Current service - fit for purpose? - an example

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I had an ultrasound appointment at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon at 11:45 yesterday (12th July 2026).  I understand that the operator does 30 ultrasounds per day so it wasn't a long appointment.  So how did I do that by public transport?  Is public transport adequate for such journeys?  What could be done to improve it?

I left home at 07:55.  I walked in again at 15:35.  Elapsed time 460 minutes. The appointment started on time and was over in 15 minutes.  That's 3.25% of the time I was away from home.

I caught the 08:32 train from Melksham to Swindon, arriving there at 08:58.  The bus from Fleming Way to the hospital runs 2 times an hour on Sundays, and the next train at 10:57, into Swindon at 11:26, would have left me around 20 to 30 minutes late for my appointment. 

I could have left home as late as 08:10 to - just - catch that train but left myself a few minutes slack.  I could have caught a bus straight after the appointment and connected with the 13:32 train, 13:56 at Melksham Station, and that would have been 14:20 home, and online reporting tells me that train was on time. That would have been 370 minutes with a mere 15 minutes appointment - still just 4% of the time I was away from home.  But I chose - and it has muddied the waters of this log and report - to take advantge of being out and about and do other things when the opportunity of time and place offered.

The question I started with - "is public transport adequate" - clearly is answered with a "yes".  It got me there, it got me home.  But if I asked the question "was it the most efficient" in terms of my time, no, the round trip driven by private car, plus parking, safety margin, etc, would have been 10:30 from home and back by 13:00, 150 minutes, appointment 10% of the time away from home.   Still not wonderful time use.   If the train ran every hour, with an 09:32 or an 09:57 in to Swindon, that would be a fair solution - still twice as long away from home as driving myself door to door, but a massive improvement and I suspect many other people would use it - especially as they may not feel like being committed to driving after a medical procedure.

Another example of where a reliable, hourly-or-better train service from Melksham and buses that connect with the trains at both ends should result in a major modal shift for people on this (quite low volume) flow and on many other flows that share the same transport along the way.

[Spoiler - the scan gave me a medical more or less "clear". Unlike the scan in March which lead to a phone call "come into hospital NOW" which fixed something before it was life changing.  So happy with the results; not as I was a year or five ago, but able to walk 10kms during the day, so not entirely incapacitated though I slept afterwards!]

[GBM]

I had an ultrasound appointment at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon at 11:45 yesterday (12th July 2026).  I understand that the operator does 30 ultrasounds per day so it wasn't a long appointment.  So how did I do that by public transport?  Is public transport adequate for such journeys?  What could be done to improve it?

Another example of where a reliable, hourly-or-better train service from Melksham and buses that connect with the trains at both ends should result in a major modal shift for people on this (quite low volume) flow and on many other flows that share the same transport along the way.

[Spoiler - the scan gave me a medical more or less "clear". Unlike the scan in March which lead to a phone call "come into hospital NOW" which fixed something before it was life changing.  So happy with the results; not as I was a year or five ago, but able to walk 10kms during the day, so not entirely incapacitated though I slept afterwards!]

Sounds simple.  Many moons ago I seem to remember that a few of our bus runs were timed for a five minute train connection wait.  From memory, traffic and passenger delays meant we rarely arrived on time.  Usually arrived well after our departure time, regardless of whether the train had come (or gone).
So we would arrive late (frequently very late), pick up whoever was there, and go.

If you are going to task a bus to wait for a train, it would have to be a dedicated driver and vehicle, and would wait until the train arrived, regardless of the bus schedule that was to follow that timetable.

Too many variables unfortunately.

[grahame]

Sounds simple.  Many moons ago I seem to remember that a few of our bus runs were timed for a five minute train connection wait.  From memory, traffic and passenger delays meant we rarely arrived on time.  Usually arrived well after our departure time, regardless of whether the train had come (or gone).
So we would arrive late (frequently very late), pick up whoever was there, and go.

If you are going to task a bus to wait for a train, it would have to be a dedicated driver and vehicle, and would wait until the train arrived, regardless of the bus schedule that was to follow that timetable.

Too many variables unfortunately.

I agree that many part sound a lot simpler than they are.

With an hourly service on one of the legs, and perhaps a more frequent service on the connecting leg, it becomes less of a problem.   With the train gaps being two and a half hours in one direction, and two and a quarter in the other direction, and with a fixed appointment (of "interview" importance) at the end, it was / is not clever.

As service reliability improves (remember, that's big thing that the magic wand of nationalisation is set to bring), the connection problem is not entirely eliminated but it should be a degree or two less. 

Certainly network co-ordination should help. After my appointment and my walk via Coate Water to Old Town, I picked up the bus from there to Devizes which runs every hour on a Sunday and I got home even before the next train would have left Swindon.     I couldn't help but notice that 2 buses an hour were leaving the stop in Swindon for or via Wroughton at 4 and 59 minutes after the hour.  Sound OK - until you note that the gap between them is 5 minutes or 55 (I grant they take different routes), that the real time display was out of action, and the times for the Devizes bus were on a poster in which the minutes after the hour were hidden by the frame!

[bobm]

The other thing to factor in is finding a parking space at the hospital.  I’ve know it take people 20-30 mins driving round looking for a space - even on a Sunday. 

[grahame]

The other thing to factor in is finding a parking space at the hospital.  I’ve know it take people 20-30 mins driving round looking for a space - even on a Sunday. 

There seemed no problem yesterday.   Quite the opposite at Coate Water; everyone seemed to be driving there car park packed with cars in all places they should be and some they should not have been, and a field below the dam taken over as extra parking.   There was hardly anyone on walk up from the public road, and as I walked on to the Old Town there were lots of cars, but a bicycle lane with no bicycles and a footpath on which I was the only pedestrian (but plenty of people parked their cars)

[Clan Line]

The other thing to factor in is finding a parking space at the hospital.  I’ve know it take people 20-30 mins driving round looking for a space - even on a Sunday. 

I used to live in the GWH "catchment" area - when it was being built I can clearly remember reading that the car parking at the new (green field !!) site would deliberately be inadequate "to encourage people to use public transport". The so-called planners clearly believed that all future patients of the GWH lived within walking distance of a frequent direct bus to the hospital !!
I also remember reading, when it opened, that staff were going in early and eating their "breakfast" in their cars, just to get a parking space.

I lived on the A4 between Calne and Marlborough, I can't remember what buses we had, if any - one per day.........per haps. There was only one feasible way to get to GWH - drive !!!
 
Oh .................and these same people also forgot that the RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force) was closing its hospital at Wroughton and that all the NHS patients using that excellent hospital would soon be dumped on the GWH. (A considerable portion of the kids in my village school were born at Wroughton)

[wiltshirebloke]

... or you could have used the Park & Ride on the edge of Wroughton ...... oh wait ...

[Chris from Nailsea]

Purely as an aside, in my personal experience, the visitor parking at Southmead Hospital in Bristol and at Weston General in Weston super Mare is excellent.