Transport Statistics Greater Manchester Key Centres Section

This report presents results of HFAS’s (Transport for Greater Manchester Highways Forecasting and Analytical Services formerly known as GMTU) key centre monitoring during the financial year. It includes trends in modal split of trips entering town centres. It is the Key Centres section of Transport Statistics Greater Manchester. Counts of road traffic and rail users were conducted on a cordon around each of the 10 key centres in Greater Manchester in 1997. Subsequently, until April 2008, three or four centres were surveyed annually with each centre being surveyed on a three yearly cycle to monitor progress towards key objectives in the Greater Manchester Local Transport Plan (GMLTP) and this continued for GMLTP2. Bus patronage was measured using CPS data. This data was not designed to give an accurate picture of bus passenger at a local level but was then the only data available. Stockport MBC allocated funds from a performance monitoring programme that, together with SEMMMS and LTP funding, allowed annual monitoring of Stockport key centre each Autumn since 2004. Similarly, Manchester was surveyed in March 2006 as part of Manchester City Council’s second local performance service agreement (LPSA2). It was decided that from April 2008 each key centre would be surveyed annually and that manual bus surveys would be conducted, rather than using CPS data. Therefore bus trends to 2008 are based on CPS data but trends since then are based on on bus occupancy surveys at cordon points. Tables providing a summary of road traffic and modal share trends are presented here. Further details of the surveys conducted for each centre are shown in the Transport Statistics reports for the relevant districts. The exact locations of the cordons and the extent of the areas they encompass have an influence on both the total volume of traffic and the relative proportions of each mode of travel. Therefore comparisons between centres should be treated with caution. For each key centre, more detailed information and a map showing the location of the cordon are given in the latest individual HFAS Transport Statistics report for the relevant district.