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Bus Travel
When is the next bus? Online bus stop enquiry service - just input your location, road or post code, for a list of bus stops within 1000 meters and buses within 30 minutes, select your bus stop and receive a list of the next few buses due. The > NW and > S etc signs represent direction of travel so it is useful to know where North etc is. Most data is from timetables (represented by eg 09:27) but a few services have live data (represented by eg in five minutes).
Greater Manchester has a slightly neater service which requires your location post code, and lists bus stops within 250 meters and buses within 2 hours, with links to service timetables. This site is on gmpte.info.
To find out how to travel by bus there are two main suppliers of information, Transport Direct and Traveline. Traveline has a differing interface for each region, and the North West web site is especially badly designed and I find the default front page totally unuseable! but I will list them below anyway- as their East Midlands region site is superb. Transport Direct demand javascript (including on their none script version!) to display their own route maps.
Transport Direct (cookies essential) has times for UK trains, coaches and many local buses and domestic flights. NOTES: The linked maps located on walkit.com are fine, however the maps from Transport Direct use javascript even if you select the none script version of their web site. Their code is not html compliant as they subvert DOM but your browser will probably ignore their rotten coding. This website at present uses an obligatory session cookie (deleted on exit) but does not tell you. If you refuse the cookie the site will not function. The use of the session cookie means you must do a new search only after using the "new search" button which resets the cookie. Treat all suggested journeys with consideration especially walking times. .
Also take a look at Traveline - you will need to select a region from the front page. Their North West region default version I find unuseable but other regions are much better! If you need to travel in the North West, a difficult to find more useable query page for the North West only is at
North West Traveline - useable journey planner and NW timetables from traveline.
Do try not to call Travelines 0871 telephone number which is a premium call- as at 7/08 it cost 40p per minute from a phone box! If Traveline it says "no service" it may mean one of your locations is out of the region. Each region has a differing interface - the North West default version is a real headache to use and relies upon images being displayed. Very unfriendly. The East Midlands version is a complete contrast, a joy to use! Traveline's 0871 number will connect you to your nearest travel office, but there are cheaper numbers to call to get through to that or any other office- key in traveline to the search page at saynoto0870 and call the cheaper 0870, 0845 or local number given. Check any special instructions.
Stagecoach Manchester used to be my favourite source for their bus timetables, but a web redesign has left a broken unusable unfriendly web site. To get a timetable list, do not enter the region or timetable number, leave them at default, and just enter the departure and arrival point. This will then bring up a list of timetables to select from..
A useful site is GMPTE timetable page covering all buses in Greater Manchester (timetables in pdf format)
The old county of Cheshire was split in two in 2009 (on 1st April no less) and bus data is split between two web sites- Cheshire West inc Chester and Cheshire East including Crewe and Macclesfield || Derbyshire Timetables
Maps of bus services: Cheshire West || Cheshire East || Flintshire || Greater Manchester || Lancashire | | Derbyshire
There are three free buses with circular routes in Manchester, one free circular bus in Bolton, and one free circular shuttle bus in Stockport. - this GMPTE web page has links to PDF format route maps for the buses.
To access the official railway data, no javascript or cookies required- a fast version at Traintimes mobile or the full version (more content and differing layout) at Accessible UK Train Timetables which has the full official data (as up to date as exists for times, plus fares)- be sure to use "check for updates" or "bulletins" for the most recent information.
Using differing data sources- German Rail has UK train times also, text based interface, click on Train No for full details of where the train is coming from and going to. This data is not updated for short notice engineering works.
Enjoy reading Today's UK train delays-and Cleared incidents- note that the 2004 revamp of the site seems to have caused it to miss a lot of serious delays, or report them later. Local North West delays seem almost never to appear. Northern Rail have now ceased their own journey problem reporting entirely but a small relic can be found on this BBC travel web page.
UK Live Departure Boards has the web equivalent of the tv monitors you
see at railway stations, giving arrivals and departures in the next few hours. Note the limited and experimental nature of the data. NOTE a train shows as NO REPORT until it passes a reporting point. The site National Rail expect you to use has EITHER arriving OR departing trains.
Another web site designed for pdas has both arrivals and departures in a different format and possibly using a differing dataset.
If you are looking for UK tourist information, best of luck, there are many content-less web sites out there with just a few really useful ones for specific localities. Generally I find the various UK tourist information centres something of a waste of space, the useful TIC is a rarity to be treasured.