On Trains & Buses

If my journey home took up any more, it nearly might have been faster to walk all of the way. The cause was a spot of bother on the M6 that sent all manner of traffic along the A34 instead. The result was a very congested Nether Alderley with southbound traffic proceeding at less than walking pace; northbound seemed to be doing far better on this score. Surprisingly, Wilmslow was quite clear when I left it and Alderley Edge wasn’t so bad either. When I finally got to Macclesfield, there seemed to be more cars around the town than usual for the time of day though all was free-flowing.

The sight of a Manchester-bound Megabus heading into Wilmslow was a hint of things to come. It must have been displaced from the M6 like so many and the sight of articulated lorry after articulated lorry really brought home the scale of the problem. Small wonder then that the people of Alderley Edge have been demanding the by-pass that now is under construction. Another thing that I was to spot a Co-operative wagon that had pulled up somewhere to very sensibly sit out the logjam. Quite how an ambulance was getting through could only be explained by the sight of flashing lights and the sound of its siren making everyone do the right thing.

Though I had to sit out a long journey, I was glad to be on the bus and not waiting for it. The vehicle wasn’t the largest either and I am not so sure that it is wise for Arriva to be running an Optare Solo at rush hour like it has been doing. Maybe, it’s the advertising for the Cheshire East bus tracker that is the reason but I still consider it best to run bigger buses at peak travel times.

Nevertheless, I do wonder at the wisdom of my deciding not to cycle to work this morning. Yes, the weather did look less than enticing but it stayed dry all day. Even reprising yesterday evening’s sun-blessed route around by Mobberley, Great Warford, Marthall, Chelford and Monk’s Heath would have taken considerably less time than this evening’s allegedly more direct journey. Even so, that’s food for thought for the future now.

Alternative ways of getting travel tickets have become normal for the airline industry over the past decade and I suppose that the approach was bound to be adopted by other modes of transport too. Possibly inspired by Megabus, National Express and Scottish Citylink have been selling electronic tickets over the web for a while now. In my case, quite a number of trips to and around Scotland have made good use of being able to print out the tickets at home rather than waiting for them to arrive by post. In fact, getting things through the ether of the web has made many a last minute escape a reality.

All of the while that I have been enjoying speedy ticket delivery through my PC, others have been making good use of mobile phone ticketing. On a weekend visit to Fort William, I spotted damp weekend explorers wondering if they had enough mobile phone battery power to show the driver the tickets for a return to Glasgow. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that National Express does likewise though I cannot anyone actually proffering such a thing on alighting one of their coaches.

More recently, Arriva started experimenting with mobile phone tickets on its buses. The initial pilot must have been successful but it has extended to all parts of their network now with Cheshire having them too. To use the facility, it might be best to have a so-called smartphone in order to go down the mobile electronic route. A recent acquisition of a Blackberry in advance of a change of job set me up nicely. Also, that change of working circumstances means that I need to stick with Arriva for the daily commute when I am not using a bicycle to do the honours. With the latter set-up, I was going to work my way through many weekly tickets. They may make useful bookmarks afterwards but there’s only so many of those that anyone needs.

It was the prospect of cutting down on paper detritus that drew me to giving mobile tickets a go. You can choose daily, weekly or monthly tickets and I chose the middle option for a first trial. There is a need for website registration that sends a message to your phone for verification and a PIN for using the service too. That’s a necessity when you are drawing funds from a credit card to pay for any tickets that you buy; just get rid of that original message for more security. An application was added to my phone to do the required ticket acquisition. Unlike buying a ticket on a bus, you can buy ahead of time and activate on first use so there is no need until the day when you need it at all. Mind you, you do need to keep your phone in working order and I wouldn’t like to be stood in an area where mobile phone signal is weak either. Apart from that and a need to have everything set up in good time, it seems to work so far and I might even go for a monthly ticket next time because of the savings, a rare thing in the world of bus travel. If things continue as they are, the era of paper weekly tickets and their red seals might be behind me. Of course, only time will tell if that comes to pass.

Update 2010-08-03: This morning my Blackberry crashed minutes before the bus appeared so a paper ticket was needed; the Opera Mini browser was to blame and reinstallation (bookmarks needed manual restoration, though) was the cure. Otherwise, there have been some frantic moments trying to get the ticket on screen in time but no driver has rejected the electronic item. In summary, the dalliance with mobile ticketing worked well most of the time. From now on, it might be an idea to start closing down applications on the handheld device instead of suspending them in order to avoid problems.

