Relief as Over Sixty Important Bus Routes are Spared Service Cuts

Funding found for socially necessary Greater Manchester bus routes

With the perfect storm of skyrocketing energy prices and swingeing bus service cuts, Greater Manchester’s bus users could have been in for a much bleaker winter. The loss of Department of Transport funding on the 4th October from COVID Recovery grants would have seen cuts to 33 bus routes and the loss of 31 bus routes.

Oldham and Tameside Bus Service Changes Extra (24 April 2022)

Two more late additions to the Spring 2022 service changes

In the last 24 hours, we have learned of two more service changes affecting Oldham and Tameside bus routes.

Oldham and Saddleworth Bus Service Changes, 24 April 2022

End of an era for two iconic bus routes with cuts to Chadderton bus route

How many black cats have the great travelling public of Oldham and Saddleworth run over to effect this spring’s set of changes? The latest set of service changes have seen Oldham and Rochdale at the sharpest end of the cutbacks.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 24 April 2022

Mottram roadworks and operator revisions main factor behind service changes

More than not, the biggest changes to Tameside’s bus routes occur in springtime. For the last two decades, the biggest cuts and operator changes are made at around that time of year.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 31 October 2021

A pithy set of changes for Halloween

If the latest set of service changes for Tameside and Glossop bus passengers were a horror film, it gives us great pleasure to say it is Andy Pandy Takes the Ghost Train instead of Night of the Living Dead or Threads. This autumn’s set of changes are minor one – mainly the retiming of existing routes.

Greater Manchester’s Most Shocking Bus Service Changes Since 1986: The Not So Perfect Ten

A look at the service changes that have shaken our city region’s bus network forever

We are now 35 years into what Andy Burnham called The Free Market Experiment.  As with any free market experiment, there is a smaller number of winners than losers.  Before the first lockdown, having a bus company and a rail franchise was a licence to print money for some operators.  

Oldham and Saddleworth Bus Service Changes, 05 September 2021

Bussing back to school the Oldham and Saddleworth way

For Oldham and Saddleworth bus users, there are very few changes of note. Besides three Stagecoach Manchester routes, there is welcome news for nocturnal ‘9 bus passengers.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 05 September 2021

All the latest back to school bus times and the usual changes

• Stagecoach Manchester routes revert to winter timetable;
• New Sheffield connection for Hyde passengers;
• Late night 409 journeys to Ashton restored.

For the first time in a while, Tameside’s latest service changes make for more positive reading. Evening journeys will be boosted on one of our trunk routes and Hyde is going to get direct bus links to Manchester Airport, Sheffield and Macclesfield.

Oldham and Saddleworth Bus Service Changes, 25 July 2021

Summertime service changes for Oldham and Saddleworth bus passengers

Within a week of HM Government’s Freedom Day®, it will be business as usual for Oldham and Saddleworth bus users. As with our fellows in Tameside and Glossop, there will be usual summer times on Stagecoach’s routes, and the discontinuation of peak hour duplicates.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 25 July 2021

Summer times, and the changes are minimal (and somewhat predictable)

• Summer times on Stagecoach Manchester;
• Diggle link ditched from 356 route;
• Peak hour duplicates nixed after scrapping of social distancing requirement on buses.

Within a week of HM Government’s Freedom Day®, some degree of normality is restored on our bus routes. Firstly, with it being summertime (and the schools breaking up for the five-week or six-week holidays), we shall be seeing the faster summer times on many of Stagecoach’s routes. Secondly, with the requirements for social distancing scrapped, our peak hour duplicates on trunk routes have gone the same way.