Derby and Derbyshire desperately need convenient connections between bus and train services. Today, connectivity is absolutely appalling. Road congestion will only get worse unless this is resolved. Derby [Midland] rail station has been remote from the city centre since 1839! You can't directly interchange between bus and train in Derby, all year round, unless you live along the bus routes that use London Road!

It's no wonder that in 2019-20 Derby rail station had 4,220,014 estimated entrances and exits (just 41.8% of York’s, which was 10,089,306) despite these cities being similarly sized!

(The Historical Data Tables of Station Usage are found on this page at the Office for Rail and Road.)

 

A free shuttle bus between Derby rail station and Corporation Street would be an excellent short term solution to tackle the problem. It should most likely be funded by EMR and Cross Country, because they would enjoy massive increases in ridership within the East Midlands if this were implemented.

 

The shuttle would link train services with almost all bus services in Derby city centre except for lines:

• 4 (Arriva)
• 5 (Arriva)
• 7 (Arriva)
• Harlequin (TrentBarton)

 

 

Below is a diagram of the route with colour coded lists of the other bus and train services that are available at each stop.

 

 

 

It would run along Siddals Road, which has a bus gate. It needs to operate at 5 minute intervals to reduce the chances of missed connections.

 

 

The above is the most direct path to take; I have drawn two more, but there are other possibilities, especially involving Park Street and Castleward Boulevard.

 

 

 

 

Leicester already has a free city centre bus, called "Hop". The one proposed for Derby would be far more successful, because it would be linear instead of circular. Nothing less than this can be considered acceptable if Derby and Nottingham are to be considered a joint "Metro" area.

Existing stations between Derby and adjacent cities would become more attractive, and new or reinstated stations such as Draycott and Stenson Fields would be more viable. All of this will reduce pressure on interurban buses such as the X38, Sixes and Indigo, which are limited to 80 people at most and require a driver each. Passengers will be able to use trains to bypass road congestion into central Derby.

EMR and Cross Country need to acquire as many self powered trains as they can, to couple to their existing trains on current services in the short term and to increase frequencies in the medium term.
Twenty four identical trains (Class 158) to those used by EMR on their Liverpool to Norwich route are about to become homeless from Wales! EMR's other Regional type of train (Class 170) could then be shared with Cross Country to double up the Cardiff to Nottingham service. 

It also is absurd that both Derby and Newton Aycliffe train factories are in jeopardy due to lack of orders, at a time when Regional rail capacity increases are so necessary to tackle car dependency (due to road congestion), social exclusion and energy and climate unsustainability.