(23 Jul 2020, 11:45 am)James101 wrote 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.I agree the shuttle bus is useless to most people and as I said it could be opened up to all travellers with a commercial service serving many more people but of course it would require funding to build it up I suspect, which is why it won't happen. In my eyes it would be better use of the funding available but that's my opinion as an operator. Clearly 23Taxis seem to think so too as they're making a decent amount on the journeys they operate.
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?
As for the rest of the issues with Hartlepool's network - I think Stagecoach are probably doing the best they can with what little resource they can justify but of course the councils around here are not bothered about filling gaps, other than Stockton's closed door 'services' and Redcar who run everything in house.