[Archive] Arriva North West - Speke Depot

[mr t]

RE: Arriva North West - Speke Depot
Interesting meeting in Liverpool last week regarding life after bus lanes -

Mr Farrall used Arriva Merseyside’s high-frequency service 79, from Liverpool to Halewood, to illustrate the effect of the bus lanes’ removal. “Prior to this we had worked through reliability issues by speaking to drivers and users. We put an extra vehicle into the service, which made it very reliable – until the bus lanes were taken away.”

He points out that, where bus lanes have been withdrawn, the space is often used by residents to park their cars, rather than to speed the flow of all traffic, as the Mayor intended.

“We also find the lack of predictability very difficult to deal with,” says Mr Farrall. “Since October 2013 we have had to add nine additional buses to our city network. In real terms, that’s around a £1m investment.”

Figures from the operator show that average journey times for the area’s buses, regardless of whether they used bus lanes or not, increased by on average 1% following the lanes’ removal. For non-bus journeys, average journey times increased by an average of 1.5%.

However, on Arriva’s route 79, average journey times increased by up to 13.4% during the peaks and by up to 5.6% between them. Arriva will add a further two buses to the service’s PVR next month.