Examples of poor / good transport integration

[alex397]

I was thinking that this could be an interesting area of discussion.

I often hear how the UK has poor transport integration between bus and train, and I often see examples of this as well. More often than not, the main station seems to be the opposite side of town to the bus station (examples I can think of including Great Yarmouth, Harlow, Canterbury....). It also is difficult to find onward bus information. Many stations have an 'onward travel' poster, but i've noticed they can often be in difficult places, or be completely out of date.

There are places I find are good though. London being an obvious example. Ashford is quite good, as the buses stop right outside the station entrance (even closer than taxis - shock horror!).
I also find PlusBus a great idea, and is easy to buy with your train ticket (I am aware that Ashford has alot of people using PlusBus) - but it almost seems like a secret in places.

I notice when I visit Europe, such as Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, that transport integration has generally been really good. As soon as you walk off the train, you can find information for onward bus and tram links, and at busy stations there is often a huge departure board of all the buses (as well as at individual stops). Information tends to be clear and up to date as well. I've even found information clear and simple in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, despite them using a Cyrillic alphabet!

Anyone else got any ideas of how good / bad integration is across the UK?

 

[Bletchleyite]

MKC is pretty good these days, bus station directly outside railway station with lots of information screens including inside the station.

Honourable mention: the Silverdale Shuttle which is always sitting there ready for the train to arrive.

Dishonourable mention: Grange over Sands. Very little other than the timetable/map at the bus stop. No taxi numbers (the staff have them but there is no official poster). Ended up walking.

 

[Dai Corner]

Caerphilly : Bus station adjacent to railway station. You can walk under cover between them.

Cardiff: Bus station used to be right outside Central station but land grabbed for development and promised new bus station yet to appear. Bus stops scattered all round the city centre with no central map as far as I've seen so smartphone with Traveline app very useful

Newport: Bus stations five minutes walk from railway station. Some signposts but not that prominent.

 

[Quakkerillo]

Plymouth is a bit of a walk to get to the bus station, Cardiff as mentioned above an absolute mess, especially on (weekend) evenings when they don't do the full loop due to people going out, so finding the right stop is even more of a challenge.
Lincoln is quite nice, although the temporary bus station is on the wrong side of the train station, so now it's a bit of a walk. But they're working on a much better integration.
Belfast is a mess, with the enterprise trains dropping you off at Central, without any info where the buses go to/from. You can use the bus to get to the city centre for free with an enterprise ticket, but they don't always run that frequently.
Edinburgh has everything close, but what stops where isn't really that evident.
Aberdeen is also chaotic, with quite some buses remaining on the high street, without saying which stop to use for the train station.
York is quite easy from what I experienced.

 

[MCR247]

Nottingham is fairly integrated, you can get a smartcard PAYG to use on all of the bus operators you'd need as well as the tram or you can buy the ticket form

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Some bus stations adjacent to train stations: Aberystwyth, Penzance, St Austell, Bath, Rhyl, Lichfield, Harrogate, Malton and some a short walk (e.g. Gloucester, Swindon, Wolverhampton, Inverness) on top of those already mentioned.

The problem is that many rail stations are peripheral to town centres (as Victorian businessman couldn't afford to extend lines into expensive town centres).

 

[nottinghamcity]

Birmingham is a bit of a mixed bag. The Metro now serves New Street directly, but Snow Hill lost its. The main bus stop groups have been moved away from the very city centre, onto the exit roads, but none of them are much of a walk. The swift smart card is ok, but other cities have better functionality

 

[radamfi]

The problem is that many rail stations are peripheral to town centres (as Victorian businessman couldn't afford to extend lines into expensive town centres).

Stations are located away from town centres in many continental towns as well. Britain is little different in that respect. The difference is that British towns have decided to build their bus stations in the town centre, even if it isn't near the station.

In continental towns, the bus station is usually at the rail station even if it isn't in the town centre. Generally this mean no bus station in the town centre, although sometimes there is another bus station there.

 

[Andyh82]

Some of the worst sited stations that I can think of are probably Cambridge, and Bournemouth. They do have bus links to the centre though.

