Sheffield Railway Station 'drop Off Area'

[Justin Smith 10]

Just had a very frustrating time dropping off my parents at the Sheffield station. The queue for the drop off area was hardly moving and backed up right past the T junction on the access road.

The reason ?

Of the six or seven cars using the drop off area only two appeared to be actually dropping off anyone ! All the other spaces were full of cars just waiting, one assumes, to pick up passengers due off trains.

If ever there was a need for staff to move on cars just waiting that is it. There should be signs around "Drop off only max stop time 3 minutes" or similar. And actually enforce it...….

Edited November 17, 2019 by Justin Smith

[Albert the Cat 0]

You can park in the multi storey next door and if you leave within 30mins, you don’t get charged. 

[Daven 10]

Think there is already a thread about this issue.

Consensus is that it's best to drop off at the layby/bus stop across the road from the station. Only a short walk across the pelcan crossing to the station.

When picking up, I park on the back road below the old post office and before Pond Street and wait for a call to say the person I am collecting has arrived then pick them up in the layby/bus stop just beyond the blade.

Obviously it depends which direction you intend traveling after said pickup/dropoff.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Daven

[*_ash_* 88]

2 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Just had a very frustrating time dropping off my parents at the Sheffield station. The queue for the drop off area was hardly moving and backed up right past the T junction on the access road.

The reason ?

Of the six or seven cars using the drop off area only two appeared to be actually dropping off anyone ! All the other spaces were full of cars just waiting, one assumes, to pick up passengers due off trains.

If ever there was a need for staff to move on cars just waiting that is it. There should be signs around "Drop off only max stop time 3 minutes" or similar. And actually enforce it...….

It won't be long before taxis get the blame, but as an expert in this area... it's the 'drop off area' / people waiting to pick up here, is the problem. If people only drop off there, it keeps moving.

 

To put your very frustrating experience to compare to mine. I go there with probably around 20% of my jobs. I'll check on the taxi forum as I wrote a few weeks ago, my record time. (entered 1625, got out the lights at 1703

 

I even did a film last year as it's so interesting

 

 

 

[DerbyTup 10]

There are some parking spaces there to wait for people.  And as someone has already said, you can park for free for 30 minutes in the multi-storey.  

 

I have stopped there to pick people up, not drop off.  I don't see anything wrong with that if I time it so that I arrive after they have arrived.  It is selfish of people to just sit and wait though.

 

However, if the trains ran on time...🙄

[*_ash_* 88]

46 minutes ago, DerbyTup said:

I I don't see anything wrong with that if I time it so that I arrive after they have arrived.

 

Unlikely that most people think like this,

 

but as it happens, pick up and drop offs is something I've been doing for nearly 20 years, and I can tell you that drop offs are on average far quicker than pick ups

[DerbyTup 10]

9 hours ago, *_ash_* said:

Unlikely that most people think like this,

 

but as it happens, pick up and drop offs is something I've been doing for nearly 20 years, and I can tell you that drop offs are on average far quicker than pick ups

Yes I agree.  

 

My circumstances are different I suppose, in so much as I'm usually picking up my son in Sheffield after his shift at Meadowhall.  I know what time his shift finishes and he texts me when he's about to board the train, so I can time it perfectly so that I arrive, more or less,  as he's emerging from the station.  Straight in and out.  (Other traffic excepting of course).

 

If he was arriving from London or further afield though it would be a different matter.  On my last 2 trips to London in the past few weeks, my trains have been delayed or cancelled.  There's no way I can say for certainty what time they'll arrive until I'm on the approach into Sheffield.  When I picked my family up last year, on their return from Exeter, I got them to text me when they reached Chesterfield.  Then I set off and parked up in the multi-storey, because I knew there'd be several suitcases and bags to store.  

 

My observations are that the whole traffic flow around the station is a mess.  I've almost missed trains before now due to the approach to the multi-storey being congested with black cabs.  The drop off area is very small and easily congested too.  I would have thought there was enough land around there to structure a different traffic-flow for the taxi's and drop-offs/pick-ups, to make it work more efficiently?    If I'm going by train from Sheffield it's about 20 minutes from home to the city centre, then I'd allow another 20 minutes on top for getting into the railway station car park and walking to the platform. 

 

[Justin Smith 10]

15 hours ago, Albert the Cat said:

You can park in the multi storey next door and if you leave within 30mins, you don’t get charged. 

My parents aren`t in the first flush of youth, so I wanted to drop them off as near as possible to the station entrance.

There would have been no problem had not most of the spaces been taken up with people not dropping off anyone, or indeed picking them up. Personally I`d have no objection to people picking up people from those bays but only if the person being collected was literally waiting there to get straight into the car. NOT the car waiting there for them...... 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Justin Smith

[geared 303]

This has always been the problem with the station and they've never done anything to actually address it, all it needs is someone to dish out some tickets, I'm sure now you could enforce it with an ANPR system?

 

It was just the same with the previous layouts of this area, you'd get some ignorant knucklehead sat waiting and blocking traffic, saw a good few arguments break out back then.

 

[Bargepole23 337]

2 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

My parents aren`t in the first flush of youth, so I wanted to drop them off as near as possible to the station entrance.

There would have been no problem had not most of the spaces been taken up with people not dropping off anyone, or indeed picking them up. Personally I`d have no objection to people picking up people from those bays but only if the person being collected was literally waiting there to get straight into the car. NOT the car waiting there for them...... 

Presumably you would want to pick your parents up close to the station entrance also, which presumably means in the area you have previously suggested should be drop off only?

 

Also pretty difficult to time your pick up run so that the car arrives at or just after the person at the pick up area. Or are you saying its acceptable for people being picked up to wait outside? Presume this applies to your elderly parents also? Lets say a 15 minute wait in the rain or snow?

[Agent Orange 11]

26 minutes ago, Bargepole23 said:

Presumably you would want to pick your parents up close to the station entrance also, which presumably means in the area you have previously suggested should be drop off only?

 

Also pretty difficult to time your pick up run so that the car arrives at or just after the person at the pick up area. Or are you saying its acceptable for people being picked up to wait outside? Presume this applies to your elderly parents also? Lets say a 15 minute wait in the rain or snow?

Surely, you would just wait inside the station and venture out once your lift arrives?  

 

The big issue with the current design is that it's totally inadequate.  The bay has a low capacity (8 or so cars) so unless this is either re-designed or enforcement is applied (probably by the installation of barriers similar to those that operate at Manchester Airport) then it will always be a major issue.

[Justin Smith 10]

1 hour ago, Bargepole23 said:

Presumably you would want to pick your parents up close to the station entrance also, which presumably means in the area you have previously suggested should be drop off only?

 

Also pretty difficult to time your pick up run so that the car arrives at or just after the person at the pick up area. Or are you saying its acceptable for people being picked up to wait outside? Presume this applies to your elderly parents also? Lets say a 15 minute wait in the rain or snow?

Almost everyone has a mobile phone these days so it really wouldn`t be difficult to arrive shortly after the train, Realtime Trains (use detailed view) may help, it gives up to the minute (more or less) data on where any train in the country is.

But, as a prev poster mentioned, the people you`re picking up (assuming they had a mobile phone) would be under cover, possibly even sitting down in a heated waiting room not waiting about in the cold and rain.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Justin Smith