Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

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Jeni
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Jeni »

Helvellyn wrote:A few closely-spaced stops and the junction with the main line. Still moves faster than the A6 though.

I go past the Hazel Grove P&R every day, it usually looks pretty empty.
I challenge you to a race. We both start off at the P&R, I'll get a 192 or X92, you get a train. The finishing line is Simon Dunn in the Merseyway.

Happy to bet a couple of hot chocolates that I'll win that, and if I get the mythical beast that is the X92, it'll be by a fair margin :)

That said, you'd beat me going the opposite direction on an average day.
Reading
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Reading »

Same at the Reading P&R, Winnersh triangle station to Reading is 12 or 13mins by train with only 1 intermediate stop

To dissuade you from using the car park for the train not the bus - you pay £4 in the car park machine to get a ticket to exit the car park or you use the barcode on the back of your bus ticket (adult return £4.70 or £3 off peak, family of 5 £7 all times)
aj444
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by aj444 »

Stevie D wrote:First York pay a substantial premium to the council for the right to run the P&R service on all six routes,
Wonder how this fits with the competition legislation :shock:
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Repmobile »

I know it is out of season, but I had to visit Scarborough last week and used the Park and Ride on the A64 Seamer Road.

There was at most about 20 cars on the P&R car park, eight of which were obviously 'overspill' from the Ford dealership next to the P&R (ie brand new unregistered cars still with pieces of plastic covering the trim etc).

When I got on the bus and paid my £2.30 for a return ticket, I got chatting to the driver and he told me he had done three return journeys that morning and I was his first customer!. He said this was not unusual and that Scarborough's other P&R on the A165 Filey Road was even quieter. When I got the bus back to the P&R I was the only person on the bus.

Overall I just cannot see how this P&R pays its way out of the summer season. A bus every 15 minutes for next to nobody. No doubt subsidised by the worthy Council Tax payers of Scarborough. When I next go to Scarborough in December I will just drive in and park up just off the town centre in one of the 'free' areas and save myself £2.30.

Overall a P&R which doesn't work, particularly in winter. To be honest, I was surprised it runs in a winter instead of being like the P&R in Whitby which is seasonal only.

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fras
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by fras »

Our car club started our run from the Hazel Grove P&R the other day. They have nice loos, (None at Clifton P&R, Nottingham Trams please note !!!).

P&R users will be fascinated to see temporary barriers in place to stop access from one half of the car park to the other. I asked the local staff member why, and was told people coming north on the A6 wanting the A523 (Poynton Road) were coming into the P&R then charging through at speed and out the other side ! I was also told that the P&R had been financed and built by Stagecoach and had no council funding.

The Stockport Tramways service to Piccadilly terminated at the Rising Sun very close to the P&R. I expect the running time to Manchester is about the same as it was then !
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Stevie D
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Stevie D »

aj444 wrote:
Stevie D wrote:First York pay a substantial premium to the council for the right to run the P&R service on all six routes,
Wonder how this fits with the competition legislation :shock:
I don't see that it's an issue. It's a contract that is tendered for (IIRC) 5 years at a time, and it's open to other bidders just like any other procurement contract. I don't know what would happen if another operator wanted to set up a service from the P&R stop to the city centre and back again – whether there is anything in the rules to stop them doing so, I don't know, but as far as I'm aware no-one has tried it yet!

That said, several of the sites do have other bus stops very close by, and it is noticeable the number of over-60s who will walk out to the other bus stop in order to use their free pass to get into town rather than pay the nominal fare on the P&R!
Fenlander
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Fenlander »

Isn't the (free) park conditional on the (paid for) ride?
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Alderpoint
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Alderpoint »

Despite a subsidy of £1900 per week, buses serving Coventry North P&R only carried an average of 2.8 passengers per trip. Not really surprising it was shut down in Jun 2013.
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Trainfan
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Trainfan »

I've posted this before and I'll do it again despite the fact that I seem to be the only one to recall this. Some years after the Leeds inner ring road opened it was clear that the Woodhouse lane car park was not being used to a fraction of its capacity. Dedicated mini-bus routes were set up from there, going on circular routes through the inner shopping centre (including 'predestrianised' areas}. I did use them once or twice but at that time people continued to prefer the drive in to the Merrion Street car park or on-street parking in the back streets parallel to the Headrow.
aj444
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by aj444 »

