Dirk Gently was a great fan of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Those who are responsible for our public transport? Not so much.
At least where I am and for the journeys I tend to make, joined-up thinking really hasn't permeated into public transport.
It wasn't that much better in the past - consider how many railway stations are set distant from their notional destination. Blame the Victorian NIMBYs for that one.
Bus stops and bus stations tend to be at fairly random locations. At Cambridge Railway station, they're relegated to way down the road. In Cambridge, some go from a random point on the street on Parkside.
Here in Cambridge we have a number of bus services that are operated in some sort of isolation. There's the regular (Citi) buses; the park and ride services; the U; the guided busway; and recently the intriguing Tiger bus routes. There are several different companies involved.
Cross-ticketing really isn't a thing. If your route involves multiple suppliers, pay them separately. If the convoluted route map involves multiple routes, pay extra.
The new T4 and T5 are allegedly timed to interchange, so that you can swap from one to the other depending on your destination. That's good, but that it gets specially called out indicates that it's a rarity. There's even a Hopper ticket, but again that's part of the problem - you should be able to swap buses to complete your route without penalty.
I was at a event last night and asked about a transport survey that had been done. Had they asked where people needed to get to? Nope. Not at all. This sort of basic information is critical to working out what sort of transport provision is required - where to put the cycle ways, where the bus routes run - but we don't have it, it seems the powers that be aren't trying to get it, and we end up with public transport being provided completely at random. And they they wonder why people are unhappy and patronage is low.
Maybe a move to bus franchising will improve matters, as that does give uniformity of control and decisions about route planning. It's difficult to see how it can get any worse.
