In message , at 15:08:43 on Tue, 6
Jul 2010, Paul Terry remarked:
Experience of different P&R round the country says service levels are
pretty patchy, and as a first time visitor to Cambridge it's always
going to be a gamble.

Heaven forbid that they might have to use the Internet to see what
service levels are like before they leave! But you are right in the
sense that early closing times of such car parks can be a gotcha. The
Cambridge scheme is well set-up, with staffed information offices at
the terminals and frequent bus services.

I had to go to central Oxford a few months ago and contemplated using
their P&R. But I couldn't make much sense of it in the time available,
so I drove all the way in and parked near the station. It was easy.

Someone I know wanted to P&R for Manchester last month, and I tried
looking that up - complete nightmare! They seem to assume you know the
names of all the places you might be wanting to use (very few were
familiar to me) and the only maps were thumbnails of the last few
hundred yards. So they drove all the way and parked quite happily close
to Oxford Rd station.

Last time I went to Cambridge I was considering using P&R, but as I
turned off the A14 onto Huntingdon Rd it occurred to me that none were
actually that easy to get to from there. So I drove to QAT and parked
there. Not including the petrol, it was cheaper (for my afternoon stay)
than 2 people on the P&R. And when we wanted to leave, we left. No
messing about queuing for buses.

If you say so. I'm still unconvinced that this is a major drain on
resources, compared to people living within a 10-mile radius coming to
Cambridge to shop.

Bus-pass journeys starting outside the city of Cambridge are
irrelevant, because they are not paid for by the city council.

They are relevant because the return leg is paid for by Cambridge.

All of this has, in fact, been thoroughly discussed in parliament,
where it was agreed that cities which are tourist centres are unfairly
treated by the current grant arrangements - Cambridge, Norwich and
Oxford were mentioned in particular (see Hansard for 26 January 2009).

So as I said a few days ago - a simple formula change is all that's
needed. The parliamentary debate tended to conflate "visitor" and
"tourist".

There really is no doubt that tourism is the main problem -
particularly now that we have an increasingly mobile population over
the age of 59 with time (and bus passes) on their hands. AIUI, the
grant arrangements are being reviewed (hence the answer to the original
question in this thread) with a view to making them more equitable.

Colin says they are being transferred to the County, which won't
actually help if the problem is people doing P&R into Cambridge - the
County will be paying for both legs.
--
Roland Perry