markymark2000
On Moderation
Looking at how you have said it, you would be looking at very strange frequencies on common sections and overall, it would lead to quite big cuts in the level of service. Between Cheetham Hill and Pendleton (Salford Shopping Centre), you would be going from an even every 10 min service down to 5 buses per hour split over 2 routes on differing frequencies which often leads to 2 buses coming at the same time which then makes the '5bph' reduce.At the risk of rapped knuckles I'm going to make a suggestion regarding Go North West routes 52 and 53. Has it been considered turning these into an "Outer Circle" route? A section of the 52 (Salford Shopping Centre SSC-Cheetham Hill) be linked to the 53 (Cheetham Hill-SSC). The clockwise route would be 53 and the anti-clock become 54. The short 52 journeys could be withdrawn leaving the 52 Failsworth- Trafford Centre intact. Evening 52A would run Failsworth- NM Hospital.
53/54 would be every 30 mins Mon-Sat daytime and hourly Eve's/Suns . Over to you!
A slight amendment under this scheme 52 would run from Failsworth- to Trafford Centre every 20 minutes NSu, and hourly Sunday alongside suggested 53/54.
Between Pendleton and Eccles, you are then proposing to half the frequency. That won't go down well with passengers.
I believe the 52 service as you propose it would have a PVR of 11 (down from current 13).
For a Circular of this length to work, you need a lot of padding and need buses to stop at key stops for a few minutes as timetabled. Based on the current timetable, extending the 53 from Pendleton to Cheetham Hill would take 21 minutes and the service only has 23 minutes to make the trip (IE the bus arrives into Cheetham Hill at 11:32, the bus then does the 21 min journey to Pendleton which makes it 11:53. The next 53 journey leaves Pendleton at 11:55). This means that for a 2 hour round trip, you have only 2 minutes of layover or you need to pass out the timetable to make it 32 minutes (that's a lot of padding and simply isn't viable.
Basing it on best case scenario of only having 2 mins layover on the round trip and running every 30 minutes, you would need 4 buses per circular so 8 buses in all.
Overall, this means there is a saving of 2 buses but it comes at the detriment of punctuality on the circular and a huge reduction in frequency in other areas.
Counter proposal
Make the 52 run 4 buses per hour (half hourly Failsworth to Eccles and half hourly Cheetham Hill to Trafford Centre). This works out as 14 buses.
Run the circulars as per your proposal.
Pros:
This means there is less impact on the frequencies (6bph Cheetham Hill to Pendleton
Same PVR Cheetham Hill to Pendleton (Rather than a reduction)
Less of a reduction between Eccles and Pendleton
No increase in service at the extreme ends of the 52.
Cons:
Doesn't resolve the issue of the circulars running times and punctuality issues.
Other than that counter proposal, I think you would be best leaving it as it is simply because of the punctuality issues with a full circular would have. It only works in Birmingham because the service is so frequent and so a delay or dropping a bus has much less effect on passengers compared to the proposed circulars. The Birmingham outer circular also has 13 minutes of actual layover in the timetable as well as likely some padding. I can see the appeal of a bigger circular around Manchester but I just think it's too tight on the current services as they are. If the 53 was busy enough for an enhancement to every 20 minutes, there is a bit more chance of the circulars being viable as the layover and padding would work easier so punctuality would be better. The 52 however needs to be kind of untouched as the frequency must be justified else it wouldn't be so frequent.