Knutsford is not a particularly large town and 1 tph should suffice.
And there lies the problem. You're ignoring:
a) What proportion of people in the town use the train.
b) How many people from outside the town travel to the town by train on a regular basis. In the case of Knutsford and Northwich that can be hundreds each day, something you don't get in the Greater Manchester dormitory villages with trains up to every 15 minutes.
c) That many Manchester suburbs have a frequent, low cost bus in to the city which is sometimes a better option than the train. That doesn't extend to places further out and even if it did it would be less viable than a train due to how long a bus would take to get in to central Manchester.
d) What journeys people are making. If people have to change trains when travelling from say Knutsford to London then a less frequent connecting service increases the likelihood of them driving to a station with a direct train.
Evidence shows that both Knutsford and Northwich have very high usage compared to the size of the towns, therefore it's completely wrong to dismiss the idea of an additional service based on population alone.
I wonder if you'd be still so against Cheshire towns having good public transport if Metrolink services start having their frequency reduced due to fewer connections being made at interchanges like Altrincham. They are already running using emergency funding from the government, which isn't permanent, so Metrolink service cuts is a real possibility.
With respect to the point about local bus services around Altrincham (routes 280-287), TfGM could save money by cancelling them in the evenings when they appear merely to carry fresh air. Knutsford is not a particularly large town and 1 tph should suffice.
And there's the 288 and CAT5 which could stop serving Altrincham altogether if TfGM funding wasn't made available. I'm pretty sure in the past the Warrington operator stopped running the Lymm to Altrincham section of Warrington services at off-peak times, with TfGM funding allowing them to be reinstated.
If there were more services would there be more users of them, or would the users simply spread the load across more trains?
One question is perhaps would people at a station like Bramhall be more likely to use the train if the train which arrived had ample space on it instead of being overcrowded? The same question could be asked regarding some services arriving in Knutsford, would Knutsford's usage be even higher if the Northwich passengers hadn't already taken most of the seats on the train before the Knutsford passengers get to board?
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