 

[WY Bus Spotter]

Leeds is poor, as usual. Although the city is roughly the same as Manchester in terms of size, Leeds has no free city buses, the train station is at the other end of the city to the bus station. There are no trams or underground network, so you would think the buses would be top class, No. Unfortunately first run the majority of urban routes around Leeds and they are pretty useless.

Leeds has so much potential but the council have always been too stupid to come up with new and creative ideas for transport. They are happy to let companies build loads of offices and shops but don't see the potential for things like free city buses. They will only run something if it makes a profit, they don't think about using tax money from all of these companies and employees who are moving into the city to fund new transport.

 

[fowler9]

Liverpool South Parkway is pretty good for integration, the stations in the city centre not as much so.

 

[Busaholic]

I think integration is about more than whether bus and rail stations are near to each other, or whether a rail station is served by a bus route and (if so) are the stops readily accessible from the station. Are the bus times and indication of places served available in some form at the railway station for the would-be onward traveller? Yes, they may be posted at the bus stop(s) but you might have to trawl around different bus stops and not find the out-of-sight stop that is used by the bus you want. Also, in the case of smaller towns and more rural areas, does the hourly bus leave two minutes before the hourly train is due? It (unfortunately) quite often does, as the discredited concept of 'competition' between different public transport models still prevails in some quarters, rather than considering people using their own cars as the real competition.

 

[MCR247]

Nottingham is fairly integrated, you can get a smartcard PAYG to use on all of the bus operators you'd need as well as the tram or you can buy the ticket form

Hmm, seems something went wrong with my last post

Anyway, carrying on, there as screens within the station that show bus times from the station bus and tram stops, as well as there being network maps and timetables IIRC

 

[ChathillMan]

Nottingham is a great city for transport that gets many things right.....apart from the fact you can only get a direct bus to the station from the south of the city

 

[Dai Corner]

I think integration is about more than whether bus and rail stations are near to each other, or whether a rail station is served by a bus route and (if so) are the stops readily accessible from the station. Are the bus times and indication of places served available in some form at the railway station for the would-be onward traveller? Yes, they may be posted at the bus stop(s) but you might have to trawl around different bus stops and not find the out-of-sight stop that is used by the bus you want. Also, in the case of smaller towns and more rural areas, does the hourly bus leave two minutes before the hourly train is due? It (unfortunately) quite often does, as the discredited concept of 'competition' between different public transport models still prevails in some quarters, rather than considering people using their own cars as the real competition.

Yes, I agree. I alluded to the usefulness of journey planner apps in my previous post. I can plan my journey before I set out, check the real time running of my train (and often connecting bus) and be guided to the relevant bus stop using my smartphone. I do realise these are not accessible to everyone though.

 

[chorleyjeff]

I was thinking that this could be an interesting area of discussion.

I often hear how the UK has poor transport integration between bus and train, and I often see examples of this as well. More often than not, the main station seems to be the opposite side of town to the bus station (examples I can think of including Great Yarmouth, Harlow, Canterbury....). It also is difficult to find onward bus information. Many stations have an 'onward travel' poster, but i've noticed they can often be in difficult places, or be completely out of date.

There are places I find are good though. London being an obvious example. Ashford is quite good, as the buses stop right outside the station entrance (even closer than taxis - shock horror!).
I also find PlusBus a great idea, and is easy to buy with your train ticket (I am aware that Ashford has alot of people using PlusBus) - but it almost seems like a secret in places.

I notice when I visit Europe, such as Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, that transport integration has generally been really good. As soon as you walk off the train, you can find information for onward bus and tram links, and at busy stations there is often a huge departure board of all the buses (as well as at individual stops). Information tends to be clear and up to date as well. I've even found information clear and simple in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, despite them using a Cyrillic alphabet!

Anyone else got any ideas of how good / bad integration is across the UK?

A new bus station was built in Chorley across the road from the railway station and the information screens showed train departures. A good attempt at integration. Then it was decided that it cost money to have the train info. Hence the info. Is no longer shown. Seems the usual problem of capital projects being degraded by lack of current expenditure by local authorities.
On a tangent. Cycle lanes have been built alongside footpaths around Chorley but untrimmed hedges make the cycle lanes impossible to use. Again capital expenditure ( by housing developers) is rendered useless by lack of maintenance and small money spend. Joined up thinking - ha ha ha.

