Alt to Macc would be 4 buses wouldn't it. Plus are you saying basically have the 47 and 89 merge/interwork with the current 47 bus? That would give a huge reduction in the 89 timetable to do that. You could do High Legh - Knutsford - Northwich 2 hourly and interwork that with the 188 school. It's doable. Not perfect but doable. The 89 needs looking at because if someone in CEC and CWACC had a braincell and threw their money together, there are about 3 school/college buses from the Knutsford area to Northwich schools/colleges each day. The money spent on dedicated school buses could be spent on putting an 89 on and extending it to the schools. While the main purpose is then being on school pupils, it opens up the service to non school kids so then the bus can have more use.
I'm actually proposing a total of 5/6 buses, opposed to the current arrangement. 4 for an hourly Macclesfield to Altrincham which would retain the cross-Knutsford link for the hospital and then 1/2 for Northwich & Warrington. The 89 could run to a 2 hourly frequency with a single bus and I think the intention for the 47 is that it's an off-peak only service which a driver and bus could be used on before a morning and afternoon school run. However, at the moment it seems the 47 is 3 different buses and drivers. My idea would be 2 buses start on the day on the combined route, let's call it the 87, one comes off to do a school run, it goes back on the 87, then there's 2 buses on the route until mid-afternoon, again ones comes off for a school run, then the second goes back on the 87 for the evening peak, then the service stops after the evening peak.
I think there's also an Over Peover to Knutsford Academy school bus, so a better Macclesfield to Knutsford service could eliminate the need for that additional school service.
To be fair, I don't disagree with the fact the 88 needed a review. The half hourly all day with no peak extra time was bonkers but that was GHA for you.
It was also bonkers that GHA did all the marketing for the 'Gold' route 88 but then they didn't have any spare 'Gold' vehicles and the buses were sent away to Wrexham for servicing, so there was a couple of weeks at a time when they were using 3 x Gold and 1 x non-Gold bus.
I also remember when the 88 was hourly but with a morning peak extra they branded 2 x Versas for the 88 and 1 x Dart but the Dart only normally did the peak time extra and went onto other services and the Dart didn't usually fill in for the Versas because it was a small bus.
It's very much like D&G can't be bothered to do timetables on a trip by trip basis and treat all trips as if it's the worst peak time ever.
What annoys me is when they
decrease the frequency at peak times. Take the Knutsford departures from Macclesfield, it's normally 2 hours between buses but if you don't make the 16:45 departure, you have to wait until 18:15.
Another interesting thing is that for some reason at the moment both 17:45 130 Alderley Edge-Macclesfield and 18:15 88 Knutsford-Macclesfield services run together to Macclesfield from Monks Heath Cross Roads also both these journeys run empty from Macclesfield to Northwich to fuel up before heading back to Winchem.
In response to Cheshire East's transport consultation I've suggested Knutsford to Macc and Wilmslow to Macc services should both be hourly and should interwork to form a half-hourly frequency between Macc town centre and the hospital.
I remember when Howards ran an 09:15 Knutsford to Macclesfield service it was scheduled to do Broken Cross to Macclesfield just ahead of a much larger Arriva bus but the Howards one was the first after 09:30 and was usually on time so all the pass holders squeezed onto the little bus that came first.
Just looked at bustimes.org now (10.36 Friday) and noticed the 10:30 Knutsford to Altrincham left the bus station at 10:28:48 and got to the Falcon Bearer at 10:35:36, so the old 300 timing of 7 minutes from the town centre to Falcon Bearer seems sensible.
