton Moor played the Wednesday version of 'Paint It Black' followed by the old Addams Family TV theme tune around Halloween a few years ago probably remains unbeaten. 

I arrived home sweaty and blistered, but with a strong sense of completion. 

Photo of Vernon Park in Offerton by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

Journalism revisited: Could tram-trains finally connect Stockport to Manchester's Metrolink network?

 In the light of this weeks announcement that Stockport was FINALLY going to get it's own Metrolink line, I wanted to look back on a piece I wrote for CityMetric in February 2020, when Covid was only just coming on the radar, and when Andy Burnham had proposed a slightly different way of getting trams to Stockport... 

Interestedly, or slightly ironically, tram-trains are now being floated as a possible solution in terms of bringing Bolton into the tram network.

This piece was originally published on the 11th February, 2020 in City Metric. City Metric shuttered at some point during the pandemic, and this piece can no longer be found online. It is being re-published thanks to Authory, who back up my articles for me, ensuring that I never lose my work. 

Could tram-trains finally connect Stockport to Manchester’s Metrolink network?

On the January 22, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, announced plans to extend Manchester’s Metrolink to Stockport. The extension relies on the success of the trials of tram-trains, which local Tories have previously signalled support for.

According to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), tram-train refers to “a light-rail public transport system where tram services like Metrolink can share lines with conventional trains”. The idea is that tram-train routes would “help to improve access to the city centre at the busiest times, while also offering more capacity on the heavy rail network”. Using existing or re-opened railway lines would also be cheaper than building new tram lines. 

It’s probably worth noting at this point that Stockport has two Tory MPs and that the Johnson government currently has a strong desire to please voters in the north.

While the prospect of Metrolink coming to Stockport is good news for the town, residents can be forgiven for shrugging and saying, “Believe it when I see it mate”. 

Aside from being glass half empty people a lot of the time, we have been here before.

Stockport should have had the Metrolink 15 years ago: It was promised to the town under the ‘Big Bang’ plan of the early 2000’s, which included a new line to Manchester Airport which would have continued on to Stockport. That line was scrapped, along with new lines to Oldham and Rochdale, by then transport minister Alistair Darling in 2004. Having been burnt once, Stopfordians won’t believe we’re getting Metrolink until we see the first tram pull into the town centre. 

Why should we be more hopeful this time? For one thing, Metrolink and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) seem to have learned a series of very hard lessons since 2004. Chief among these is that, rather than going for large, expensive projects, any extensions to the Metrolink would have to be achieved by smaller projects, such as the lines to Manchester Airport (but not to Stockport), Rochdale and Oldham (which were all eventually built as separate projects) in a slower, more piecemeal fashion. 

Another reason why the Metrolink is more likely to come to Stockport this time is that work starts this year on the Stockport Interchange building project, intended to improve the existing bus station. The project was first mooted as one of the projects that would have been funded by a proposed congestion charge in 2008. Having spent £120m on Stockport Interchange, keeping it solely for the use of our far from perfect buses while providing a better linking route to our atrocious trains would be a missed opportunity: space for a tram route and tram stop are apparently included in the plans.

A tram-train network would also be cheaper than building a series of tram lines to Stockport. It’s been proposed before, alongside suggestions that closed railway lines could be re-opened to run the tram-trains. Three of the four potential routes TFGM has identified for possible tram-train development are in Stockport, or would pass through Stockport. 

A map of possible new routes and stations. Image: TfGM.

It’s this compromise of tram-trains rather than “proper” trams that makes me feel like a poor country cousin though. Not only have I spent the past 15 years feeling like an urchin peering in through the windows of the big house at the rich children with their luxurious toys, but I’m now not even going to get the same toys as those children. Personally, I’d take second hand toys, but there is still a suggestion of the Stockport Metrolink being an afterthought. 

Still, better second hand toys than no toys at all. The population of Bolton aren’t even mentioned in TfGM’s future plans for the Metrolink, despite having a better designed transport interchange than Stockport currently has. God only knows when Bolton will be getting any trams.

