[Archive] Arriva North West - Speke Depot

[mr t]

RE: Arriva North West - Speke Depot
The problem with the 500 is it cannot be run reliably through the City Centre due to the amount of congestion and stupid junctions that it must travel through to serve a few hotels, it becomes uneconomical to travel for half an hour at least in town then back out, for the sake as above said of a few passengers to hotels. If anybody actually tried catching it at stops other than the Queen Square and Liverpool One they would be left hanging around waiting for it to eventually turn up so they would inevitably end up walking to QS or L1 or flagging down taxis anyway.
When it was first introduced it served a purpose - it was a regular limited stop service that only competed with the 80As every 30mins, and ran every half hour and served at the time what was very few hotels in Liverpool en route including most in town. That was about 10 hotels.
What has happened since then is Capital of culture and Liverpool One and town have all gone boom and we now have around 40-50 hotels in the City Centre so it is impossible to serve them all. Most are generally based around the Albert Dock, and the triangle of roughly Lime Street/Duke Street/The Strand/Exchange Street/St Johns Lane. At the same time other routes from the airport have been intensely upgraded so there is now the 80A every 15, 82A every 30, 86A every 15. These all serve the Lime Street/Hanover Street/Liverpool One areas. So essentially the 500 is not needed here, the same way as when it used to serve the coach station and Station. Who goes from the Airport to the coach station?
Due to the success of Liverpool One and its associated road "improvement " schemes travelling up the The Strand is virtually a no go for buses as is through Tithebarn Street and all around town how many days is there an incident of some sort in town? So if anything it is the councils fault for its diabolical road schemes over the years with virtually no bus priority provision. Proven by how quickly operators pulled services from L1 when it opened, and more recently the Pier Head, The Strand traffic lights still only let 4 buses turn right up James Street and similarly exiting James Street to head for L1 or Mann Island. Running through the City Centre is now a regular nightmare for buses and Makes running the 500 abysmal and the 86A probably ends up in town quicker than the 500. To be fair it was increased to every 20 minutes for a good few years but demand obviously wasnt there. Passengers at JLA have dropped off lots over recent years as has been publicised so that hasnt helped the 500s. Plus flights are so infrequent in comparison to other airports and in reality people will get whichever bus is first at the stands to town and sort themselves out from there they dont care how long it takes as long as they can sit down, why wait upto half an hour for supposedly "faster" service.
There is many times I have actually seen the 82A leave full as it came in first, then the 86A left empty and the 500 comes in 3rd and leaves with a handful of passengers. If anything it is actually overbussed to town - why not take the 80A or 86As out? Then it would leave the 500 with more passengers?
The 86A was tried 24 hour operation and failed miserably as we know. And there are no night time flights so there is no real need for it at the airport anyway.
And finally, as has been said its of course about profit and using resources accordingly - the 500 and 81 are suffering terrible reliability - so Arriva are killing 2 birds with 1 stone, like the 62/63 situation at Bootle that people moaned about - by curtailing the 500 it saves a bus and improves reliability greatly, This bus is then going to be used in the 81 timetable which gains extra running time and similarly improve its reliability. Happy passengers all round then, and no cost.