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A coronavirus travel update from TfGM
TfGM
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[email protected]>
14:33
07/09/2020
Dear customer,
With hundreds of thousands of young people now returning to the classroom, and many people also returning to work as the summer holidays end, roads and public transport are likely to be far busier in September than they have been for many months.
We’ve been working with councils and public transport operators to make travelling in Greater Manchester as safe and reliable as possible, and we need everyone to ‘do their bit’ to help.
How and when you travel
If you can, you should cycle or walk for some or all of your trip. If you must use public transport, then please plan ahead and allow extra time for your journey.
If possible, try to avoid the busiest times of the day, as capacity on transport services will be limited due to social distancing measures. This will help reduce congestion on the roads and transport networks.
Consider your options
Keeping safe
Over the weekend rates of coronavirus infection continued to increase in Bolton and, as a result, new guidance has been introduced to stop the spread of the virus. The local restrictions are the same as those in Oldham and mean people living in these areas must not:
Use public transport except for essential travel. You must now only make trips that are absolutely necessary for work, school, to get supplies, to care for others or for medical reasons. Please drive, cycle or walk instead and only use public transport if you have no other option.
Socialise with anyone from outside their household. This means that social activities indoors and outdoors can only be shared with people that you live with and in your immediate household. This does not, however, apply to social bubbles.
For people living in Greater Manchester’s other areas, you can use public transport but please consider active travel options such as cycling and walking where possible.
We have a rigorous anti-viral cleaning regime in place at our bus stations and interchanges, where we’ve installed hand sanitiser dispensers for customers. Operators are also cleaning buses, trams and trains more regularly – to ensure they are as clean as possible, and both TfGM and operators have introduced measures to support social distancing.
We all need to play our part so, if you’re using public transport, you need to follow safety guidance. You must wear a face covering (unless you’re exempt); keep your distance from other people where possible; clean your hands frequently and carry hand sanitiser with you if you can; and try and avoid using cash to pay for tickets.
This guidance applies to everyone – including young people heading back to schools and colleges. If you are 11 years old or over, you must wear a face covering if you want to use public transport, unless you have an exemption.
You should also get a test, stay at home and not use public transport if you’re displaying any symptoms of the virus.
More information
School transport
We’ve secured more than £2m in government funding to boost capacity on the bus network at peak times and help children get back to school safely.
With space significantly reduced due to coronavirus social distancing measures, we’ve worked with operators to run around 300 additional bus journeys each weekday across the region.
Duplicate buses exclusively for school and college students will run behind the original scheduled service at set times, with the usual route number starting in ‘S’ to show they are school services. They are being introduced on routes where pre-lockdown passenger data has shown the highest number of schoolchildren travelling and where bus seats are expected to be in high demand as a result.
We’ve set up a dedicated web page, where parents, carers and students can find all the latest information on the extra services.
