Target beaten in just 3 months

Thursday 23rd May 2024

No wonder Monday’s online webinar about Cheshire West and Chester Council’s iTravel DRT scheme was promoted as a “DRT rural success story” with “strong uptake”.

When asked what the target had been for judging success of the service (introduced at the end of July 2023), the Council’s Team Leader Transport and Infrastructure, Lynne McKie, admitted it had been hard to establish one, “the Council having no prior experience of DRT”, but with advice from PADAM Mobility (the tech software supplier for iTravel who’s name was emblazoned across the webinar promotion), it was set at 1.89 passengers per vehicle hour.

And guess what? A graph showing growing passenger take up confirmed the target had been met within the first three months of operation. A fantastic achievement and no surprise the trio of speakers from the Council, PADAM and operator, Stagecoach were pleased as punch with their success.

Some might say having a three year DfT Rural Mobility Grant totalling £1.075 million to run two minibuses for a Monday to Friday only service from 07:00 to 19:00 on which well over a third of passengers are school children travelling to and from school on peak hour journeys …… achieving less than two passengers carried an hour might not seem a particularly ambitious target but hey, who’s worried about that? When it comes to DRT, after so many failures, any target being met is worthy of a full blown celebration, even if the bar is set lower than a world record beating limbo dancer’s finale performance.

Even better, at the end of March, it was explained, the service was achieving 3.27 passengers per vehicle hour and Jack Holland from PADAM believed it was feasible to increase that even further to between 4.5 and 5 by the end of the three year pilot which could reduce the current cost of £11 per passenger journey by between £4-£5 per passenger within the current capacity of two minibuses.

Lynne explained the original plan had been to use three buses but higher operational costs had led that plan to be modified down to two but she reckoned the Council could “just about afford” an extension of the service to include Saturdays as Jack confirmed a large number of requests are made for a service that day.

Taking a look at the bar graph above shows just how important school children are to boost the numbers travelling. I seem to recall when I travelled on the service back last September the driver telling me the vehicles do a school trip as part of the schedule which obviously helps vehicle utilisation. It looks to me of the 1,600 journeys in March around 600 are “child fare paying passengers” (shown in orange). Assuming they’re going to and from school and, say, make a journey that takes around half an hour morning and afternoon on the two vehicles, that makes 1,000 passengers travelling across the rest (11 hours) of the 12 hour operating day.

There were 20 operating days in March (no service on Good Friday 29th) and 16 schooldays. That means the 1,000 non child passengers travelled over 16 schooldays x 11 hours x 2 minibuses plus 4 non-schooldays x 12 hours x 2 minibuses making for 448 operating hours which brings the passenger per vehicle hour utilisation down to 2.23.

0.34 above the target.

Most users – around 500 – are using the app to book a journey, and reflecting the dominance of school children, concessionary pass holders make up less than a quarter of passengers.

The area covered by iTravel’s two minibuses is substantial. It’s surrounded by three railway lines and seven stations, and on its north western flank, Stagecoach providing an hourly route 2 from Chester to Runcorn via Helsby and Frodsham, and Arriva an hourly route X30 from Chester via Frodsham to Warrington with D&G Bus route 48 slicing through the middle of the area between Northwich, Acton Bridge, Kingsley and Frodsham.

I understand this route has seen a noticeable decline in passengers since iTravel began, even though Lynne explained DRT is complimentary to existing bus routes, not competitive. I tested that out immediately after Monday’s webinar using the online booking form and requested a ride from Acton Bridge railway station (in the east of the operating area) to Kingsley (in the middle of the operating area) at 11:00 for yesterday, Wednesday, knowing there was a bus departing at 11:21 on route 48.

Back came an offer of a pick up on iTravel every 15 minutes including a departure at 11:24.

I’d call that competitive.

I couldn’t specify the destination bus stop used by the 48 in Kingsley – the Horse Shoe Inn. To remove the possibility of competition, Lynne explained such bus stops have been removed from the database, but that’s just a sleight of hand as she also stated many “virtual bus stops have been added” including the Red Bull Inn …. a matter of yards from the Horse Shoe Inn stop.

So, iTravel which carries around 1,600 passenger journeys a month funded by the DfT is competing with route 48, funded by Cheshire West and Chester Council carrying around 3,000 passenger journeys a month.

Which, interestingly, with one bus over a 12 hour day, works out at 12.5 passengers per vehicle hour.

Maybe LandorLinks could arrange a follow up webinar about that success?

As readers will know, I always like to experience services as a passenger never trusting the hype you read in the media and hear about at webinars.

I’d taken a ride on iTravel last September, a few weeks after it was introduced in July. Obviously it was early days so no surprises it was easy to book a journey a few days ahead and I was the only passenger for my 19 minute journey from Acton Bridge station over to Helsby.

