Public transport in a Wiltshire village - snapshot from Semington

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Yesterday, the Melksham Rail User Group manned a stall at the Semington Village Grand Fete – a good time had by all, and we reached a wide selection of people in the Melksham Community Area, many of whom are not regular public Transport users.  Not only good to have had the opportunity to market public transport to an audience who we don't normally see on the train or bus, but also a really good chance to talk to people and to learn.

Semington is a "main road" village - or it was until the A350 bypass was built and it's now a quiet backwater; the old road remains open and remains the shortest route from Melksham to Trowbridge; it would be a "rat run" save for the bus gate which is overlooked by the divisional police HQ^▸ (Headquarters).  So its interurban bus service is excellent by comparison to other villages of the same size - half hourly from school start time until early afternoon, then less frequent until the final bus calls around 6 p.m. on Monday to Friday; hourly on Saturday, nothing on Sunday. The daytime hourly Swindon - Devizes - Trowbridge bus (not Sunday) passes the end of the village, and there's a weekly shopper's bus at 09:15 on Wednesdays to Bath, returning from there at 13:30. Their nearest station is Melksham; their most convenient station if driving is Trowbridge, because the bus gate means that getting to Melksham by car involves going round three sides of a square - south to the village end, east to the bypass and them north again along the bypass ... west at the top of the Semington bypass to get back on the older road and up to Melksham and the station.   Semington's current buses and timetables - prepared for the fete - are available at http://www.mrug.org.uk/semington2019.pdf ... correlating the data about four separate public transport providers from four different sources (let's not make it easy for people!).

* Services are lacking for travel to and from work - thin in early morning, finish too early in late afternoon

* You need better than once a week to make Bath service generally useful

* The "final mile" and "total journey" issue - OK to get to Swindon, but not the right part of Swindon

* The convenience of the car

* The wide range of journeys wanted

* The difficulty of getting onto the rail network

* The assumption that all train fares are extortionate

* The first time user hurdle - "I don't know how to use it'

* The wanting a return frequency such that you don't have to rush business, nor hang around to kill time

* The feeling that taking the bus is beneath you.

[Robin Summerhill]

A village fete is probably not the best place to put forward the other side of the various coins, but you do at least have a fairly captive audience! Here are my thoughts on the matters raised, and I have numbered the points for easy cross reference rather than split the original post up:

*1 Services are lacking for travel to and from work - thin in early morning, finish too early in late afternoon

*2 You need better than once a week to make Bath service generally useful

*3 The "final mile" and "total journey" issue - OK to get to Swindon, but not the right part of Swindon

*4 The convenience of the car

*5 The wide range of journeys wanted

*6 The difficulty of getting onto the rail network

*7 The assumption that all train fares are extortionate

*8 The first time user hurdle - "I don't know how to use it'

*9 The wanting a return frequency such that you don't have to rush business, nor hang around to kill time

*10 The feeling that taking the bus is beneath you.

1. Agreed but public transport of any kind (road, rail, air or shipping) relies on critical mass ie there have to be enough people wanting to make the journey to make it commercially viable for an operator to provide the service. Yes you can subsidise, but that inevitably leads to people who don't use the service complaining that they have to pay for a service they don't use. Telling people in Cricklade that their Council Tax has just gone up by £10pa to provide a subsidised bus to Semington will not go down well politically for the elected members of the Council in that neck of the woods!

2. Much the same answer as for (1) but, in truth, it was ever thus. Village communities have always had to accept they have to adjust their behaviour to fit in with the transport provider, because if they don't they'll end up with no service at all. One particular example of this in extremis used to be in Tresham, Gloucestershire, where they had a weekly bus service to Wootton Under Edge on Fridays. The village virtually emptied on Friday mornings when they all went off to do their weeks' shopping and came back on the lunchtime bus.

3. An unsolvable problem. The choice of transport options will lways be affected by the entire journey being made. For example if you want to go from a stone's throw from Euston to a stone's throw from Glasgow Central, going by train is an obvious choice. If you want to go from Hounslow to Paisley you're more likely to use a domestic flight.

