On Trains & Buses

It is only now that I am getting to share some bus fare information from my Yuletide trip to Mallorca. Here are a few example fares so you get an idea as what prices are like:

Adult Single from Palma to Palma Airport: €5.00

Adult Single from Palma to Port d’Andratx: €5.55

Adult Single from Palma to Sóller via coastal route: €3.98

Adult Single from Sóller to Palma via tunnel route: €2.65

The coming Sunday seems to be a day when bus companies are introducing changes to their bus networks around Greater Manchester. Both First and Stagecoach are doing so with the latter shortening its service 378 to operate only within Greater Manchester and not into Cheshire East as at present. Otherwise, we are talking about tweaks rather than any upheavals.

From next week, Stagecoach no longer will operate service 378 within Cheshire East; instead, it is sticking to serving Greater Manchester. That leaves a gap that D&G Buses are going to fill with Monday to Friday daytime hourly service between Wilmslow and Handforth Dean. There currently is a Saturday service so it will be interesting to see if that direct connection gets restored.

After a weekend spent on the Isle of Man, here are some bus fares that may allow your budgeting should you decide to do the same as I did:

Adult Day Ticket: £7.00

Adult Return between Douglas and Castletown: £5.00

Adult Single between Douglas and Laxey: £2.70

Adult Single between Douglas and Onchan: £1.30

In addition to the NoWcard smart travel pass, there is also the NoWStar smart card in operation across Lancashire and Cumbria. While these undoubtedly are good things to have, there remains something to be said for all England smart travel cards in place of the regional versions that we are seeing. After all, the Oyster card has been a big success around London and Ireland’s Leap card got extended across the whole country. There is a place for joined up thinking even some reject the concept.

Transpeak

Introduced new stop on Duffield Road in Derby. The 1605 journey from Manchester to Derby on weekdays re-timed.

Services 185, 186, 442, 190

Changes made to peak weekday journeys to Harpur Hill together with afternoon and morning journeys on services 185 & 186. Services 442 & 190 now provide extra peak-time journeys through Harpur Hill and Fairfield. Through tickets are available and a combined timetable will be made available shortly.

Service 68

Journeys now start from and end at Buxton Market Place.

Service 69, 69A & 69B

Morning journeys now operate five minutes earlier.

The Nottingham City Transport Navy 3 service has been improved as follows:

• Monday to Saturday daytime buses increased to run up to every 20 minutes
• More peak time buses and earlier buses to Ruddington – every 20 minutes
• More early evening buses – with buses up to every 30 minutes until 20:00
• Reinstatement of Sunday buses between Ruddington and Clifton

Some early evening journeys on Crewe town service 12 (Leighton Link) run up to 10 minutes later and there will be an extra Sunday evening journey to and from Leighton Hospital on service 12E. Service 99 between Congleton and Macclesfield will see service reductions so that overall reliability is improved.

The following changes affect Arriva bus services between Northwich and Winsford from tomorrow (information from Arriva website):

Service 29 Monday to Friday journeys from Winsford Town Centre will be revised to operate hourly to Over St Johns Estate, not serving Grange estate (See 29A).

Saturday service will serve both the Over St Johns estate and the Grange estate in one direction only.

New Service 29A Service 29A will operate an hourly service to the Grange Estate, however will not serve Over St Johns.

Moulton and Davenham will no longer be served by service 29/29A, except for dedicated morning and afternoon journeys.

Thankfully, Derbyshire County Council has shelved its plan to cut funding to all subsidised bus services. There still may be some rationalisation but the good news is that planned wholesale cuts are to be no more. What follows is the news item from the council website’s public transport section: Bus passengers in Derbyshire are to keep services paid for by us as plans to cut public transport funding are reviewed. It had been proposed to withdraw funding for around 144 subsidised services from October 2017. Following consultation where more than 90% of respondents said they disagreed with the plan, we have now agreed to provide £3m to continue funding some of these services.

The future of individual services has yet to be decided but we will be working closely with operators to see if some can be run commercially. We will also continue to review the whole of the bus network, streamlining less well-used services by reducing their frequency and joining up other services to reduce duplication.