 

[ashworth]

Nottingham is a great city for transport that gets many things right.....apart from the fact you can only get a direct bus to the station from the south of the city

The Victoria Centre Bus Station is very inconveniently situated for the railway station.

 

[sheff1]

Hull must be one of the best with the bus station being within the trainshed.

 

[daodao]

Dishonourable mention: Grange over Sands. Very little other than the timetable/map at the bus stop. No taxi numbers (the staff have them but there is no official poster). Ended up walking.

There are only a couple of bus routes to Grange (one runs M-F only) and both call at the station. I did once make a train/bus connection there on a Sunday - it was fine, although I did have to walk 1 mile along a country road in the dusk to reach my final destination.

 

[daodao]

Some of the worst sited stations that I can think of are probably Cambridge, and Bournemouth. They do have bus links to the centre though.

Therefore, there is no point in developing commuter rail services to Cambridge, e.g. re-opening of the lines to Haverhill or Sandy. That is also the reason why the guided bus route was the way forward in enhancing public transport there - buses can reach the city centre and other key destinations.

 

[daodao]

Leeds is poor, as usual. Although the city is roughly the same as Manchester in terms of size, Leeds has no free city buses, the train station is at the other end of the city to the bus station.

Some urban bus services do pass close to Leeds City station - I did once catch a bus to Shadwell from City Square. However, I recall as a child having to traipse across the city centre to Vicar Lane bus station to catch WYRCC service 36 (I think that it was joint with United AS, although I recall only travelling on a UAS bus once). The Central Bus station, served by LCT, was even further away, and we never used it.

 

[daodao]

Hull must be one of the best with the bus station being within the trainshed.

Altrincham has always been good, but the onward bus services are now relatively infrequent (generally hourly in the daytime, at best every 30 minutes), that the potential connectivity is less useful than in the past.

 

[radamfi]

When you are talking about cities the size of Leeds or Nottingham, you can't expect all buses to go to the main central station. If you look at similar sized cities on the continent, there might not even be many buses in the city centre, as most places think it is undesirable to clog up the city centre with a high number of buses. What you do want is for at least one or two high frequency, high capacity routes (preferably tram/metro) to pass the station, meaning that you can change from a bus onto that high capacity route to reach the main station. And of course, there should be no need to buy a separate tickets for the interchange and it should cost no more than if there was a direct bus to the station. Nottingham's got a tram so if your bus doesn't go to the station, you should be able to hop on the tram to get there for a combined single fare.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are only a couple of bus routes to Grange (one runs M-F only) and both call at the station. I did once make a train/bus connection there on a Sunday - it was fine, although I did have to walk 1 mile along a country road in the dusk to reach my final destination.

True, but outside daytime hours you'd have hoped for a poster with taxi numbers on!

 

[96tommy]

Since Leeds lost its free city bus service a couple of years ago, the bus station and train station feel further away than ever. It's only a 15 minute walk between the 2 but can feel 10x longer if the weather is bad or its late on a Friday/Saturday night.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I think integration is about more than whether bus and rail stations are near to each other, or whether a rail station is served by a bus route and (if so) are the stops readily accessible from the station. Are the bus times and indication of places served available in some form at the railway station for the would-be onward traveller? Yes, they may be posted at the bus stop(s) but you might have to trawl around different bus stops and not find the out-of-sight stop that is used by the bus you want. Also, in the case of smaller towns and more rural areas, does the hourly bus leave two minutes before the hourly train is due? It (unfortunately) quite often does, as the discredited concept of 'competition' between different public transport models still prevails in some quarters, rather than considering people using their own cars as the real competition.

You are right to cite that it is so much more to it than just the proximity of rail stations to the bus terminus. Through ticketing is often available in the form of PlusBus but is woefully publicised. Bus companies naturally promote their own tickets (often a range of local and network offerings) and I can understand (though don't agree) why multi-modal/multi-operator tickets (e.g. Ride Cornwall) are therefore poorly represented.