The Bus Chronicles: The Bee Network, six months in

The 3rd of June marks the sixth month anniversary of the Bee Network. Or, to put it another way, it will have been six months since franchising was rolled out across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester.

With this in mind, now seems like a good opportunity to look back and reflect on what have been the good bits and the bad bits of this form of franchising so far. Unfortunately, as a regular bus user, it's actually easier to spot the things that haven't gone so well than the things that have gone well.

One area that has seen an improvement is contracts for drivers, with the 'Licence for Greater Manchester' now meaning that drivers can leave one of the bus companies operating on the Bee Network in order to work for another one also operating on the Bee Network, without having to start at the new company on a basic salary. Ie, they can keep their previous grade and salary when they move companies and will no longer have to take a pay cut every time they change operators. This is really good news because it removes barriers to moving jobs, which is always a good thing, and in practical terms would mean that if you're working for a shit bus operator you can now move to a slightly better one without having to take a pay cut for the privilege of doing so. 

An area where the Bee Network sought to make positive change was in the design and accessibility of the new yellow buses, which were meant to be more accessible for those with disabilities and with visual and hearing impairments. On paper at least, this has been achieved in that the new buses do have floors that can be lowered, there is greater space for wheelchairs, and there are stop display screens and recorded audio stop announcements in place. In reality though, it just isn't working as it should be.

Let's take the changes one at a time.

In terms of having a bus that can lower the floor to the same height as the kerb, this is something that was in place on most of the old buses anyway (certainly on Stagecoach buses) and, as previously, while it's good to have it and it should be standard, the implementation of it's use depends very much on the individual driver as well as on the individual driver's access to the bus stop. For example, the 385 is cursed by having a large number of bus stops without road markings where local residents are forever parking their cars with impunity. This makes it hard for intrepid 385 drivers to pull into the stop and get close enough to the pavement to ensure a smooth exit from the bus. A drop down floor doesn't solve this particular problem. Proper road markings for bus stops and enforcement action against motorists parking at bus stops would. 

The greater space for wheelchairs is really good and does ensure that there is more room on the buses for those using a wheelchair. I'm really glad that it was built into the design, but... It does mean that there are now less seats on the buses. Especially the single decker buses and the smaller single decker buses that basically resemble a minibus. This unfortunately leads to more people standing in the aisles, hindering access for everyone, including those using a wheelchair.

The visual display screens and audio announcements were being trialled on Stagecoach pre Bee Network and, as with the ones on the Stagecoach buses, the problems have remained the same: They are rarely switched on and, when the drivers do remember to switch them on, they often have the wrong end of the route displayed. There is literally no point in looking at a list of real time stop information for the Hawk Green and Mellor end of the 385 route if you're actually travelling in the opposite direction towards Stockport. It tends to be even rarer for the audio stop announcements to be switched on and, again, they sometimes are wrong as well. I'm assuming that the three main reasons why the visual and audio stop info isn't switched on are as follows:

1) Lack of training on how to switch them on and ensure they are working properly.

2) Tech failures

3) Drivers find the audio announcements annoying and know that some passengers do as well.

This all leads me onto a number of other areas in which the first six months of the Bee Network can be seen to have not been that great.

Firstly, there have been problems with vehicles. Not just the new vehicles - which have definitely had problems, both as described above, but also with payment scanners not working properly for days or weeks at a time - but also with old vehicles. Specifically, there have been a number of occasions when I've flagged down a bus that I know is my bus (because no other buses stop at that stop) but it has either not had a destination or number displayed on the front of the vehicle or, on one memorable occasion, has had the 'Sorry, not in service' display up while still carrying passengers. 

There's also driving styles, which leads onto a personal bugbear of mine, ie drivers who don't know how to drive over speed bumps without treating passengers like a sack of spuds in a delivery van. 

