Great Western Coffee Shop

The attachments on this post are screen captures, showing some of the feedback I've been getting on the TransWilts line and service - it's all very well having the service, but it also needs to work well (promising signs but some teething issues), provide what's needed (I think it does for around 80% of potential passengers) have good fares (it sort of has, but we had a glitch last week which remains not fully solved - staff told to override glitch but don't know to what!) and have the potential user community know it exists.

For those of you who live in Reading or Maidenhead ... chances are that nearly everyone in your neighbourhood knows there's a station and that you can get a train to London from there.  For those living in Clifton Down or Barnstaple, there's probably less knowledge.   For Melksham in particular it's an issue that we've been addressing over the years;  only a minority of local people even knew there was a station 10 years ago, and we've been building along to improve that.   The marketable service we now have makes in worthwhile too.

There is also the question of the other end of the journey - if you're travelling from "A" (Chippenham) to "B" (Trowbridge) or "C" (Melksham) you need to know that there's a station in your local town AND one in the destination town AND that you can get from A to B or C when you want to.  So "We have a station" is just a first step; reaching people in Melksham is a targeted informing campaign - tougher in Trowbridge and tougher again in Swindon where there is such a great service to London, and it has the demand, that the TransWilts which is very useful to some people has to be marketed in such a way that we find the significant numbers but small proportion that can make practical use of it.

Bby subjective observation I would suggest that even in the Thames Valley a large number of locals don't know where their nearest station is. Plus even if they know where their local station they don't know where the trains go, the frequency and timespan (whats the right word for time between fiirst and last trains?).

This is as I say subjective observation based on the times we manned the TRUG office at Taplow we had a number of people turning up either saying they didn't know there was a station or asking where do the trains go and how often do they run.

So to broaden the discussion how do you publicise a station.

Chiltern tried poaching our passengers by doing a local maildrop around Taplow advertisng the merits of their service from Beconsfield! I think FGW weren't too happy but haven't done their own mailshot. I think there's thread some where on Coffee Shop about Chiltern's ploy.

How about making sure that as well as in the immediate vicinity, the appropriate sign for road traffic is present at all main road junctions within about a mile of the station.   I think that's roughly what they did for Chandlers Ford - and at quite a significant cost to the local authority apparently.   

Paul

Run an info day with various community stalls on or around the station....in conjunction with your local station manager obviously - then plaster the town & press with ads/leaflets

We have, I believe, moved from around 10% of Melksham people knowing that there's a station for the town 10 years ago to around 33% knowing prior to last December, and it's probably around 60% now - much thanks to various activities supported by both First Great Western and Wiltshire Council in various ways, and a lot of hard graft by - well - a small local team where just a very few individuals each makes a real difference by their  work, and supported by many others who do smaller things but in such a way as to be really really helpful.

I started "Melksham" there - the metrics are different in Melksham, where people are very much more train newbies that in Trowbridge or Chippenham, where they are more train 'savvy' ("more" not "fully", eightf48544 - I do hear what you say).   In those towns, at-station is a valuable way of reaching people who are already public transport users but may have other journeys, but it's trickier (and trickier still in Swindon) to reach those who want to make journeys that would use the line, but don't currently make other journeys.

Station signage is good in Melksham - some corrosion and moss needs cleaning.  But ChrisB's suggestion is something we are ... somewhat towards.   Parish notice boards, town hall, TIC, Library already have posters and timetables up and the open day is an excellent extra thought - a series of events is planned through the nicer part of the year and we'll add that to the melting pot.    Target is to be in the news every week!

About to post this ... I got called away as I wrote, so other ideas may have come in as I post, but I need to get back into the "day job" for a couple of hours ...

I think you are right about signposting. Most continental towns include directions to the station throughout the urban area.

And that's true in Britain too - up to a point. Signs along main roads usually give the station, especially when you won't get there by following "town centre" (as in Melksham). Once you are in the town centre signs to anywhere are generally pretty patchy, so the station may suffer from that. Of course we don't usually notice signs unless we need directions ... which isn't often the case near home.

Talking of Barnstaple..whilst boarding a train there the other day an elderly Devon Native (increasingly rare these days!) asked me if this train went to Exeter ..I suppose she could be forgiven in thinking it may have been going to Ilfracombe, Taunton, Torrington -'down over' or even to Waterloo !