Big Question: Integrated Transport

[enotayokel]

Ok here goes...

What does Integrated Transport mean to you?

[AlanP46]

A seamless transition between one or transport modes is possible.

However as I work for TfL I probably would say that

Alan

[nwallace]

Something that UK politics will never manage to create, and therefore is only possible where a commercial monopoly exists.

Code: Select all

Integrated Transport
noun 
a delightful fantasy of the kind indulged in while smoking a pipe, originally one filled with opium. pipe-dreamer noun.
ETYMOLOGY: Late 19c.

[AlistairW]

That I could board a bus in Milford and buy a ticket to the out skirts of say Birmingham, walk straight into a waiting train at Derby (without having to walk from the centre of town) connect to another train at Birmingham for Walsal and then catch my final bus out to my chosen destination. All without having to wait in the cold or have more than 1 ticket.

Yeah, right...

[ianm42]

When I was living in Munich, I had to visit a place in Filderstadt, on the outskirts of Stuttgart. I purchased my ticket online from the DB website, and printed out the page which had a square box in the corner with pretty patterns in it. I left my apartment, 50m away from the steps down to a U-bahn station. The U-bahn took me to Munich Hauptbahnhof, where I found my ICE train. My name was displayed above my reserved seat and I was whisked off to Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof. My printed page was checked by the guard, who had a perspex square with patterns on that he held over my printed sheet to check its validity. At Stuttgart, it was down the steps to the S-bahn. At the S-bahn terminus at Filderstadt, I had to catch a bus. I came up the escalator and there were buses all around me. I bought a drink at a kiosk, and checked the map on the wall, meanwhile all the buses departed. I found the bus stop I needed, but there was no sign of a bus, until 5 minutes before the next S-Bahn train arrived. Then all the buses reappeared, and waited until the train arrived and the passengers had alighted. Then the buses took off in all directions again. That is how integrated transport is supposed to work. It could have been raining all day, and I would only have got wet after I got off the bus.

[AlistairW]

I know in Holland if the railway alters its timetable all the local bus operators have to as well, of course that won't be happening in the UK, especially as the bus station is rarely next to the train station.

Cheers,
Ali

[johncard]

Money.

Oh yeah, sorry. Convenience.

People taking off the blinkers and realising there's a viable method of travel beyond the driveway, boosting the political clout for the mysterious notion of "public transport".

Local authorities playing their part regulating through quality partnerships/contracts, building bus lanes (whilst educating those ignorant of their benefits, see above) or, heaven forbid, running the things themselves.

Metro! Metro! Metro!

[gswindale]

you really do need a decent council for that!
Round here, the plan is to move the bus station, currently sited across the road from the railway station, across to the other side of town.

[nwallace]

you really do need a decent council for that!
Round here, the plan is to move the bus station, currently sited across the road from the railway station, across to the other side of town.

Is head of planning a taxi driver?



Ian's post reminded me about Leuchars station which due to lack of thought way back is also the station for St Andrews.

I once stood at the station waiting for someone to get off a train, watching the buses arrive and leave, mostly setting down. Train arrives but its not the one. Loads of people file down to the bus stop..... And Wait.... And wait...... yes the gap in the time table longer than the rest is after every train arrives.