The big problem is, of course, reliability. According to the data that the Bee Network has collected over the past six months, reliability on bus routes in Tranches 1, 2 and 3 of the Bee Network is constantly improving. But it doesn't feel like that to passengers. As regular readers will know, the reliability of the 385 has - in my experience of using it - decreased since the contract was taken away from D&G and given to Diamond in January. Similarly, while it felt as though reliability on the 383 had improved since January, it now seems to be sliding backwards again (more on this in my previous post). With reliability in particular, perception of passengers is as important as cold hard statistics. If people don't feel that they are getting an improved service, they won't feel good about using the Bee Network. And they may even stop using it. 

The Bus Chronicles: The 199, a cross boundary bus adventure

The 199

I've always liked the 199. 

This dates back to the decades before re-regulation when I still lived in Hazel Grove and was working evening shifts in Manchester. In theory, I should have been able to catch a 192 from Manchester Piccadilly that would take me all the way to what is now the Park and Ride in Hazel Grove, but what was then just known as Carpet World. In reality, it wasn't uncommon - particularly on Friday's when I finished at 7pm, not 9:30pm - to be stood at the bus stop, watching a long run of part route 192's appear and drive off. If I'd been waiting a while, I would give up and get on a part route one, then get off and Stockport town centre and hope to catch any of the following:

1) A 192 that was doing the full route

2) A 199 going to Buxton via Hazel Grove

3) A 392 or 393 going to Macclesfield via Hazel Grove

4) A 391 going to Middlewood via Hazel Grove

The 392 and 393 seem to have fallen by the wayside since January, meaning that there is no longer a bus that can take you to Macclesfield from Stockport, and commuters are now entirely at the mercy of Northern trains, which is not a happy state of affairs. I'm guessing that the reason it's gone is because for it to continue TfGM, Stockport Council and Cheshire East Council would have had to have cooperated with each other and subsidised it together, and presumably no one could be bothered. Cheshire East Council has no money so that probably didn't help. 

The now extinct 392

Anyway, the 199, which travels between Buxton and Manchester Airport (via Hazel Grove and Stockport town centre) is a cross boundary route which was always going to survive. It's really popular, runs regularly (every 30 minutes most of the time), is covering areas other routes don't cover, and it's being run in conjunction with Derbyshire County Council, not Cheshire East. 

Because there is no bus service linking our end of Offerton to Hazel Grove anymore (the one that did previously was the 375, which was so infrequent as to be practically non existent anyway) it was a 30 minute walk to the A6 to pick up the 199 from Bird In Hand Yard. This turned out not to be the best choice of stop in the world because, as with most stops on the A6, it's pretty much impossible to have a clear vantage point on whether the bus is coming without standing in the way of the constant flow of human traffic heading along the pavement. At least there's a nice wall to sit on though.

We were going for the 12:21 bus only it never arrived and we instead ended up on the 12:51, which arrived around 1pm ish. Apparently there had been an accident somewhere along the route, possibly at the Airport end, and there was definitely a serious crash in Buxton so that probably had an impact as well. I'm not sure if Skyline simply pulled the 12:21 bus and didn't tell anyone (a'la Stagecoach) or if their timetable had just got so badly out of sync thanks to at least one serious RTA that the one that turned up at 1pm was the one that should have turned up at 12:21. We will never know.

I've never gone beyond the TfGM/Derbyshire border* on the bus before, so I've always been able to use my TfGM pass previously. Because we were going to Chapel-en-le-frith, which is across the Derbyshire border, I had to pay £6 for a Peak Network 1 Day pass, which I think is the one that covers you for all buses run by Skyline. They sell a number of different day passes by zone and, while I was expecting Chapel to be covered by the Buxton zone ticket, I was willing to be guided by the driver on this. Again, because it's Derbyshire, not Greater Manchester, the single fare cap is £3, not £2 anyway, and £3 each way would have been value for money for a 35-45 minute bus journey. 