4. A car is only really convenient if it takes you from exactly where you are to exactly where you want to go without any hassle. The growth of parking restriction, congestion and congestion charging, and indeed large pedestrianised areas can make car use less attractive. It can raised a smile now, but the Broadmead shopping centre in central Bristol was deliberately designed immediately post-WW2 for the motorist to be able to park their car outside the shop of their choice. Times have somewhat changed...

5. Covered at (3) above

6. In the particular case of Semington this is a nonsense. Both Melksham and Trowbridge stations are between 3 and 4 miles away and are served by through bus services to within 100 yards or so of both stations. Of course there once was a Semington Halt, but it was on the Devizes line that is no longer there.

7. This is of considerable concern to me and not just for the residents of Semington. Not helped by newspaper drivel such as "train from Bristol to London 13 times more expensive than the coach," I know otherwise intelligent people who think they'll have to take out a second mortgage for an off peak return from Bristol to Swindon...

Train Operating companies and indeed Rail User Groups could address this by simply providing flyers entitled "Specimen fares from this station" and listing all the locally-popular destinations eg (from Melksham) Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge, B-o-A, Bath, Bristol and London, and/or other destinations as appropriate. This is especially pertinent to rail travel where there is a bus alternative (eg Chippenham to Bath, Swindon and Trowbridge) and fares may not differ by more than a few pence despite a wide variation in transit times.

8. Basic "how to use" information could appear on the flyer eg "Buy a ticket at the machine at the station or online at gwr.com"

9. See (1) again. People who expect public transport to run at exactly the time they wish to travel need a taxi, not a bus or train.

10. Ah yes - The "Buses are for kids, pensioners, drink-drivers and Council tenants" mentality. We probably need a societal change here...

[grahame]

A village fete is probably not the best place to put forward the other side of the various coins ....

But it is a superb place to meet potential customers who are not seen near public transport and to learn a little about why that is.

Both of us on stand duty are / were fairly well versed in the "objections" - from the totally reasonable ones through to the ones that are based on mis-information, with all shades between.

*1 Services are lacking for travel to and from work - thin in early morning, finish too early in late afternoon

*2 You need better than once a week to make Bath service generally useful

*3 The "final mile" and "total journey" issue - OK to get to Swindon, but not the right part of Swindon

*4 The convenience of the car

*5 The wide range of journeys wanted

*6 The difficulty of getting onto the rail network

*7 The assumption that all train fares are extortionate

*8 The first time user hurdle - "I don't know how to use it'

*9 The wanting a return frequency such that you don't have to rush business, nor hang around to kill time

*10 The feeling that taking the bus is beneath you.

1. Agreed but public transport of any kind (road, rail, air or shipping) relies on critical mass ie there have to be enough people wanting to make the journey to make it commercially viable for an operator to provide the service. Yes you can subsidise, but that inevitably leads to people who don't use the service complaining that they have to pay for a service they don't use. Telling people in Cricklade that their Council Tax has just gone up by £10pa to provide a subsidised bus to Semington will not go down well politically for the elected members of the Council in that neck of the woods!

2. Much the same answer as for (1) but, in truth, it was ever thus. Village communities have always had to accept they have to adjust their behaviour to fit in with the transport provider, because if they don't they'll end up with no service at all. One particular example of this in extremis used to be in Tresham, Gloucestershire, where they had a weekly bus service to Wootton Under Edge on Fridays. The village virtually emptied on Friday mornings when they all went off to do their weeks' shopping and came back on the lunchtime bus.

3. An unsolvable problem. The choice of transport options will lways be affected by the entire journey being made. For example if you want to go from a stone's throw from Euston to a stone's throw from Glasgow Central, going by train is an obvious choice. If you want to go from Hounslow to Paisley you're more likely to use a domestic flight.

4. A car is only really convenient if it takes you from exactly where you are to exactly where you want to go without any hassle. The growth of parking restriction, congestion and congestion charging, and indeed large pedestrianised areas can make car use less attractive. It can raised a smile now, but the Broadmead shopping centre in central Bristol was deliberately designed immediately post-WW2 for the motorist to be able to park their car outside the shop of their choice. Times have somewhat changed...

