There are advantages, its the fastest route between Wigan and Bolton so there would be operational savings and presumably they would be trying to generate additional demand by better serving a large employment/retail/leisure destination while the demand for Westhoughton passengers would still exist on the original route so you are generating additional custom.
On the bus vs tram issue I remember one of the other aspirations was to have bus routes that mirrored tram corridors (of course they wouldnt be exact duplicates but divert to serve other communities but have calls near the stations) so to some degree you have your bus replacement built in so in times of service disruption they could add more capacity to the bus routes to deal with the diverted passengers rather than having to charter a dedicated bus replacement taking hours if not days.
Yes, it's the usual PR drivel, but when you read through the guff I have to say I'm (marginally) pleasantly surprised - and I am a strong Franchise Sceptic!
There's nonsense, such as Donny85 highlighted, and others such as a 30% increase in patronage (whereas the actual audited projections for the Franchise Consultation show they expect a decline in ridership). They also talk of fares being affordable and reinvesting the surplus in other public transport - spoiler alert: there aint going to be no surplus!
Bizarrely, they have a page where they look at "examples from elsewhere" and show examples from deregulated buses they want to emulate. But at least they aren't being ideologically "everything the private sector does is bad". Indeed the document says that deregulation did bring some improvements and they also, tellingly, compare Greater Manchester Transport in the 1970s with West Midlands in the 1970s (when both were under PTE control) and acknowledge that West Midlands did better than GM.
They acknowledge that just tinkering around with bus routes and painting them a different colour isn't going to make an improvement, and aim to get more bus priority measures and bus lanes (which of course they could have done anyway, but hey ho).
They also say that route branding can be a good thing and highlight the X43 Witch Way and the Trans Lancs Express. I have to say that with them retiring the "Vantage" name that I expected route branding would be out of the window, but perhaps not after all.
Finally (a subject being discussed on the Liverpool City Region forum) they acknowledge that cross boundary links are important and will facilitate them (whereas Liverpool's plans seem to be that they only want Franchised services in their area and to hell with any outside links other than those they decide to pay for themselves).
Two interesting posts, and my two penneth to add to them. The points that are made (as stated by
@domcoop7) are indeed more optimistic than I'd expected. The approach to the cross boundary routes is much better than the Liverpool approach, and that was always one of my concerns. Things are not black and white, and you need a level of pragmatism rather than be bound by blind ideology. Therefore, a recognition that cross-boundary services have an important role and that passenger demands are dictated by traffic objectives and not an arbitrary line on a map is welcomed; the solution isn't perhaps perfect but at least it's more enlightened than the view taken further along the East Lancs.
Similarly, the view on branding. I'm not a person who gets priapic over the latest Ray Stenning creation, and that every route has to have some distinct identity (please see comments on First Kernow thread). So whilst not a fan of the slightly wishy-washy yellow, I get the potential benefit of some commonality of image. However, there is a place for some promotional innovation; the loss of Vantage is disappointing but the promotion of faster links or airport orientated services or whatever is something that there should be a place for (and better than the frankly amateurish route branding that TfL rolled out on some London routes).
However, the biggest concern I had, and still have, is the way in which the direct links may or may not survive. Again, this is about being pragmatic and not slavishly adhering to something ideological. If we can have better interchange from Altrincham locals or wherever onto Metrolink, that would be brilliant. What I don't want to see is alleged "duplication" being used as an excuse to simply funnel passengers onto the trams. For instance, take the 100 from Warrington to Trafford Centre. Onward connections via trams to Manchester city centre being easier is a benefit. However, not if that comes the expense of running onward to Eccles, Pendleton and Manchester. Yes, the tram heads to Manchester but the 100 fulfils a role to any number of other destinations such as the Salford Hospital, University etc. There has to be pragmatism above ideology.
Lastly, the main issue is traffic congestion. It chokes our cities and stops bus services running smoothly and reliably. That some arterial route like Cheetham Hill Road has no bus priority is almost unbelievable. Sorting out those issues is much more important than nice paint - I hope these aren't fine words by TfGM and hope to see genuine improvements in these areas.
