MetroBus

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Service UWE from Frenchay campas also follows same route and frequency reduced to every 20 minutes from end of April.

Is that the ploy by the promoters, withdraw th X48 and UWE services and replace those services with MetroBus route M3 with free travel for the first 13 days and hey presto they will proclaim instant success with Joe Public of MetroBus.

I bet we won't hear a peep out of the MetroBus promoters after the free trial period when patronage drops off due to the higher fares and users revert back to using the 5, 47, 48, 48A, 49, 70, 71, 72 and new route 49A as I have heard that the cost of a dayrider will be the same as the Bristol Outer Zone Dayrider at £6.40 compared with the Bristol Inner Zone Dayrider at £4.00 currently available on both the X48 and the UWE services.

Whether it's a "ploy", good marketing, or a sensible way - when a new service comes in - to kick people into trying out the new, we can discuss.  Perhaps it's all three?

Where there are significant service changes, there is going to be some shakeout as people change their travel patterns to use what's optimal for them after the changes.   And once it gets to the stage of the service pattern being effectively set - I think we are there now - we should remember that the key issue and competition is getting people onto the public transport and out of their cars - to support the new services to the hilt for appropriate journeys and to say "let's make this work".   For sure, early-day issues will occur where there's going to be some tuning - but we should by now be well across the road from protest (about the bits we don't like) towards partnership (where we look to help make the thing work).   Partnership IS also about being the critical friend ... "do you realise that ..." stuff, reviews meetings, fine tuning.

[johnneyw]

The operator for the M1 route has been announced. Surprisingly, to me at least, it's Bristol Community Transport who run just a few bus routes (505 and 511). It's a little more complicated than that as they are 'contracted to First'.  Details here.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/longest-metrobus-route-m1-run-1433442

It's refreshing to see a company that reinvests it's profits get the gig and I hope their entanglement with First doesn't end up with unwelcome consequences.

[simonw]

Also a shame that the route is not split into 2/3 sections.

Just too many pinch points in this long route, the chance of road works, or a major traffic jam will break this Metrobus services.

[TonyK]

The operator for the M1 route has been announced. Surprisingly, to me at least, it's Bristol Community Transport who run just a few bus routes (505 and 511). It's a little more complicated than that as they are 'contracted to First'. 

It's refreshing to see a company that reinvests it's profits get the gig and I hope their entanglement with First doesn't end up with unwelcome consequences.

The cynic in me smells a biorat. I can imagine the uproar that would have resulted had all three routes been given to First, even if no-one else tendered for them, and even if First's support for the idea of MetroBust was at first (sorry) lukewarm to say the least. Hence the "innovative operating model" - BCT run the buses with, presumably, First supplying either the vehicles or cash for the vehicles, and stepping in to take over should things start to go bosoms skywards. Look at the economics of it - how could a company that has only been running a very few routes for under 9 months take on the risk of running a brand new, and risky, service using brand new vehicles by itself? And why would First get involved with sponsoring a competitor?

There's more to this than meets the eye. Although BCT's limited experience of running subsidised buses with very few passengers between places no-one wants to go to may well come in handy on MetroBust, the likelihood of them being used by First as a front can't be discounted.

That said, I hope their staff enjoy at least as favourable pay and terms of service as do First's.

[IndustryInsider]

I sense you’re starting to warm to the Metrobus project, FT,N!   

[johnneyw]

Points West BBC1 in a few minutes, a 'first look at the new Metrobust'.

Edit: Just seen it. It does look remarkably like a bus service. Any other observations?

[chuffed]

I notice that metro bus and four tracks for Filton are both level pegging on 20 pages each on this forum. Which one will reach the finishing line first?

[TonyK]

I sense you’re starting to warm to the Metrobus project, FT,N!   

Pah!

Points West BBC1 in a few minutes, a 'first look at the new Metrobust'.

Edit: Just seen it. It does look remarkably like a bus service. Any other observations?

The initial propaganda promised us "a tram like experience on a low emission articulated vehicle in segregated lanes". We're getting a bus-like experience in a bus-like bus on a road-like road. This will be accompanied by endless Comical Ali-style pronouncements of how well it is doing.

I notice that metro bus and four tracks for Filton are both level pegging on 20 pages each on this forum. Which one will reach the finishing line first?