5. Covered at (3) above

6. In the particular case of Semington this is a nonsense. Both Melksham and Trowbridge stations are between 3 and 4 miles away and are served by through bus services to within 100 yards or so of both stations. Of course there once was a Semington Halt, but it was on the Devizes line that is no longer there.

7. This is of considerable concern to me and not just for the residents of Semington. Not helped by newspaper drivel such as "train from Bristol to London 13 times more expensive than the coach," I know otherwise intelligent people who think they'll have to take out a second mortgage for an off peak return from Bristol to Swindon...

Train Operating companies and indeed Rail User Groups could address this by simply providing flyers entitled "Specimen fares from this station" and listing all the locally-popular destinations eg (from Melksham) Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge, B-o-A, Bath, Bristol and London, and/or other destinations as appropriate. This is especially pertinent to rail travel where there is a bus alternative (eg Chippenham to Bath, Swindon and Trowbridge) and fares may not differ by more than a few pence despite a wide variation in transit times.

8. Basic "how to use" information could appear on the flyer eg "Buy a ticket at the machine at the station or online at gwr.com"

9. See (1) again. People who expect public transport to run at exactly the time they wish to travel need a taxi, not a bus or train.

10. Ah yes - The "Buses are for kids, pensioners, drink-drivers and Council tenants" mentality. We probably need a societal change here...

Much agreement there but some comments 'back' to you.  Some quickly soluble - others needing adjustments and actions from operators, councils, the local Community Rail Partnership, etc.

6. I grant you that the x34 from Semington stops 100 yards (as the crow flies) from Melksham Station. Pity it's around 600 yards to walk involving crossing the trunk A350 road twice. Removal of a fence panel and levelling out a footpath between Foundry Close (where there's a spur already in place to serve it) and the track to the station (also open and property of Wiltshire Council) would solve this.  The x34 also serves CHIPPENHAM station from Semington, up to and including the 08:50 bus from Semington, then the 16:42 bus. At other times it runs only to Chippenham bus station which is a long way from the railway station.  In the other direction the x34 serves Trowbridge station every half hour until the 13:26 bus the service reduced to just 4 more for the rest of the day.

3. The "final mile" is not totally soluble but can be far better tackled than it is.  Looks like you're admitting defeat on this one. PlusBus can do wonders; something we looked at for Melksham but in light of the very poor performance of plus bus in neighbouring Chippenham (lowest add on sales of any plus bus town) we weren't able to progress that. Perhaps you know someone or some group in Chippenham who could promote PlusBus there?  Other options too - some journeys the final mile is the killer of public transport, some it's connection adjustments to make a true network, for others it's letting people know what's available.

7. On fares, the Melksham Rail User Group leaflet that we were handing out includes some sample fares and it was very useful being able to point these out to people. http://www.mrug.org.uk/Summer2019brochure.pdf . There are also fare online locally on pages such as http://www.mrug.org.uk/localfares.html - trying to avoid the classic web site action of directing people at the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) booking engine where newcomers sometimes have a job finding the fare they want in the massive amount of data available.

1. On bus times, we have some services in our area with very limited hours (x34, x72, x31) and other which operate 7 days a week and into the evenings - all be that at a lower frequency (55, D1, D2, D3).  The difference  seems to correlate closely to the operator, with different operators having a different model. The latent market that identifies itself at places like the village fete is for the all-day, every-day model through I am not going to try to speak to a business case just from chatting at a village Fete.

So many of the other points all intermingle - there is still scope for a lot of easy wins to get more people onto public transport but they won't switch unless they know about it, and it works for them.

[Robin Summerhill]

3. The "final mile" is not totally soluble but can be far better tackled than it is.  Looks like you're admitting defeat on this one. PlusBus can do wonders; something we looked at for Melksham but in light of the very poor performance of plus bus in neighbouring Chippenham (lowest add on sales of any plus bus town) we weren't able to progress that. Perhaps you know someone or some group in Chippenham who could promote PlusBus there?  Other options too - some journeys the final mile is the killer of public transport, some it's connection adjustments to make a true network, for others it's letting people know what's available.

