(23 Jul 2020, 10:57 am)tyresmoke wrote Fair to say it's one that's been on my radar for quite a while, the intersite shuttle bus was ran as a registered service years ago funded primarily by Hartlepool council. Compass Royston ran it with the B7RLE that later ended up being the Teesside Park bus for years. Once the council withdrew the funding the NHS trust has funded a minibus shuttle ever since, though it's been cut back more and more over the years and is now down to just one minibus, with 23Taxis running some extra journeys commercially, though prebookable only (and hence not registered). As far as I know priority is given to patients and staff are as good as banned from using it. Many staff were moved from Hartlepool to North Tees many years ago and have seen transport progressively withdrawn for them.
Personally I think there is potential for a commercial service there that would link the two hospital sites via Hartlepool centre and Billingham which doesn't have a direct Hospital bus. It would have to run early and late for both staff and afternoon/evening visiting times to be of much use though which is obviously a stumbling block. It would likely need the funding from the existing shuttles too which I can't imagine the NHS would be too keen at first. So it's a bit of a catch 22 in terms of running anything.
The shuttle bus is near to useless at the best of times, and actually useless during COVID restrictions. To demonstrate, as it only picks up at the Hospital, it is only of use to people who live within the shaded area in Hartlepool. I've used the government standard 'Creating Places' guidelines that passengers can be expected to walk up to 400m to access a bus service.
Beyond this, people would have to change buses to access the shuttle, by which point they may as well go via Norton. That said, the Norton connection is only 'easy' if you live on the 36 route which is either town centre or within 400m of Oxford Rd/Catcote Road. I had suggested on this forum it would be useful to have the 36 extend up to Clavering in place of the 6 to improve connections but that was shot down in flames.
Connections sound reasonable on paper but of course you're not generally dealing with the most mobile people when it comes to Hospital access. My grandma lives in Seaton Carew and needs to access North Tees for cancer treatment. Her options are an almost 2 hour run via Middlesbrough Bus Station or changing twice - in Hartlepool and then out in all weathers in Norton, which due to the road layout, can be very confusing.
One thing to come out of COVID is that radical change to systems can actually be achieved quite quickly when we need to. Hartlepool's bus services are broken and I for one don't know the fix. As workplaces and public services are increasing decentralised and journey flows become more random this will only get worse. Hartlepool's geography lends itself well to a controlled trial of a new way of working. In the same vein as, say, Blackpool, the town is self contained - it's not a through route to any other place, you can only head to Hartlepool, not really through Hartlepool. It's why regional expresses to Newcastle can't really justify calling in.
With this in mind could Tees Flex be the way forward? Keep the 36 (even through to Clavering?
) and the 1, 6 & 7 on say, 15 minute frequencies. Put the 3 out of its misery. Make the rest of the town into a Tees Flex zone. Allow an interchange point into the Stockton zone. Could be done with maybe 10 Sprinters? Could provide an entire town with an on-demand transit system an all of the economic and social mobility benefits for about £1m per year?