It's going to be close, although Filton Four Tracks, Now! has been under way for a few years less. Not much contest as to which will be carrying the most passengers come next year, though. Nor which one will be first to carry the vehicles it was designed with in mind.

[Bmblbzzz]

Have we had this already?

Say the words ‘Metro’ and ‘Bus’ to any Bristolian and your best-case scenario is that they’ll breathe a heavy sigh.

The first route on the long-awaited Bus Rapid Transit (BRT^▸ (Bus Rapid Transit)) system is due to launch on 29 May. But the project has become so unpopular that Tim Bowles, the mayor of the West of England, has commented only half-jokingly that he prefers not to be referred to as a “Metro Mayor”, lest constituents associate him with the project.

MetroBus began life in 2006 as a low-cost mass transit solution: a poor man’s tram which would serve the booming Bristol population and loosen the chokehold the car has on the road network frequently cited as one of the most congested in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

Bus Rapid Transit is, basically, a sexed-up bus. By running largely independently of the normal road network via segregated bus lanes and purpose-built guideways, it offers better speed and reliability. Heres’ the concept being demonstrated in Cambridge:

 

A video of the Cambridge Guded Busway.

The MetroBus scheme was a milestone, as Bristol has never in modern history had planned integrated mass public transport. Other city regions like Manchester may have trams to complement their bus and rail services. But Greater Bristol has remained stubbornly suburban in its thinking, limited by a lack of political will from central government and cowed by pressure from voters who commute by car – even though it’s quicker to cycle than drive in Bristol at rush hour.

MetroBus was an acknowledgement that the city can’t solve congestion by just building more roads. While it may sound counterintuitive that giving up space to bus lanes will help ease congestion, it works: any measure which improves the speed and reliability of buses means people are able to switch from their cars to public transport. This phenomenon is known as ‘modal shift’, and it removes those vehicles from the traffic traffic, easing space on the road network for people who need to drive – disabled people, traders, delivery vans, carers.

Bristol houses just under half a million people, but over 835,000 people are employed in the Bristol Travel to Work Area (Somerset, Bath, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and further afield). All three local authorities which share a border with the city are commuter hubs, with a sprinkling of fast growing satellite towns as a result of house price inflation in the inner city. The region is served by a lacklustre and overcrowded local rail system – though this is set to change with the onset of the MetroWest rail expansion project – and only three park and rides.



The region. Image: West of England LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about).

Bristol’s bus network is patchy and journey times are unreliable, a direct result of the deregulation under the Transport Act 1985 (thanks, Thatcher). It’s hard for a city to plan its transport network strategically, when commercial bus operators can chop and change their routes at will.

So MetroBus was intended to plug this gap. The proposed network would link several areas of the Greater Bristol conurbation: one route runs from the suburb of Ashton Vale to Temple Meads station via a guided busway; a second links Hengrove Park in the south to the Northern Fringe via the M32; while a link road would connect the Hartcliffe and Bishopsworth areas of south Bristol.

All this will facilitate housebuilding and regeneration. Land around the guideway has already been earmarked for residential development, assisting the council to meet its target of building 2,000 homes – 800 of which are affordable – per year by 2020.



The route map. Image: Travelwest.

Two historic bridges have been restored and a new junction and bridge built over the M32 to put the ‘rapid’ into bus rapid transit. So: faster journey times, neatly segregated from the choked arteries of a road network suffering a dire dearth of orbital roads. What’s not to love?

As it turns out, quite a bit. The project will also see the city centre redeveloped to stop motor traffic using it as a cut through into the shopping district. But it has missed an opportunity to create decent cycling infrastructure, with proposals for poorly distinguished shared space paving termed “daft and dangerous” by the Bristol Post.

Meanwhile, the monolithic black ticket machines, iPoints, have also been delayed at the manufacturing stage, and MetroBus can’t launch without them. Pre-board ticketing is vital for speeding up journeys: no waiting for Doris to start digging out her bus pass, or for passengers to be burnt to a crisp by the murderous stare of a driver handed a £20 note. Indecision over ticket zoning has also meant little information has been released publicly about ticket prices, and whether these will differ if bought on the First app.

On top of all that, the project has proven to be both later and pricier than expected. The original route to Temple Meads has changed; local authorities have had to pitch in more than £13m extra than planned after construction industry inflation surpassed expectations; timelines have slipped, and environmental protestors had to be removed from trees marked for felling.

