Plan ahead - wherever you might be heading this Christmas

A TfGM summary is now available to help people with their travel plans

Manchester's Christmas commuters, shoppers and party-goers are being encouraged to plan their travel over the festive period.

There will be some changes to services on several days and a summary is now available to help people with their travel plans.

The ‘Christmas services’ travel advice page is now online and will be available from any one of Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) many Travelshops – located at bus stations and interchanges across the region – from next week.

The advice has been developed following meetings between TfGM and operators to help keep people moving during the busy Christmas and New Year period.

With services expected to be busy throughout December, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham asked TfGM to work with KeolisAmey Metrolink to increase capacity on the network.

Services between Piccadilly and Bury and Piccadilly and Altrincham will operate as double trams in the evenings until last service Monday to Saturday, while extra trams will be used to make ‘doubles’ run across the network on Sundays, creating space for thousands of extra journeys every day.

Under the TravelSafe Partnership, TfGM has been working with Greater Manchester Police (GMP), British Transport Police (BTP) and operators to develop plans to keep people safe.

Additional staff and officers will be out and about on the transport networks at key times, providing a visible and reassuring presence and deterring and reducing incidents of crime and ASB. 

Sean Dyball, Head of Customer Engagement, said: “Over the Christmas period it's always useful to plan ahead before making your journey.

"Public transport is likely to be busy throughout December, so please give yourself plenty of time to get where you need to go, know your tram, train or bus times and, where possible, don’t rely on the last service to get home. 

"We’ve been working with closely operators, local councils and the police to ensure we keep people moving and safe.

"As with previous years, we will be providing extra capacity wherever possible and will have staff at key locations who will be on hand to help our customers."

For information on public transport across Greater Manchester visit: www.tfgm.com, call 0161 244 1000 (7am-8pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am-8pm at weekends and bank holidays) or follow @OfficialTfGM on Twitter.

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