Stagecoach are making a number of changes to services in the Cambridge area from Sunday 5th June. The official announcement can be found on the Stagecoach website. And links to the new timetables can also be found there. What follows is a summary of those changes.
Busway: Routes A and B will both be operating every 20 minutes Monday-Saturday, providing a combined 10-minute frequency over the St Ives-Histon stretch of the Busway. Or, to put it another way, six buses per hour instead of four. However the Trumpington-Cambridge “short” services will cease, so that frequency on this part of route A will be reduced from four to three per hour. Although it’s not mentioned in the Stagecoach publicity, there are significant changes to departure times of route C services from Long Road – check the new timetable for details.
Citi 5 and 6. A small number of peak-hour Bar Hill services will operate direct to/from Cambridge (via the Crematorium), and not travel via Oakington and Girton. Operating on what was, until recently, the “traditional” route for the Citi 5, if will run as the 5F. The Citi 6 will gain a handful of services to compensate, maintaining the two-per-hour pattern that has become the norm of late. Dry Drayton and Madingley commuters should note that their daily peak-hour service will operate as an extension to the Madingley Road Park & Ride – that means changes to most arrival/departure times, and different stops served in Cambridge city centre (the outbound trip now leaves from St Andrew’s Street and Bridge St – you won’t find it in Emmanuel Street!).
Other services: There are minor changes to some timings on the Citi 1, Citi 3, 11, 13, 613, V1, V3 and Babraham Road Park & Ride. And on the 18, Cambridge-bound trips will no longer serve Cambourne Business Parks.
Cambridge Area Bus Users 
The Citi 5 via Oakington every half hour, despite the ‘faster’ rush-hour services, still leaves 2 buses an hour along the Huntingdon Road during most of the day, when it was 6 before. the terrible bumpy bone-shaker ride around Oakington is an ordeal, as is the extended journey time. We have suffered a severe deterioration in service at Bar Hill at a time when the Government is supposedly funding and promoting better bus services to reduce car use and improve the environment (and also Oakington now has diesel buses replacing the electric ones).
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I do not know how often it happens but about a fortnight ago the A service to Trumpington just after 4pm was full and left passengers behind at the Royal Papworth hospital stop. The reduction in frequency and the erratic timings of the journeys starting in St. Ives will make the service to Trumpington P&R site less attractive.
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