We are now, I believe, on the home stretch: the M3 route is launching in May from Emersons Green via the University of the West of England into The Centre, and will be free for 13 days from Tuesday 29 May. A date for the beginning of services on other routes, however, has yet to be announced. 

Despite the naysayers, once people understand the concept of MetroBus, they’re usually fairly optimistic. I’m personally looking forward to the launch, and hope to be pleasantly surprised by setting low expectations: if I can get from Ashton Gate to the train station in 20 minutes, I’ll count that as a success.

If not…well, maybe we should just hold out for an underground.

https://www.citymetric.com/transport/bristol-finally-about-get-rapid-transit-network-sort-3822

[Red Squirrel]

Just a couple of thoughts:

1. What on earth does 'sexed-up' mean, in this context? It's just a bus.
2. Metrobus may be further acknowledgement  that "the city can’t solve congestion by just building more roads", but that decision had been made by the time of the 1992 Bristol Draft Local Plan.
3. 'Modal shift' is not a phenomenon, it's a myth. Some people might well stop using their cars and use MetroBus instead, but their road space will soon be filled by others.
4. Bristol absolutely does not 'suffer' 'a dire dearth of orbital roads' - Bristol is, or should be, eternally thankful that the planned Outer Circuit road was not completed. Well, having said that, it might have solved a few problems: no-one would want to live here if they'd built it, so maybe there'd be fewer traffic problems...

[Western Pathfinder]

And by the looks of things the south Bristol link is to be shelved for the moment just caught a snippet about this on this evenings BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Points West.

[Bmblbzzz]

Just a couple of thoughts:

1. What on earth does 'sexed-up' mean, in this context? It's just a bus.
2. Metrobus may be further acknowledgement  that "the city can’t solve congestion by just building more roads", but that decision had been made by the time of the 1992 Bristol Draft Local Plan.
3. 'Modal shift' is not a phenomenon, it's a myth. Some people might well stop using their cars and use MetroBus instead, but their road space will soon be filled by others.
4. Bristol absolutely does not 'suffer' 'a dire dearth of orbital roads' - Bristol is, or should be, eternally thankful that the planned Outer Circuit road was not completed. Well, having said that, it might have solved a few problems: no-one would want to live here if they'd built it, so maybe there'd be fewer traffic problems...

Yes, no, I don't know. My responses, which might be at odds to those of the writer of that article:
1. It's a bus with attitude. Not just a bus, not a minibus, but a MetroBus! A mighty, mean and green, big and beefy, cool and clean, swift and sexy transportation solution^{TM‡(resolve)}! A bus that people will be proud of travelling in. Okay, it's a bus.
2. Except they are building more roads under the guise of MetroBus, so I'm not sure they've admitted anything to themselves.
3. If a hundred people shift from car to MetroBus, that's a modal shift of a hundred people. This is journalism! (More seriously, projects like this can function as an excuse to introduce other measures which might bring a shift, eg congestion charges, on the grounds that the bus reduces the need to drive.)
4. I reckon it'll be completed before long. The SouthernLinkRoad^TM being the latest but not the last part.

[TonyK]

Just a couple of thoughts:

1. What on earth does 'sexed-up' mean, in this context? It's just a bus.
2. Metrobus may be further acknowledgement  that "the city can’t solve congestion by just building more roads", but that decision had been made by the time of the 1992 Bristol Draft Local Plan.
3. 'Modal shift' is not a phenomenon, it's a myth. Some people might well stop using their cars and use MetroBus instead, but their road space will soon be filled by others.
4. Bristol absolutely does not 'suffer' 'a dire dearth of orbital roads' - Bristol is, or should be, eternally thankful that the planned Outer Circuit road was not completed. Well, having said that, it might have solved a few problems: no-one would want to live here if they'd built it, so maybe there'd be fewer traffic problems...