Stevie D wrote: I don't see that it's an issue. It's a contract that is tendered for (IIRC) 5 years at a time, and it's open to other bidders just like any other procurement contract.
Do you know what sort of premium they pay? Anything other than a low contract price would probably count as impropriety - councils have due obligation to ensure their tender processes are both impartial and fair.
Stevie D wrote: I don't know what would happen if another operator wanted to set up a service from the P&R stop to the city centre and back again – whether there is anything in the rules to stop them doing so, I don't know, but as far as I'm aware no-one has tried it yet!
Another "commercial" operator would probably not be given access to the council owned site P&R site or if the passenger could walk elsewhere then some voucher scheme for bus travel with a parking charge would probably discourage them.
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Stevie D
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Stevie D »

aj444 wrote:
Stevie D wrote:I don't see that it's an issue. It's a contract that is tendered for (IIRC) 5 years at a time, and it's open to other bidders just like any other procurement contract.
Do you know what sort of premium they pay? Anything other than a low contract price would probably count as impropriety - councils have due obligation to ensure their tender processes are both impartial and fair.
The contract is currently charged at about £750k/yr, although that is likely to be reduced when the contract is renewed – the main factors behind that are the low take-up of the new Poppleton Bar service, the requirement/expectation of a change to ultra-low emissions vehicles, fares being pegged at a level significantly below the normal commercial rate for that distance, and potentially a loss of intermediate passengers by changing the Designer Outlet route to a limited stop service, in line with the other routes.

The process is impartial and fair – it's an open bidding process, although realistically it is unlikely that any other operators would be in a position to bid for it. The council has a duty to get best value on its contracts and that means it should seek to maximise the income it gets for a set level of service delivery.
Stevie D wrote:I don't know what would happen if another operator wanted to set up a service from the P&R stop to the city centre and back again – whether there is anything in the rules to stop them doing so, I don't know, but as far as I'm aware no-one has tried it yet!
Another "commercial" operator would probably not be given access to the council owned site P&R site or if the passenger could walk elsewhere then some voucher scheme for bus travel with a parking charge would probably discourage them.
Where passengers can walk elsewhere, these are generally interurban (or at least outer suburban) services that happen to pass the P&R site, and so any passengers they pick up are largely incidental, just like any passengers they pick up in the suburbs between the P&R site and the city centre.

I don't know under what regulations the council would be allowed to ban other buses from using the P&R site if they wanted to. Many of the access roads have "buses only" signs, but any registered stage carriage service would be allowed to use those.
aj444
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by aj444 »

Stevie D wrote: The process is impartial and fair – it's an open bidding process


No brown envelope then? You disappoint me :D


If it's a council owned site then surely they could restrict which buses use it? If not they could always charge a small fortune per departure to use the facilities I guess.

Don't have experience in York, but in another Midlands town that I'll not name the P&R fares were increased because of the number of people walking into the site and not catching the (our :wink: ) commercial services - although the whole lot are run by the same operator.
fras
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by fras »

Just for interest, I looked up the Ludlow P&R. It operates Mon-Sat and has a bus every half hour. Last bus 17.45, so hardly likely to be anywhere near fully used unless somebody on here using it can correct me. It has all the hallmarks of a political choice that is wildly uneconomic, but satisfies some sort of "Green Blob" agenda.
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Stevie D
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Stevie D »

fras wrote:Just for interest, I looked up the Ludlow P&R. It operates Mon-Sat and has a bus every half hour. Last bus 17.45, so hardly likely to be anywhere near fully used unless somebody on here using it can correct me. It has all the hallmarks of a political choice that is wildly uneconomic, but satisfies some sort of "Green Blob" agenda.
From what I can tell after visiting Ludlow in recent times – it's a town bus that just happens to call at a large car park on the edge of the town as it potters its way around the residential estates. There is very limited parking right in the town centre, and although there are a couple of large car parks that are only a short walk away, I suspect that (a) in peak season, even those car parks get full, and (b) a significant proportion of Ludlow's visitors will be people who are not able to walk that far.