We might be talking somewhat at crossed purposes here. I must admit I was thinking of the wider picture and not just Semington, but take this example:

Somebody wants to go from Bowerhill to, say, Taw Hill in north west Swindon. They can get a bus to Melksham station, then they can then go by train to Swindon (provided it actually turns up based on recent cancellation data on the line), then they can take 5 minutes walk if that to Swindon Bus station for the final leg. We have three separate journeys here, with two connection points, all easily manageable theoretically as long as they dovetail the connections as well as they can.

However, provided they can get a through train keeping to time between Melksham and Swindon, the time taken to get from their front door to Melksham station, together with the time taken to get from Swindon station to their destination in Taw Hill, is likely to be longer than the train journey. And by the time you add the lot up, they would probably get the journey over and done with by car far more quickly.

That is the unsolvable bit.

[Robin Summerhill]

6. I grant you that the x34 from Semington stops 100 yards (as the crow flies) from Melksham Station. Pity it's around 600 yards to walk involving crossing the trunk A350 road twice. Removal of a fence panel and levelling out a footpath between Foundry Close (where there's a spur already in place to serve it) and the track to the station (also open and property of Wiltshire Council) would solve this. 

I think we need to look at this in perspective as well.

I'm not sure where you get "crossing the trunk A350 road twice" from. The X34 stops in Beanacre Road by MacDonalds, and from there it is a 0.3 mile walk (no more than 6 minutes for the averagely -fittish person). Going back again, the bus stop is on the opposite side of the A350 of course, but thee are pedestrian lights. Foot access from Melksham station to and from the town centre is via the underpass, so again no crossing of the A350 is involved.

Now look at that 0.3 mile walk in a different way. Someone getting off a bus at one of the stops at the bottom of Bristol Temple Meads station approach, and going on a London bound train from platforms 13 or 15, has much the same total distance to walk.

Why is one of those walks OK but not the other?

[grahame]

Now look at that 0.3 mile walk in a different way. Someone getting off a bus at one of the stops at the bottom of Bristol Temple Meads station approach, and going on a London bound train from platforms 13 or 15, has much the same total distance to walk.

Why is one of those walks OK but not the other?

For starters, safety ...



... for main course, the psychological feeling of walking through a signposted transport interchange area versus "where am I"

... and for dessert, the facilities a passenger might like to make use of along the way.


The distances are dwarfed by the distances walked at a major airport.

[Robin Summerhill]

Now look at that 0.3 mile walk in a different way. Someone getting off a bus at one of the stops at the bottom of Bristol Temple Meads station approach, and going on a London bound train from platforms 13 or 15, has much the same total distance to walk.

Why is one of those walks OK but not the other?

For starters, safety ...



... for main course, the psychological feeling of walking through a signposted transport interchange area versus "where am I"

... and for dessert, the facilities a passenger might like to make use of along the way.


The distances are dwarfed by the distances walked at a major airport.

No need to shout Graham

In your initial response to my point 6 you suggested that the problem was a 600 yard walk. Now, apparently, it's not the walk, its about safety, signage in a transport interchange compared to a street in a Wiltshire town, and facilities available on that street compared to a major transport interchange point.

On the "starters" safety issue I do at least partially agree, but that pavement is inadequate for only a very short section of that particular walk. Most of it is of standard width and in as good a condition as pavements tend to be in Wiltshire (although don't get me started on the condition of pavements in Wiltshire....) The solution appears to lie with Wiltshire Council who, it has to be said, has devoted plenty of time, effort and a little money into the Melksham station project, by improving either this section of pavement or providing the alternative route that you suggest. Either way, bus companies and TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) are not in a position to sort it out.

All that said, there is of course the bus stop at Asda that for some reason only the town services use. Perhaps the inter-town services could stop there as well.