Here in Macclesfield, there is another round of traffic disruption besetting us; it’s as if it never stops. This time, it is the need to maintain overhead electricity cables that is the cause of the trouble. The result is the closure of part of the Silk Road with diversions being set in place with anyone intent on turning right on Hibel Road, Beech Lane or Jordangate being sent to the roundabouts at the end of Churchill Way or near the Tesco superstore. The Jordangate traffic lights have been switched off too so pedestrians have been advised to use the nearby footbridge over the road instead. Otherwise, there are signs and bollards littered everywhere with Beech Lane/Manchester Road being the alternative route for traffic going to and coming from north of Macclesfield. When you see the what is being done, you would suspect chaos but I haven’t really seen any apart from a traffic build-up around Sainsbury’s on Sunday. While I am travelling to work earlier than before, I have seen no real effect on bus running times either. Is because it is summer school holiday time that things are working as smoothly as they are?

The posting rate has gone down here to one a month and Twitter may be to blame for sapping it. Mind you, personal fatigue and other distractions may have had a role to play too. After all, it’s not as if the world of public transport is going to stay as quiet as it is at the moment.

For one thing, there are those cuts in public spending that loom large on the horizon. Then, there’s a transport secretary who may not be as enthusiastic about the subject as his predecessor. Well, he has been displaced from a possible role in the Treasury by the politics of coalition governments. The combination makes for testing times ahead and may make for much commentary.

The A34 bypass works trundle onward with the A535 being closed for while with Bollington Lane being reopened in the meantime to take strain. The result is that you cannot fail to notice the extra traffic on the A34 and it’s just as well that the summer school holidays are coming soon.

Elsewhere, the road system is showing the signs of a rough winter with a partial collapse on the A537 between Henbury and Broken Cross. There now has been an imperfect repair (aren’t they all these days?) and I hope that no harm came to anyone beforehand.

Victoria Road in Macclesfield has seen some resurfacing of the loose chipping variety that looks a rough job though that may change as the new surface settles. Let’s hope that it lasts better than previous attempts of the same kind on the A34 around Siddington and the B5087 around Over Alderley. They look a bit more sorry these days with some evidence of surface cracks in the case of the former. In fact, the whole road surface between Monk’s Heath and Siddington is well cracked and similar road conditions can be found on the A537 around the “Birtles Bends”.

All of these observations come from another factor that may be cutting down on new entries on here: my cycling to and from work during the long spell of fine settled weather than we have been enjoying for what feels like months now. That has seen to it that my bus travel has been curtailed though things now look less settled than they were.

Still, I have noticed a bus running on service 27 between Macclesfield and Knutsford with is electronic destination display not working. That sort of thing has happened before with those buses with paper signs appearing on screens during the time before a new display was instated. This sort of thing even afflicted a vehicle on the 130 with one side not showing anything at all. Has Arriva fixed that one yet?

To finish, you could summarise this post in a single sentiment: the cracks are showing in the transport infrastructure so how are any savings going to be made? Currently, it looks as if the cuts are going to hurt, regardless of the political rhetoric surrounding them. It was only a few years back that the now defunct Cheshire County Council proposed drastic reductions in evening bus services. The result was considerable negative feedback and much of those plans were rescinded. Could they appear again? If so, we need to make a stand in order not to let things go too far.

Arriva seems to have retimed the 130 services to the extent that you find drivers having to stopover at convenient places for longer that is ideal. Then, there’s having to go slower than usual to keep to the advertised timing points, a legal requirement. Seeing this does make you wonder if things have gone from one extreme to the other. There was a time when such considerations were far from being observed with the bus timings suffering as a direct result. Some people must consider that the only road works relating to the Alderley Edge Bypass to be a major upheaval. While there can be no doubt that there’s potential for major disruption, you do have to ask if there has been overcompensation.

The same thing affects the 27 too, it seems. If you want to get from Knutsford to Alderley Park, you have to deal with a much reduced service level. The question arises is whether this is temporary or not. One would hope that it is the former and not the latter but you have to wonder in these times when austerity has been trumpeted by a new government. Who knows?