MKC Strategic Placemaking Scrutiny Committee Bus Services in Milton Keynes Evidence from MK Bus Users Group Prepared by Alan Francis, Vice Chair 1. The majority of the bus services in MK are run commercially by Arriva. These tend to be the services on the busiest corridors. Many of the minor services are tendered services, subsidised by the council. These are mostly run by a variety of small operators, not Arriva. Some of the comments below apply to all services but the comments on performance mainly relate to the commercial services run by Arriva. Connectivity 2. This is a mixed picture in MK. Some areas of the borough have good connectivity and some have poor connectivity. Generally speaking there is good connectivity for areas that are in the five broad corridors between CMK and Bletchley, Wolverton, Newport Pagnell, Kingston and Westcroft. Areas of the city not in those general corridors and the rural areas have poor connectivity. 3. Whole chunks of the city outside those corridors have poor connectivity. For example the Furzton, Emerson Valley, Tattenhoe, West Bletchley, Rivers estate area has no bus service at all in the evenings. Their nearest evening services are on either Chaffron Way (V7) or Whaddon Way. These are far more than the DfT recommended maximum walking distance to a bus stop of 400m. During the day there is a half hourly service along Shenley Rd and Dulverton Drive (route 7) but the other parts of that area have just hourly tendered services ( 24/25 and 28) that are very slow and meander round the traffic-calmed residential roads. 4. Most journeys from A to B, where neither A nor B is in CMK, require a change of bus somewhere in CMK. Where services are fairly frequent this is not too much of an inconvenience adding typically 5-10 minutes to the journey time. But where and when services are infrequent, and that includes pretty much everywhere in the evenings and on Sundays and rural areas all of the time, this can add as much as 59 minutes to a journey of just a couple of miles, making it extremely inconvenient, to the point where most people will not use the bus for that journey. 5. The vast majority of bus services are radial, they go between an edge of the city and the centre or from one edge to another via the centre. There are very few orbital services. So a relatively short orbital journey, for example Wolverton to Newport Pagnell, involves one bus into CMK, and a change to another bus out to the edge, taking several times longer and possibly costing more, than a direct service would do. This is another example of poor connectivity. 6. When the frequency of bus services is low, eg evenings and Sundays, a Pulse timetabling should be considered to improve connectivity (see attachment). 7. Buses to rural parts of the Borough tends to be once an hour at best. While places such as Olney and Woburn Sands do have hourly daytime services to CMK many smaller villages do not have any direct services to CMK, a change being required somewhere like Newport Pagnell or Bletchley. 8. While Woburn Sands has buses until 2300 the last bus to Olney and some of the villages north of Newport Pagnell leaves CMK at 1945. The last bus to villages such as Stoke Goldington leaves Newport Pagnell at 1710. To catch that from CMK requires departing CMK before 1645. So someone with a 9 to 5 job couldn’t even get home after work. Thus connectivity in the rural areas varies from poor to non- existent. 9. While most parts of the Borough have some connectivity to CMK there are a number of other places with facilities that serve the whole of Milton Keynes that do not have good connectivity with much of MK. Prime amongst these is the hospital. It has good connectivity with places in the Bletchley - Hospital - CMK- Wolverton corridor. But connectivity with many other parts of the city and with rural areas is poor often requiring one or two changes of bus and incurring extra wait times that make the journey inconvenient and unattractive. 10.There are also several health centres/dentist surgeries that are not served or poorly served by bus from much of the area that they serve. These include Stantonbury, Crownhill, Grange Farm, Whalley Drive and Tweed Drive in Bletchley. 11. Other MK-wide facilities that have very limited connectivity include Stadium:mk/ MK1, MK College, MK Museum, Bletchley Park, Coachway, Woodhill Prison, Open University, Crematorium at Crownhill. 12.Employment areas are dispersed around urban MK which makes it difficult to serve them from all of the residential areas. Some happen to be on the route of a service to residential areas and so receive a reasonable service but others are fairly remote from any bus service or services are infrequent. 13.One exception, an example of good practice, is Magna Park. Here the bus service, 300, has been enhanced around the shift change times of the warehouses, with extra services around 0600, 1400 and 2200. These are very well used. There should be more liaison between employers, bus operators and MKC with regard to ensuring that staff can get to and from work by bus whether they work in CMK or other employment areas around the town. 14.There should be bus services to all Secondary schools from within their catchment area. Some are served by regular services and a few have special school bus services, principally St Pauls. However at least one school, Hazeley, is not served by any service within 400m. It should be. 15.Connectivity should not end at the Borough boundary. There should be bus services from surrounding towns and villages outside the council boundary, its Travel To Work area. MK Central station acts as a rail-head for people living up to 20 miles from MK. People travel to MK for work and leisure from a much larger area than just the borough. They should be able to make those journeys by bus. Bus Stops 16.The council should specify a set of criteria for access to the bus network across the borough. The DfT recommends, for example, that every house should be within 400m walking distance of a bus stop. There should be minimum level of service for each bus stop, say, a half hourly service to and from CMK with minimum operating hours, say, 6am to 10pm. 17.There should be some minimum criteria for the public transport services to each residential area/grid square and for employment areas/grid squares. For residential areas these could include a bus stop within 400m walking distance of each dwelling (DfT recommendation), services to CMK and a District Centre every 30 mins or better. For employment areas these could include a bus stop within 600m walking distance of each workplace, services to CMK and a District Centre every 60 mins or better, with more in the peaks. 18.There should be minimum standards for bus stops. This should include raised kerbs, a shelter, seating, lighting and timetable. Most bus stops in MK meet these requirements. However bus shelter lighting is sometimes not working and can take a long time to repair. RTPI displays are highly desirable at bus stops. Only about a quarter of the stops in MK have RTPI. The council should install RTPI displays at more bus stops. 19.The bus stops at Station Square, Bletchley Bus station and Newport Pagnell have all had major upgrades in the last decade. But there are several other important interchange or termination locations that have inadequate bus stops for the amount of buses and passengers using them. These include District Centres at Kingston and Westcroft, Wolverton (formerly known as Agora), Hospital and Stadium:mk/ MK1. The bus stops at all of these locations need to be upgraded to improve connectivity within the network. Performance 20.Performance dropped off in August 2019. This was put down to a shortage of drivers over the summer holidays. However, performance since then has deteriorated even further, despite promises of recovery. 21.MKBUG has received numerous reports from its members and it has the personal experience of its committee members. Common complaints include the bus failed to run, the bus was late and buses bunching together creating long gaps in the service. Cancellations, late running and bunching are affecting all of the main Arriva services, routes 1-8. As a result of the poor performance, more people are having to get taxis as they cannot rely on Arriva bus services or will be very late. 22.When a bus doesn’t run, or is so late that it is overtaken by the next bus on that service, passengers are severely inconvenienced. They can be anything up to half an hour late. If a bus is cancelled on a route that only operates a half hourly service, such as route 1 or 2, then the wait can be up to an hour. Passengers may be late for work or school, late for health appointments, miss their train, late to pick up children from school, etc. We have heard reports that people are threatened with losing their jobs because of repeated lateness due to bus problems. 23.When a bus has been missed out it often causes overcrowding on the next bus. 24.It is quite common to see three buses on the same service bunched together. For example, the 5 and 6 mostly run on the same route between Bletchley and Heelands. Each of the services is every 15 mins giving a bus every 7.5 mins on the shared part of their routes.