One of the reasons why I've always enjoyed using the 199 is that the buses are always clean and comfortable, the drivers are friendly, and it just feels pleasant travelling on them. Friday was no exception to this and I was very pleased to notice, after a while, that Skyline have visual and audio stop announcements (which were turned on and displaying/broadcasting the correct information on both buses) which came in very useful when it came to getting off at the right stop in Chapel. 

On the way back, I discovered that I could still use the Bee Network app (even in Derbyshire) to see when the next 199 was due. I think it was late but, given that we only had to wait for 10 minutes for it, I was happy with that. It did take several attempts to figure out how to scan in with the QR code on my paper ticket but, once I'd mastered it, it was fine and a smooth return journey unfolded, followed by a long walk home. 

*Lyme Park, which technically comes under Cheshire East, but which is right on the Cheshire East/Derbyshire border and, anyway, marks one of the geographical points where you have to start buying a separate ticket and can't use your TfGM/Bee Network tickets.

The Bus Chronicles: Stagecoach's nasty habit makes a return

Before the Bee Network came to Stockport, most of the buses (with the honourable exception of the 385 and 199) that I used were run by Stagecoach. 

This hasn't actually changed that much since January (except on the 385 route where the service has declined since being taken off D&G and given to Diamond) because the 199 is a cross boundary route (ie it goes to Buxton, which is in Derbyshire, not Greater Manchester) and all of the other routes I use have remained with Stagecoach. 

Stagecoach were one of the companies who took the GMCA to judicial review in order to try and stop the Bee Network from happening. Admittedly they only did this once (as opposed to Diamond, who did it twice) but, with this in mind, I am forced to conclude that, after all the legal challenges were defeated, Stagecoach must have put in some seriously hard graft when it came to charming the pants off the people awarding the bus contracts as they have basically been allowed to keep what seems like almost all of the bus routes they had previously. Aside from ones like the 375 where they were clearly taking the piss. 

Given that Stagecoach, pre Bee Network, had the monopoly on all routes between Stockport and Manchester, not an awful lot has changed. We are still dominated by the buggers.

Given that reliability on the 385 (Diamond) has gone south since January (particularly on the 4:30pm bus) I have been increasingly reliant on the 383 (Stagecoach) to get home from work. Aside from the long established problems with overcrowding on the 4:25pm service, this was largely working OK... Right up until a couple of weeks ago when, across several days, the 4:25pm service failed to turn up.

While this is annoying - especially given how hot the weather was at the time, and that the stop doesn't have any shade - at least you only have to wait another 20 minutes for one to turn up, as opposed to an hour for another 385 to arrive.

On each occasion the 4:43pm 383 did turn up, but it was of course massively overcrowded and stopped at every stop, what with the previous one not having turned up and everything. This doesn't put anyone in the best of tempers, especially when it's ridiculously hot.

This series of events reminded me of the bad old days of using Stagecoach to get around, specifically the number of times when the 383 has done this before, as well as the number of times it's happened to me on both the 191 and the 42A. What I think happens is this:

Phase 1: Buses get delayed and drift increasingly away from their scheduled arrival times because of heavy traffic, or accidents, or similar.

Phase 2: When they get really late, it is informally decided by Stagecoach to pull one or more of the ones running particularly late in order to ensure that the bus timetabled after it (in this case, the 4:43pm 383 service) arrives either on time or, within 5-10 minutes of when it should have arrived. 

This means that they get back on track more quickly in terms of buses turning up on time but, in the short term, no one bothers to tell the passengers waiting for the earlier service that it isn't coming.

Inevitably, it also leads to more overcrowded buses. Especially at peak times. 

I had thought that the 383 had improved in terms of reliability since last year, but I realise now that it might have been a temporary blip. Reliability definitely hasn't been as good as it was over the past three weeks and, while road conditions definitely have had a part to play in that, unofficially cancelling buses in order to try and get ahead of roadworks and gridlock doesn't encourage trust in passengers. It just builds resentment, and an increased feeling that the bad old days of bus travel are not as behind us as we would like.