Hearing about the upcoming webinar I thought I’d repeat my journey experience and see for myself how successful the route was performing, nine months after its introduction.

At the end of April I booked the same journey I’d taken in September from Acton Bridge railway station across the operating area to Helsby and got an offer of a midday departure which seemed ideal to connect with my scheduled train arrival into Acton Bridge station at 11:49 – seamless modal integration and all that.

Except it didn’t quite work out as the seamless integration proponents have you believe is so easy to achieve. I’ve lost count of the number of occasions car driving consultants espouse all that’s needed for public transport users is modal connections, travel nodes, transport hubs and the like which all sound great in theory, but in the real world trains run late and buses don’t wait.

At 11:51 I noted the above update on the iTravel app that the confirmed departure time had been confirmed as 12:00 – rather than the “Earliest Departure time” of 11:56.

It looked like it’d be an interesting journey as I assumed the two icons meant there’d be two pick ups en route.

Except there was a problem. My train was running 14 minutes late and pulled into Acton Bridge at 12:03, just as I received an update message on my smartphone telling me my journey had been cancelled (giving the incorrect time as 11:56 instead of 12:00).

An email timed at 12:01 also dropped into my inbox…

… admonishing me for being a “no show”, one minute after departure.

And this after I’d rung the call centre at 11:51 and asked the woman who eventually answered if she’d send a message to the driver to say my train was running late but would arrive a minute or two after midday – at that time it was showing as a 12:02 arrival.

So there I was outside the somewhat basic facilities (ie none) at Acton Bridge station with no onward transport other than getting back on the train in an hour’s time or waiting for the D&G Bus route 48 at 15:26 to Frodsham.

I rang the call centre back (which is based at Stagecoach’s office on Tyneside, 170 miles away) and asked why the bus hadn’t waited a couple of minutes as requested instead of leaving exactly at 12:00 to be told “the driver can’t wait past the confirmed time as there might be further pick ups on the journey”.

I asked if my message had been passed on and was told “no, it’s not possible to hold journeys to connect”.

Which raises the question just how long should a passenger allow when booking a connecting DRT journey from an incoming train?

I explained to the woman in the call centre I needed to be picked up as there was no other onward transport for some time and asked if she’d book me a journey as soon as a bus was available. After what seemed a long pause she advised “the next available time slot is twenty five past six this evening”.

It turned out there was just one bus out that day so no wonder I had a six hour wait. I made my way back down to the platform and resigned myself to waiting an hour for the next train and completely change my plans for the day.

While sitting on the platform I interrogated the app to see what I could find out about availability.

Entering my desired journey and requesting a journey to “Leave now” unsurprisingly didn’t help – and note you get no indication of when “our buses” will be available.

As I’ve explained in previous blogs about the PADAM Mobility software (HertsLynx) you just have to keep playing a game of Battleships trying all different times until you manage to ‘sink a submarine’ and get an offer. I tried for a pick up at 30 minutes past each hour.

At least its something to do if you’ve got six hours to wait for a bus I suppose.

I tried a few times, but had high hopes when I put in 18:00 as the desired departure time, knowing there was a bus available at 18:25 as per the call centre in the North East.

But, no nothing doing. No indication there’d be a bus available in 25 minutes. But when I entered a departure time of 18:25, back came a ride offer at….

… 18:05. So why couldn’t that have been offered first off, and avoid all the faffing about, if the software knew that was the earliest a bus was available?

Furthermore why didn’t it offer me the 15:26 or 17:02 journeys on route 48 with a change at Frodsham on to the train or Stagecoach/Arriva buses?

My experience didn’t strike me as a “success” as I’d define it as a passenger rather than a ride software company, bus company or council.

I didn’t give up, and after going home and abandoning that attempt, I returned to Cheshire and after taking a look at the new Crewe bus station a couple of weeks ago, and this time booked a departure from Acton Bridge station at 12:10 to allow enough time for London NorthWestern to deliver me late and still have a chance of catching the bus – so much for seamless integrated travel – you have to allow at least 20 minutes in your schedule to hang around because a pre-booked bus designed to connect with a train arrival “can’t wait past the confirmed time as there might be further pick ups on the journey”.

Even if there aren’t.

As there weren’t on my journey on 10th May.

The bus arrived at an updated confirmed departure time of 12:17 and we headed over to Helsby via a lovely route taken by the driver on his own initiative as he knew it would work better than what the SatNav was offering.

Even better, after we arrived in Helsby 20 minutes later, the friendly driver dropped me close to the entrance to Helsby station down a no-through road rather than the Railway Inn on the main road.

Which was handy, except the TfW train I’d planned to catch was running over half an hour late.

Seamless integrated travel eh?

Roger French

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