Your "main course" and "dessert" both seem a little odd. I used the Temple Meads comparison because the distances involved were broadly the same. I could have used others, for example from Swindon bus station to platform 3 at the railway station, which is not exactly a picturesque wander through idyllic countryside. Neither is the walk between Oxford bus station and railway station. There are plenty of "facilities" available on the Oxford walk, and also between Birmingham New Street and Moor Street but, since they rebuilt the area again, even I have ended up asking a street sweeper where the hell I was! (other lousy walks between bus and railway stations, or between railway stations, are available - ask your local council for details...)

I think we may be running the risk here of having a perceived problem and trying to find a cause for it - that stands up to scrutiny

[grahame]

Always good to do the occasional review, Robin.

Here's a map showing the nearest bus stop on the x34 for vehicles coming from Semington ... with a line drawn from it, in orange, in what would be my recommended walking route to the station at present.  It measures 0.7 km on my application, it crosses the trunk A350 twice - once on the level and once through an underpass, and it crosses three other minor roads on the flat, one with the benefit of a crossing.  For the most part, it is not signposted to the station and people need to know which stop to get off at, and where to walk.

You could reduce the walk by perhaps 100 metres, and remove all but one road crossings including both over the A350 if you were to walk along the side of the road back from the bus stop.  I consider that to be dangerous; I have marked it with a cemetery symbol on my map, and I would personally consider it reckless to suggest to anyone that they go that way.

The walk could also be reduced to around 0.23 km taking the blue line should the fence between Foundry Close and the station yard be removed.  That walk would involve the crossing of the entrance to the Aldi store car park, and also a cul-de-sac in Foundry Close.



I would agree that this is not an issue for the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) to sort out.  And that there's limits to what the bus operators can do; this thread on the forum is, though, a single thread about one particular bus route in the whole piece of cloth which needs sorting out and a very great deal of study and working out has been done.  Both Wiltshire Council and TransWilts have been working on bringing elements together and ensuring that one step forward doesn't block another, but as with all things that involve rail and to a lesser extent highways, it seems to take an age to get anything on the ground.

In the meantime (back to where this thread started) I find it very hard to honestly tell people coming on the bus up from Semington that it stops near to Melksham Station.  I could - it does stop near to the station. Just that there's no way though to the trains until ... next year?  2021?  2022?  I dunno!

[Robin Summerhill]

I find it very hard to honestly tell people coming on the bus up from Semington that it stops near to Melksham Station.  I could - it does stop near to the station. Just that there's no way though to the trains until ... next year?  2021?  2022?  I dunno!

I've been thinking more about this during the course of the day including thinking about, what some might think of as, ancient history.

Although I lived in Bristol at the time, I remember the days before the Melksham bypass was built and the Bath Road led straight from Atworth into town. The bypass, or that section of it at least, was opened in the early 1970s with all its attendant road remodelling.

At the time there was no need to make much pedestrian provision for north of the bypass because there was precious little over there except for fields and what was a small trading estate on the other side of the bridge. On Beanacre Road there was only the GEC factory on the north western side. At the time of course the station was closed and I doubt many people thought that it would ever open again.

Things have changed substantially today. The GEC site has been redeveloped with retail outlets and housing, Asda and various other retail outlets have appeared on the other side of the bypass beyond Bath Rod, and the station has reopened.

The problem is the lack of adequate access to the station from the north western side of Beanacre Road without having to cross it. This is clearly a local authority issue that they should be sorting out quickly and not, as your posts seem to suggest, kicking the can down the road.

By the way, my 0.3 miles from the bus stop to the station came from the "Get directions" facility on Google Street view. Although your orange route via the underpass is obviously longer and involves some doubling back, I would be surprised if that more than doubled the length of the walk.

[Red Squirrel]

When I ask Google for a route from the bus stop by McDonalds to Melksham Station it comes up as 650m on foot - but the route seems to head rather vaguely down the middle of Beanacre Road before turning right onto Bath Road. If I choose to cycle, it sends me through the underpass as per grahame's route, and gives a distance of 750m - which is within a gnat's crochet of grahame's estimate.

(I am now waiting for ads for life insurance, reflective clothing, a new bicycle etc to pop up in my web browser...)

(One positive aspect of this enquiry is that I have found out how to get Google to give me distances in civilised units!)