(30 Oct 2018, 9:16 pm)Tamesider wrote As a matter of general (democratic) interest, is this consultation widely advertised in such as bus stop shelters and available to non-internet users, through paper questionnaires available in bus stations, health centres, shops, Post Offices and libraries (where they still exist!) etc?
Also, broadening it out completely, how many local authorities or Operators up and down the country carry out such consultations? Such things ave never existed in Greater Manchester, and certainly as regards commercial services (the vast majority), being consulted about a bus service being withdrawn or re-routed is just as alien as Sainsburys consulting about withdrawing Lamb Tagliatelli or ruining Singapore Noodles by tripling the spice content - yes, both are actual examples before you ask.
You need to have a look in the various posts relating to GNE surveys/consultations.
There's been some crackers over the years!
The cynic in me and many others feel that those consultations were nothing other than a PR exercise (even bad publicity is good publicity). But at least they did them.
Even if the samples have been small, questions have been loaded, key locations have been missed and staff have turned up late to them.
My favourite example was the one they carried out a few years back in Park Lane Interchange. I will try and find the discussion and post it here, rather than describe what went on (or not as the case may be).
There was a period of time, where online consultations were undertaken. Apart from there being an artificially small sample size, apparently they were abused and results were skewed.
Nexus did a cracking piece of work about 10 years ago. They hired libraries and community centres, had staff on show and pushed it online too. They really went for it.
When done well, I am a big fan of a consultation.
When done poorly, they may as well have not been done at all.
Edit: https://www.northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/s...p?tid=1186&page=18
There's about 9 or 10 pages on the famous Park Lane 'consultation'. Affected a huge area, two depots, red zone, purple zone and green zone, but concentrated on asking passengers in one area of the red zone.