1. 'Sexed up' - you know, like dossiers on weapons of mass destruction. You're right - it's just a bus. Not only that, most of the novel cutting-edge innovations it was intended to introduce, such as newer buses with lower emissions, wifi, onboard information systems, off-bus ticketing etc, have all been commonplace for a couple of years. We didn't really need most of the rest of the quarter-billion pound stuff to do that. I said some time back that public transport would improve in spite of MetroBust rather than because of it.
2. I always said it was a 1990s answer to a 1980s problem designed in the 2000s and obsolete by the 2010s.
3. 'Modal shift" will be a myth if MetroBust is the catalyst. However, and I dread to cause offence by even a slight disagreement, it does happen. In Manchester, the opening of the first Metrolink service not only got people out of cars and onto trams, but also led to a surge in bus ridership as well as use of suburban heavy rail. The roads were, and still are, clogged of course, but a lot of people got to work more quickly. And the investment in the Severn Beach line from May 2008 gave the corridor a useful rail service for the first time in years, leading to at least a trebling of passenger numbers since. But MetroBust is just a bus service. It may tempt a few people out of their cars, especially if the threatened M32 park and ride happens, but most of its customers are likely to come from other bus routes.
4. I entirely agree. If it is short of anything, it is a couple of bridges across the waterways (relatively easily remedied) and a shortage of vision, interest, and political will (much harder to fix). That said, I'm upping anchor and moving to pastures new (metaphorically and literally) next week.

And by the looks of things the south Bristol link is to be shelved for the moment just caught a snippet about this on this evenings BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Points West.

You may mean this from the Bristol Post:

Concerns for pregnant woman as travellers occupying MetroBus route undergo welfare checks

Council officers are concerned about moving a heavily pregnant woman from the encampment in Ashton

Concerns have been raised for a heavily pregnant traveller woman who is a member of the encampment occupying a MetroBus route.

Council officers are currently carrying out all the necessary welfare checks before deciding to evict the group.

Officers visited the site nearby the South Bristol Link Road today after people started moving on to the land yesterday evening.

Caravans were seen parking up on the road from around 6pm, April 11. North Somerset Council have confirmed there are now 13 caravans present.

During their visit, they met a heavily pregnant woman who is a member of the encampment and want to make sure she is fit to travel before they hand the group a ‘notice to quit’.

NHS partners have been contacted and a midwife will be going to the encampment tomorrow to carry out checks on the expectant mother.

Should the notice be served after that, the group will be given a period of time to move from the site.

If they do not exit the land, the council will have to go to court and apply for the group to be forcibly removed.

A spokesperson for North Somerset Council said: “We are currently carrying out all of the normal welfare checks.

“Officers have been to visit the site today and there is one woman who is heavily pregnant and we have contacted our NHS partners and a midwife is going to visit tomorrow to see if she is healthy to travel.

“If all members of the community are okay to travel then they will be served a notice to quit by council officers,” he added.

"This will give them a period of time to quit the land, if they do not move on we will apply to the court to get them forcibly removed."

The MetroBus road on which they are parked is the spur off road called South Liberty Lane built especially for the Metrobuses to quickly nip between the park and ride and Hengrove.

There are no plans for it to be opened for use yet, with Bristol Live reporting yesterday it could now be years before that route is developed, much to the fury of MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) Karyn Smyth.

The road has now been removed from the latest version of the MetroBus map and some residents of South Bristol have suggested that while it goes unused it would be better off being put to alternative use.

Reece White, 22, from Hartcliffe said: "I think it’s not being used and as long as they don’t cause any trouble – what is the harm?”

Or this, again from the Post:

Metrobus route across South Bristol mysteriously disappears from the map
The route was on the maps for years - until this week - but it is not planned any time soon

ByTristan Cork

A furious MP has demanded to know why a Metrobus route across South Bristol has mysteriously disappeared from the latest map of the new transport system.

Karin Smyth said she was ‘extremely concerned’ to see the Metrobus link connecting Hengrove with Ashton Vale and the Long Ashton park and ride had vanished from the latest map showing the three Metrobus routes.

The connection, which joins up the southern termini of two of the three Metrobus routes, has been on every map issued by Metrobus until this week, when a new one was published with the announcement – finally – of a start date of one of the routes.

But the South Bristol MP spoke out after spotting that the link between Long Ashton Park and Ride and Hengrove wasn’t on the map showing all three Metrobus routes.


Spot the difference - the Metrobus map last week (left) and this week (right)
The road itself exists – the South Bristol Link Road has been open for almost a year and a spur off that road was constructed especially for Metrobus buses to quickly go from Hengrove to Long Ashton park and ride.

No date has yet been set for either Metrobus routes that use Long Ashton park and ride or Hengrove – although the announcement on Monday included the news that Bristol Community Transport would operate the Hengrove to North Bristol route.

