Getting people to and from Melksham Station - not 20 but 700 times a day
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-10-12 23:23:35 - Graham Ellis
There are currently around 20 train journeys made per day to / from Melksham. That represents well under one journey per year per head of population. By comparison, journeys at Warminster are 48 journeys per head of population - that's the next lowest for a station serving a major urban area - rising to 125 journeys per head in Salisbury.
Improve the train service at Melksham to a usable level, market it right, and you'll see a huge surge in passenger numbers; there will be quite a number of early adopters, followed by a growth as people come to realise just how it can help them, and indeed change their social and business lives to make use of the train. If traffic grows to just a half of the Warminster level, the 20 train journeys a day rises to 700. That's a pessimistic figure too, bearing in mind that it's based on 2010 statistics which were used officially by Wiltshire Council in the LSTF bid,and which have risen by 12% since then.
These are fantastically promising figures, and the LSTF bid included complimentary measures to ensure that Melksham Station, with its very limited platform capacity, would be able to help all these people get to and from the station efficiently. In 2009, Wiltshire Council started the ball rolling by purchasing land from the British Rail Residuary body, for an increase in car parking (surprisingly, more sustainable than current travel as it saves everyone driving to and parking at Chippenham, Westbury and Bradford-on-Avon) and for a northern entrance to the station - for walkers and cycles at the least - which will save over 1 km daily for commuters from the northern and north eastern sections of Melksham, and bring many more urban streets into the walk / cycle catchment area.
For the more distant parts of Melksham from the station - to the east and south east - walking and cycling is still an option for many. With sufficient car parking, many will undoubtedly drive and many be dropped off. But what about other alternatives - taxis, buses, etc. In order to find out what balance people might use, I ran a survey of seasoned rail travellers across the South West (it couldn't be Melksham specific as we have no seasoned rail travellers at present!) asking how they might travel from station home, listing many options. asking how they might travel from station home, listing many options.
The total number of voters so far is 41... I asked people to "check as many boxes as you wish of options that you would realistically make use of at least once a week on a daily commute" and gave them up to 5 votes each. I also asked "You are a commuter with a 25 minute train journey home to your town from the city where you work, and you live just over a mile and a half from the station" so I am particularly interested in travel to and from Bowerhill, the new housing area to the East of Melksham, and to a lesser extend the extremes of Melksham Forest furthers from the station.
Walk 37 (29.6%)
Cycle 16 (12.8%)
Motor Cycle 0 (0%)
Park car at station 11 (8.8%)
Get lift from station 12 (9.6%)
Take regular bus (20 min wait) 13 (10.4%)
Take connecting bus (does not wait if train late) 8 (6.4%)
Take connecting bus which waits for train 11 (8.8%)
Take waiting taxi 9 (7.2%)
Phone for taxi 5 (4%)
Phone for demand responsive bus 1 (0.8%)
Station too far from home. Would drive all the way. 2 (1.6%)
I'm not surprised that 37 out of 41 (90%) would regularly walk. And this is born out, Melksham Station specific, with experience on the summer Sunday trains to Weymouth; as I left the station after returning on these trips, I walked home myself once everyone was on their way from there and noted many people who had been on the train in front of me, all the way to Queensway and carrying on beyond my home towards Bowerhill too.
Parking at the station - my very rough poll suggests that somewhere between 50 and 100 parking spaces will be needed daily from quite early on; it's a very rough figure indeed, and it's based on the low side of station usage. Should usage grow to around the same level as even the least-used other station, you're looking at a need for around 200 spaces.
The LSTF bid specifically lists extension of the town bus to the station, including in the morning and evening. However, this is missing from the public facing Website on what will be done, and I'm told that there is a fear that empty buses would be run, leaving the council open to suggestions of waste. There is also, I understand, an issue with balancing the needs for the same daily bus service (by which 'they' mean Monday to Saturday) with a train service that differs on Monday to Friday v Saturday v Sunday, with an especial concern at the complexity introduced into the buses by meeting the trains each differing day.
Cutting a very long and ongoing story short, I came up with 4 bus options for my poll.
1. Take regular bus (20 min wait)
The bus stop is about 300 yards from the station and connections are a bit of a gamble. These buses are through buses, and serve the Town Centre, Semington Road, Queensway and Bowerhill - but don't go all the way out to the new housing. They can get held up in the event of severe traffic - even the other Sunday my bus was 30 minutes late, and there is no indication at the stop as to whether it has gone or is delayed, and if so by how much. The chap on the phone number on the bus stop could only tell me the schedule, not give me live data, and couldn't give me a phone number to call or web site to visit to find more. Archaic and impractical.
2. Take connecting bus (does not wait if train late)
The town bus to the station. This is really what's in the bid. Service 14 and / or 15 extended to the station, and from early morning and evening.
3. Take connecting bus which waits for train
Here's a revolutionary idea ;-) ... in the morning (before it runs its current service) run the bus around the outer 'burbs of Melksham, through the town and to the station to arrive there 7 minutes before the train is scheduled to leave. Three times, and then the bus goes on to Broughton Gifford to start its school runs.
In the evening... after it finishes its last regular run, send it to the station. It leaves the station around 5 minutes after each train arrives from 18:03 to 20:38, running the reverse of the morning route and stopping at those stops which are required by passengers joining at the station. Now... IT WAITS FOR THE TRAIN, even if the train is 20 minutes late! Because the railway line is single track, there will never be another train calling for a further 20 minutes, so there's no problem with there being no bus for the next train.
This isn't any extra buses on the road (I do know how expensive a bus is to buy!)... its making more efficient use of an existing bus. It will require an extra driver shift - you're looking at just under 6 hours of driving in total. I have provided timings and maps of how this could work [here].
4. Phone for demand responsive service
The theory of this is a good one... if you want a ride, phone ahead to arrange it. But although pensioners who are used to phoning for a taxi may be quite willing to phone for a bus (and indeed we have working examples in Wiltshire), I'm not convinced that commuters would do so on a daily basis. I was hoping that my survey would get lots of votes for "demand responsive bus" and prove my fears unfounded - but alas, looking at the figures above, I fear that a demand responsive service would be attractive and would rapidly be shelved.
My view remains, then, that the ideal way to help 60 passengers arriving on peak trains, you would have
1. 11 parking spaces per train
2. Space for 12 cars to pick up ("Kiss and Ride" and / or taxi)
3. Capacity for 15 people to leave the station on foot or cycle via Station Approach
4. Capacity for 15 people to leave the station on foot or cycle via Foundry Close
5. Connecting bus that waits taking 12 people
As I write, parking is dramatically underprovided, the Foundry Close exit is blocked by a fence separating two pieces of council / public owned land, and the bus folks are talking of trying out the option which only one person in my survey wants. So it looks like a half-baked answer (even though the LSTF bid included a full solution) which will properly suit just a half of the anticipated users. Some, no doubt, will switch to other options to access the station, other simply won't use the new service...
Also as I write, the improved service (even though it appears in Journey planners and tickets can be booked) is not signed, sealed and delivered. A meeting is to be held in 9 days time at which final signoff is to be considered, and it would be amazing (and a U turn, and throwing away so much good work, faith, and government grant, and public support) if it wasn't passed. Then the agreement needs - as I understand it - to be registered. Bearing in mind past disappointments in Wiltshire, there is a natural caution in doing anything which is ancillary to the new service (i.e. integrated and depending on it) until it is signed, sealed and delivered. That's likely to mean that there won't be the five items listed above from Monday, 9th December (the first commuter day); something I'm sure we can live with if we have them available for the first full week back in the New Year - i.e. Monday 6th January 2014.