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Alton Towers Buses 2014

Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

There won't be anything stopping First doing a service to Alton Towers, they clearly just don't want to as it wont make the money that they want it to.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

The council should force Towers to offer better public transport and at a certain price as a pre-condition for any new planning applications.

They should also set a target of, say, 10% of guests arriving by public transport within 10 years.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

The trouble with busses is the feeder services to the busses are crap to begin with. If the uttoxeter train service was a little better or Towers was closer to a main line then it could probably make public transport work. But there are no major public transport arteries within 40 min of the park.

People won't choose a 2 hour train ride then a 40 min bus ride costing a fair bit when they can get a coach company to bring them from a much more convenient location for a cheaper price and quicker.

The bus only suited geeks with student rail cards and a few locals, not enough to make it worth the hassle, if it was then First would swoop in like a vulture.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

Public transport to Towers is just generally a nightmare. And I suppose it's not surprising considering the location of the park. A better rail service is needed but even so Towers should run a bus service that is actually useful for guests that do want to use public transport.

:)
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

Rob said:
Public transport to Towers is just generally a nightmare. And I suppose it's not surprising considering the location of the park. A better rail service is needed but even so Towers should run a bus service that is actually useful for guests that do want to use public transport.

:)

The issue is people don't want to, the transport to the nearest train station is poor and expensive before you even then factor in a bus to Towers. Not providing the service in Towers and Councils eyes won't increase car use as the trains are that poor that the only people who will bother don't have access to a car, and are hardly going to buy one for a trip to a theme park, instead they will use a coach company.

If there was a viable market even as a loss leader (ie the numbers coming in through the gate make a small loss on the busses worth while) then they would but it just isn't. I would guess that public transport guests make up less than 1% of a days guests.

The only way PT will be viable is if the feeder services improved, which is out of Towers hands. And feeder services won't improve as enough people won't use it to make it worthwhile.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

The problem is there's no large urban area close enough to run a viable bus service too. The reason the 950 works for Thorpe is that it's only about 15 minutes from the station to the park, so each bus can make a lot of trips per day and as they ensure each one is full it rakes in the cash (they can adjust the number of buses in service according to how busy the park is to maximise profitability).

With the Stoke bus service it's nearly a 2hr round trip to Towers, so each bus can only make a few trips daily resulting in a much lower maximum daily income per vehicle. Uttox is better, but at present it's not practical to run more than 1 bus per hour from there due to the lack of train connections. If Uttox had the level of service Staines station has a shuttle bus from there might become viable, but currently there just aren't enough guests coming in that way.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

John said:
If Uttox had the level of service Staines station has a shuttle bus from there might become viable, but currently there just aren't enough guests coming in that way.

Because it's likely that 6 trains an hour is achievable through Uttox?
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

A variety of factors result in the lack of any major public transport links to the Alton Towers Resort from major transport hubs such as train stations and bus stations.

One of the main things is the type of journey required. It's actually quite hard to provide a seasonal transport infrastructure, especially when a large percentage of potential footfall want to travel at the same time. What I mean by this is that most guests want to arrive at the park between a certain time (i.e between 9.30am and 11am) and then depart again around the time of park closure. This is then made even harder by the length of the journey, if it was a relatively short journey you can get away with operating a 'shuttle' and keep people waiting for a small amount of time but your looking at a minimum direct journey time of around 40+ minutes in a bus to the nearest existing infrastructure point such as bus and train stations,

You also then have the issue of the regulation and monitoring of registered service bus services such as this. All routes have to preregistered with the Traffic Commissioner, any changes need to have at least 90 days notice. Any notice of variation submitted also needs 90 days notice and then is subject to approval and comes at a cost of several hundred pounds.

Basically, without a massive increase in the price of the return bus transport then operating a better service isn't viable. To operate an effective service you'd need a lot of buses (which would sit doing nothing during the day).

On a site note there is a lot of coach operators across England who operate day trips, with a list of official trade partners in England available on the Alton Towers Resort website http://www.altontowers.com/trade-clients/
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

And they still charge £6 for the Alton towers bus, I always go on my own, as the girlfriend cann not always go. Looks like I may have to come on a few meets with you guys.
My nearest merlin attractions are Blackpool, and after a whole the waxworks Nd tower get boring after a while.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

From a recent discussion on a rail forum, it would appear that 4tph is achievable between stoke-on-trent and Derby if there was rolling stock available.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

MattyH said:
From a recent discussion on a rail forum, it would appear that 4tph is achievable between stoke-on-trent and Derby if there was rolling stock available.