The bus seems to be reasonably well used by local passengers, so to that extent any extra folk it picks up using it for P&R is a bonus, rather than the whole raison d'être for the service.
aj444
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by aj444 »

more I found here; https://libdembodders.wordpress.com/201 ... timetable/

although I did find this gem elsewhere on his blog -
"As far as I know, we are the only town in Britain not to have a 15-minute park and ride service"
This from a councillor (although this shouldn't be a surprise)
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roadtester
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by roadtester »

c2R wrote:
Andy33gmail wrote:I wonder if anyone uses Cambridge's ones now they're no longer free?
This was mainly done to penalise NHS staff who walk from Babraham Road park and ride to work at Addenbrooke's (owing to parking at Addenbrooke's itself being prohibitively expensive).
It's still quite a walk from Babraham Road P&R to Addenbrookes! I suspect that there's an emerging problem with the rapidly developing biomedical campus. Road and public transport links are already inadequate and the same goes for parking.

Speaking more generally, I think the Cambridge park and ride system works well. There are sites on all of the main approaches and the facilities are pretty good. Milton, the one I use most, is modern with plenty of spaces and a mini-MSA style building with coffee and sweet machines, toilets, copies of local free papers etc. where you can wait in the warm for the bus.

The parking charges have produced a bit of a drop in custom if the local rags are to be believed but at £1 for up to eighteen hours they're hardly extortionate, and the first hour is free. Milton and Babraham Road also have fairly reliable electric car charging points, and I've often used the free hour of parking at Babraham in particular if I want a quick "peace of mind" top-up for my car if I'm going to somewhere like Stansted, which would otherwise be slightly challenging range-wise.

Although the buses don't run at all hours, the Cambridge P&Rs are open and accessible to cars 24 hours a day, which gives some flexibility if you get caught out bus-wise - at least you can get a lift/taxi/walk there to retrieve your car. It's also pretty handy if you need an EV top-up late at night.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Fahad »

fras wrote:Just for interest, I looked up the Ludlow P&R. It operates Mon-Sat and has a bus every half hour. Last bus 17.45, so hardly likely to be anywhere near fully used unless somebody on here using it can correct me. It has all the hallmarks of a political choice that is wildly uneconomic, but satisfies some sort of "Green Blob" agenda.
Are the hours extended when the Races are on at Ludlow? (or are the races normally finished before 17:45?)
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by PeterA5145 »

Fahad wrote:Are the hours extended when the Races are on at Ludlow? (or are the races normally finished before 17:45?)
The racecourse is two miles north of the town centre and so wouldn't be served by the P&R buses. And, given that it's in a rural location, I doubt whether there's any shortage of parking.

It's a Sabristic curiosity that the B4365 crosses the racecourse at three points and traffic is stopped when the course is in use.
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Chris Bertram
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Chris Bertram »

PeterA5145 wrote:It's a Sabristic curiosity that the B4365 crosses the racecourse at three points and traffic is stopped when the course is in use.
there are a couple of unclassified roads that seem to be affected as well. Much more impressive than the famous Melling Road at Aintree.
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Helvellyn
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Helvellyn »

Jeni wrote:
Helvellyn wrote:A few closely-spaced stops and the junction with the main line. Still moves faster than the A6 though.

I go past the Hazel Grove P&R every day, it usually looks pretty empty.
I challenge you to a race. We both start off at the P&R, I'll get a 192 or X92, you get a train. The finishing line is Simon Dunn in the Merseyway.

Happy to bet a couple of hot chocolates that I'll win that, and if I get the mythical beast that is the X92, it'll be by a fair margin :)

That said, you'd beat me going the opposite direction on an average day.
The bus has the point to point advantage in that situation. If the starting and finishing points happen to be equidistant from the bus stops and railway stations I'll take the train. The train may lose if it's delayed at the junction but usually would still win. Unless the starting point is quite a long way from both and you're much fitter than me (which isn't hard).
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