Great Western Coffee Shop

Just wondering whether anybody on here who uses Tiverton Parkway regularly feels there needs to be improvement to services at this station both train and bus wise?

Looking at the bus timetable against the train timetable - not one of the direct services from Paddington meets up with a bus to Tiverton at TVP, you either miss the bus by a few minutes and have to wait nearly an hour, or at least half an hour and I think it's a similar story if you're coming from Tiverton town centre to TVP. I know that Exeter is most probably better served by buses, but not everyone wants to travel from Exeter.

It seems people arriving at TVP on Cross Country services might being better served than those who have come on FGW services (ie less time to wait), it would be interesting to see some sort of figures as to whether the bus service at TVP is more used by Cross Country than FGW passengers.

Also, would there be any call for the Night Riviera service to stop at TVP? At the moment, the earliest one can get to TVP direct from London is 10:50, perhaps they should trial stopping the night service at TVP?

Can't imagine FGW wanting to staff Tiverton 24hrs!

.....and with TVP being somewhat in the sticks not very practical for passengers without a pick-up/drop off arranged to get to/from the station.

And given some of the routes used by the sleeper don't pass Tiverton Parkway then FGW would not want the hassle of laying on replacement bus services.

Not to mention the very unsociable pick up/drop off timings.

I agree there's not much reason to stop the sleeper at TVP. for teh reasons given.

However, I am more concerned regarding the bus connections from the station to Tiverton.

Can anyone give me one good reason why the buses don't connect properly with the trains. Apart for the obvious one that DaFT doesn't allow it because buses have compete with trains and you can't have an integrated public transport system.

DaFT would far rather you used your car or got a lift in a car  to get to TVP.

Does it have to be staffed 24 hours? It seems to operate perfectly well when unstaffed after 21:00 in the evenings, it has even been unstaffed during the day once or twice when the station building closed early due to staff shortage, but trains still stopped - you don't have to walk through the station building to exit the station.

There are 78 train services calling at TVP on weekdays with an hourly bus service in each direction; toward Exeter for Uffculme, Willand, Collumpton and toward Tiverton for Sampford Peverell and Tiverton. So those buses have a good chance of connecting with a train, just maybe not the one James wants!

It does seem a little mad that the first available bus from Tiverton bus station to Tiverton Parkway is scheduled to arrive at 0657 with an all shacks via Bristol London bound train departing at 0658. Although if London is where you're headed then take the next bus an connect comfortably with the 0757 CrossCountry, same platform change onto a FGW HST at Taunton and be in London 12 mins earlier than the direct service. Not ideal, but until we have truly integrated transport it's up to the passenger to find the workarounds.

Oh, and also the cynic in me asks, why would Stagecoach want to connect their buses with First Great Western? Connect with the Exeter bound services and get passengers onto SWT services to London!

The dispatcher works longer hours I believe.

I've been to Banstaple a few times and the thing about Banstaple is that coming from the east it is much quicker to get the train to Tiverton and then be met by car for the journey to Barnstaple by road.  Many of the cars at the overfull P&R will be from Barnstaple.  However, IIRC, there is a decent express bus from Tiverton to Barnstaple.  Extending this bus to the station would give much better access to the railway for journeys West and if the first bus of the day connected with the train at Tiverton, a decent am arival time in London would be possible, earlier than catching the first am train out of Barnstaple and cheaper I assume to implement than staffing the branch line an hour earlier. 

I am not an expert on this area but it does seem that better bus/tain coordination could improve acess to a part of North Devon in need of economic development at low cost.

When visiting friends in Barnstaple (from Bath) my first though is to drive.  That woudl change if I could catch a train to Tiverton and connect to a fast bus, but having to go via Exeter, just tips teh balance away from public transport

I'm sure that if you do a comparison on fares to/from TVP -v- BNP, usually going all the way to BNP will be the most cost effective - albeit not so many connection opportunities on the Tarka line. 

Trains - First

Buses - Stagecoach

or is that too simplistic?

EDIT  Should have read posts above properly Sorry!
 

Honiton :

trains stagecoach
bus stagecoach

.........

the look on peoples faces when they see their connecting bus drive away just as the doors on the train open, priceless!

I'd agree here, at the moment if I travel by train to Tiverton and then need to get a bus to our house in Devon, I have to get the 1 at TVP to Phoenix Lane and then wait a little while for the 155 (as lovely a town as Tiverton is, it can get a bit boring waiting!) - of course both these routes are Stagecoach run*.

When I go to visit my girlfriend in Bovey Tracey the bus connections from NTA station are much better and they're pretty much all Stagecoach run - they even have services on Sunday in that part of Devon!

* 155 runs between Barnstaple & Exeter via Tiverton (Phoenix Lane) & South Molton - the route used to be run by First as the 346 between Barnstaple & Tiverton (Phoenix Lane)

However the 39 doesn't run from Newton Abbot station, has a poor hourly frequency and doesn't run after 8 PM.