page_title: Leigh-Salford-Manchester Bus Rapid Transit
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Leigh-Salford-Manchester Bus Rapid Transit / Services / Operation
caption_attribution_description: English: A Vantage bus on route V1 on the Manchester - Leigh kerb guided busway.
context_page_description: The Leigh-Salford-Manchester Bus Rapid Transit scheme in Greater Manchester, England provides transport connections between Leigh, Atherton, Tyldesley, Ellenbrook and Manchester city centre via Salford. The guided busway and bus rapid transit scheme promoted by Transport for Greater Manchester opened on 3 April 2016. Built by Balfour Beatty at a total cost of £122 million to improve links from former coalfield towns into Manchester city centre, the busway proposal encountered much opposition and a public enquiry in 2002 before construction finally started in 2013. A branch route from Atherton, and an extension to the Manchester Royal Infirmary have been added to the planned
  original scheme.
  Twenty-five purple-liveried Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 bodied Volvo B5LH hybrid double-decker equipped with CCTV and next stop audio and visual announcements operate the service. Stops on the guided busway section have level-boarding from platforms equipped with passenger information display screens.
context_section_description: After light-controlled junctions along the East Lancashire Road were upgraded with SCOOT adaptive signalling in July 2016, TfGM reported in the October that traffic journey times on this section had returned to pre-construction levels in the morning peak while accommodating significant additional traffic.
  In the first six months of operation, more than 900,000 passenger journeys were made. A survey of users published in October 2016 revealed that 20% of passengers had switched from using their cars for the same journey, and nearly all respondents would recommend the service. More than a quarter of busway users walked or travelled more than a kilometre to reach the busway.  By the third year of operation, it was being estimated that 580,000 car trips per year along the BRT route had transferred to bus ridership.
  
  The service attracted about 28,000 passengers per week when it started in April 2016 rising to 45,000 by the autumn and 55,000 in the run up to Christmas 2016. In the first year more than 2.1 million passengers were carried; increasing to approximately 2.6 million in the second, and 3 million in the third.  By December 2017, weekly ridership had increased to 62,000. This has further increase a record 62,700 passengers in September 2018.
caption: Vantage bus on the guided busway
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