I presume this is the thread you're referring to. It's an interesting read (up until about the start of page 4 where it goes off on a tangent :p )

I'm of the view that the issue - as you rightly put it - is the lack of rolling stock, combined with the lack of demand outside of the Resort. Railways don't have the capability (for a number of reasons I won't go into here) to run seasonal services in this way on a day-to-day basis.

However the larger issue is that without the associated connecting bus services, there wouldn't be a whole lot of benefit anyway.

The only way I could see it working is if the 32A had an enhanced service meeting each train around park 'peak' hours to the Resort from Uttoxeter - perhaps subsidised by East Midlands Trains and/or the park - a bit like the deal Virgin Trains used to have from Stoke in conjunction with the shuttle bus & entry. I would imagine this would have lower overheads than Towers' own bus services.
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

Mike said:
MattyH said:
From a recent discussion on a rail forum, it would appear that 4tph is achievable between stoke-on-trent and Derby if there was rolling stock available.

I presume this is the thread you're referring to. It's an interesting read (up until about the start of page 4 where it goes off on a tangent :p )

I'm of the view that the issue - as you rightly put it - is the lack of rolling stock, combined with the lack of demand outside of the Resort. Railways don't have the capability (for a number of reasons I won't go into here) to run seasonal services in this way on a day-to-day basis.

However the larger issue is that without the associated connecting bus services, there wouldn't be a whole lot of benefit anyway.

The only way I could see it working is if the 32A had an enhanced service meeting each train around park 'peak' hours to the Resort from Uttoxeter - perhaps subsidised by East Midlands Trains and/or the park - a bit like the deal Virgin Trains used to have from Stoke in conjunction with the shuttle bus & entry. I would imagine this would have lower overheads than Towers' own bus services.

Yeah, I started that thread after the complaints in here, but yes, an enhanced service subsidised would be useful and the local residents would be happy with a better bus and train service!
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

The Derby - Crewe service is one of my regular routes, in fact I worked the last train through to Crewe last night and left the train on the carriage shed and came back to Nottingham in a taxi.

We used to work it as a Nottingham - Manchester Airport service but it was cut back to Derby - Crewe some years ago.

Unfortunately I think one train an hour each way is as good as the service is ever going to get, apart from a couple of trains that bring commuters into and out of Derby the service runs lightly loaded all day.
There's never more than a hand full of people wanting onward travel to the Towers. The only time the service ever gets busy is when Uttoxetter races is on and then it gets stupidly overcrowded !

I'm sure given half a chance East Midlands Trains would reduce the service to every two hours each way, often its just me, the guard and two old ladies off to do their shopping in Stoke.

The idea of reopening the line to Alton from Stoke is a good one but the capacity at Stoke station for any extra trains is very limited, there are only two platforms usable from the south and since the through middle road was removed they're in pretty much constant use. Also apart from a 0900 departure and a 1800 return who would really use it ?
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

Just thought I'd bring attention to the planning documents submitted today, which give some detail on the bus situation. It seems there will be a new bus, the 10/10A running from Leek to Towers (possibly the one mentioned by Vik on the previous page), as well as the X39 from Stoke to Towers which they mention will continue running all season. :)

buses1.jpg

buses2.jpg
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

Sure hope the 32A doesn't depart at 9am, as the train from Derby arrives at five past (or slightly later) usually. Hopefully they'll delay it like they have done in the past, otherwise they'll have a lot of annoyed guests having to wait 2 hours for the next one!
 
Re: Alton towers busses not on there website?

It's a First bus in Staffordshire, of course it won't depart on time ;)
 
I am seriously confused/annoyed by this now.

Altons website directs you to the First website, but on there it would seem there are no timetables for any services running from Stoke to Alton.

So have Alton definitely cancelled their service?

It's things like this that make Alton Towers so below par in comparison to other European 'resorts'.
 
I blame First Group tbh...

Depends on cost of running these buses and the maintenance, it's never been a great service and it's a shame it's going even more downhill, though that might be as a result of how the Northern transport services are... Either way, you'd think they'd make more effort in getting a good public transport service from Stoke/Stafford/Derby/etc in order to promote easy access...

Point of interest, how many parks internationally have a dedicated local bus service? Efteling just happens to be on a major route so that doesn't count...
 
Unless it's been withdrawn, Pleasurewood Hills had a designated bus route running from the park to kessingland IIRC
 
Run by themselves? I think that's what he's getting at.

The buses definitely aren't running anymore, just use travelinemidlands.co.uk to route plan - the journey will cost the same as before, just adds an extra 10mins onto the journey cos you'd need to go into Hanley bus station first.
 
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