The Ashton Vale – Temple Meads route has been beset by delays, and First Bus is understood to have asked Metrobus to abandon its attempts to get it up and running this spring and instead focus on the Emerson’s Green to City Centre route – which will now open at the end of May.

But while the two routes that end at Long Ashton park and ride and Hengrove will happen eventually – and are expected this year – the connecting route between the two is not planned any time soon.

Karin Smyth said: “While I welcome the launch this week of some Metrobus routes, I’m extremely concerned that the Ashton to Hengrove link seems to have fallen by the wayside.

“This crucial route, designed to properly connect communities currently poorly served by public transport, was a central part of the Metrobus offer – indeed, it still features prominently on their promotional website.
 
“The Metrobus link is also essential to the success of South Bristol Community Hospital - bringing patients and staff to and from the hospital, while also servicing customers using other facilities nearby.

“Local residents have lived with significant disruption and inconvenience while the road that the Metrobus is to use was built. But it would seem that once again, people in this part of South Bristol have been pushed down the pecking order when it comes to community investment.

“I immediately contacted Metrobus following their announcement, but as yet have received no meaningful response. It is my sincere hope that this route is continuing as planned, and will soon launch as promised. Anything less than would be entirely unacceptable, and a betrayal of promises made to local communities,” she added.

The Bristol Post contacted Metrobus earlier this week, and a spokesperson said that the Metrobus maps that have consistently showed a link between Hengrove and Ashton Vale was always a ‘future aspiration’.

“It was on the maps all the time because those maps were for the Metrobus project as a whole,” she said.

“The South Bristol link was part of the original bids for the proposed services, but are not part of the first three routes on the network.

“The South Bristol Link itself is already doing what it is designed to do as a road, but it does have a dual purpose, and it will carry a Metrobus.

“The link itself is future-proofing – we’ve put the infrastructure now, before the route happens in the future. There is likely to be development in this area. The link was part of the Metrobus Project but we knew that it was future proofing this,” she added.

All is clearly not well in South Bristol. The original promotional material for the South Bristol Link Road clearly showed a bus and a bus lane, as well as a racially diverse family strolling by an otherwise traffic-free road - in fact, it was only missing a palm tree or two. There is a bus lane, and there are several bus stops (two of them vandalised and restored without seeing a passenger), and a high frequency half-hourly service was mentioned. The Hon. Ms Smyth is right to protest, although how many of her constituents would want to travel that route remains to be debated. In the absence of MetroBuses, the bus-only short cut from the link road to Long Ashton Park & Ride has been occupied by MetroTravellers.

Worse than that, at least potentially, there seem to be serious issues with the guided busway, Britain and the world's shortest and most pointless. First Bus were lukewarm at best about that particular bit of infrastructure in the early days, saying they saw no need for it and wouldn't pay the access charge (now dropped) to use it. But they were named as the initial operator for that route months ago. They have since emerged as contractor but not operator of the Cribbs Causeway to Hengrove route due to start on 29 May, and are reported to have suggested to MetroBust that their energies, should they have any, be used to progress the final route from Emersons Green to the Centre rather than mending the Ashton Vale to somewhere near Temple Meads route. They must be a shoo-in for that gig, as they would hardly urge MetroBust to hurry up a route for a rival. I think they may have given up on the idea of running a commercial service from Ashton Vale - the Park and Ride service was heavily subsidised, the number 24 plies a reasonable trade from Ashton Vale, and most of the rest of the stops are either nowhere with many residents or within walking distance of Temple Meads and the Centre.

If that proves to be the case, we will still have the theme-park skew bridge for football fans to laugh at, and the busway for them to walk along.

[martyjon]

Since the announcement that route M3 would be launched first there seems to have been a flurry of activity in the Emersons Green area.

A high hedge has been grubbed up and the area around the terminus at Emersons Green has had some footways laid to the slabbed waiting area but no bus shelter yet although I have seen two shelters have been erected at stops on the ring road itself in the last week.

[TonyK]

Since the announcement that route M3 would be launched first there seems to have been a flurry of activity in the Emersons Green area.

A high hedge has been grubbed up and the area around the terminus at Emersons Green has had some footways laid to the slabbed waiting area but no bus shelter yet although I have seen two shelters have been erected at stops on the ring road itself in the last week.

I rest my case.