However, in terms of the practicalities of integrating bus and rail, there are often difficult challenges such as the ability to "marry up" bus and rail times in rural areas, either because the train service isn't clockface or the timings just don't fit. For instance, you have somewhere like Axminster where buses use the station to terminate and most are roughly hourly services. The trains arrive at xx.30 and xx.03 depending on direction of travel - if your bus arrives at xx.15 then by definition you are missing (or just providing a reasonable connection) depending on the direction of train travel.

Then you have the simple commercial choices that peripheral stations cause. As an example, Frome in Somerset has a station on the edge of town. You could extend buses there (adding about 5-10 mins on a journey) but for most people, it makes more sense to extend services by other parts of town to serve the large Sainsbury's/Retail Park than to the station.

Lastly, there are some places like Taunton where extending buses from the town centre to the bus station is just really difficult because of traffic congestion etc; it would drive extra vehicles into the PVR and the maths don't stack up (unless there's going to be some pivotal change in funding which there won't be).

As ever, it's a really nuanced answer rather than a black and white one. What I would say is that where integration is realistically deliverable, then it really should be delivered. Onward travel notices should be up to date and comprehensive. Decent waiting facilities in close proximity, with up to date bus times. Bus timetables being available in timetable racks in train stations. Good publicity for PlusBus and similar ticketing. However, unless the expenditure is forthcoming, the comprehensive European style of integration is simply not achievable in many areas.

 

[Romilly]

St Andrews (Fife)/Leuchars: although St Andrews is a 10-minute bus ride from Leuchars rail station, the bus stop at the rail station is at the station's sole exit (and has a covered shelter, which can be necessary as the station is in an exposed windy location), during Monday-Saturday daytimes there is at least one bus every 10 minutes, the last bus to St Andrews on Monday-Saturday leaves after the last train arrives from Edinburgh, return bus tickets bought on Stagecoach buses on the buslink are period returns valid for 4 weeks, it is possible to buy rail tickets that include the bus link (although that seems to mainly work for flexible tickets, and only from certain websites e.g. Scotrail/VTEC), in the St Andrews bus station there is an electronic board showing train departures from Leuchars station, and at offpeak times the ticket office at the bus station sells a full/wide range of rail tickets (and, I think, can be used to collect pre-booked rail tickets).

 

[telstarbox]

The parallel issue is finding information.

National Rail Enquiries does a good job of presenting train times and prices from all the different TOCs (even if a journey involves a change). Google Maps now includes the locations of bus stops and timetable data, but it's still impossible to find the price of a bus journey online for most parts of the UK.

 

[Joe Paxton]

The parallel issue is finding information.

National Rail Enquiries does a good job of presenting train times and prices from all the different TOCs (even if a journey involves a change). Google Maps now includes the locations of bus stops and timetable data, but it's still impossible to find the price of a bus journey online for most parts of the UK.

Since Stagecoach Bus introduced its new website (last year?), their journey planner now includes fare information for single and return journeys. I have found it doesn't always give the correct fare (albeit an overestimate rather than underestmate which is preferable), but maybe that's down to drivers locally interpreting the fare tables in a more generous manner.

Anyway, a plus mark for Stagecoach for doing this.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Add another name to the list slagging off Leeds- partly down to deregulation (same issues affect Bradford and Liverpool when it comes to multi-modal journeys) but the size of Leeds makes it more of a glaring problem.

A case in point, I set off from my accommodation in Prague-Palmovka at 0530 (local time) this morning and had the option of trams (Prague's tram system is truly a sight to behold) which run mostly 24h close to the centre; or the Metro which starts at 0500-ish (I used the Metro, one change at Florenc) to get me to the main station for my 0610 departure, all covered by my 3-day pass costing about £7.50. I'll arrive back in Leeds at around 0230 tomorrow morning and my only option to get home will be a taxi costing the best part of £20. Even if Leeds had trams, I suspect they'd finish at midnight and would only go to a few select suburban destinations, of which Batley wouldn't be one as it's in Kirklees not Leeds!