According to Traveline, there are a number of changes to Busway routes A, B and D due to take effect on Monday 13th January. There is no mention of any changes on either the Stagecoach or County Council Busway websites, but a new departures sheet was noted at St Ives Station Road this morning.

You are advised to check the Traveline website. What follows is an attempt to encapsulate the changes based on a quick comparison of new and existing timetables.

Note, first, that there are no changes to Sunday services.

As for the rest of the week (including Saturdays)… The most significant changes are to routes A and D. There seems to be a significant increase in journey times on the stretch between Orchard Park and St Ives town centre. How is this reflected in the timetable?

On city-bound trips, most services will depart St Ives 7 minutes (or thereabouts) earlier than at present, and operate 7 (or so) minutes earlier to Orchard Park. Thereafter timings seem unchanged.

On St Ives-bound trips, most services will depart from the city stops as at present, but after Orchard Park will run 7 (or so) minutes later than at present.

There seem to be changes to how the services are being organised in St Ives beyond the town centre. In addition to changes to the times of buses, there may be some switching of routes between the A and the D (and possibly changes to the routes themselves). Check the new timetable carefully!

The first Mon-Fri departure from Ramsey will be at 0605 (i.e. 15 minutes earlier than at present). Morning departures from other villages and towns into St Ives and Cambridge are 5-10 minutes earlier than previously.

There are changes to the routes taken by both services inside the Biomedical Campus. Southbound services will call at the Royal Papworth only as they leave the campus. Northbound services will call at the Royal Papworth only as they first enter the campus.

There are minor changes on route B, seemingly affecting just the indicative times at intermediate stops. So, for example, outbound services will notionally call at Shire Hall 3 minutes after leaving Drummer St, 2 minutes earlier than at present.

There seem to be no changes to services south of Trumpington, nor to route B services north of St Ives.

I apologise if I’ve missed something that’s key to an individual reader’s particular journey, but there was a lot of data to wade through. And I was aware that those of you heading off for your Monday commute might appreciate some advance warning.

(When I checked at 2300 on Jan 11 the new timetables were not available on the Stagecoach website, only from Traveline.)

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The Universal Bus service has now been running for 3 years, since the Whippet contract superseded the former Stagecoach Uni4. The bus service is subsidised by the University of Cambridge who are keen to understand users’ views on the current service and how it might be improved in the future.

If you currently use, have previously used, or would like to use the Universal Bus, please compete the survey to give your feedback. All respondents will have the chance to win £100! The survey will be open until 19th January 2020.

The survey and focus group findings will help guide the future development of the service.

Further comments about the service can be made by email.

Homerton and Girton students would like better links, and would like to hear the views of other users.

Alongside my counterpart at Girton College, I’m currently running a campaign for restoration of a bus service to Hills Road and the end of Huntingdon Road that will serve the University sites on Sidgwick Site (Grange Road, etc.) and West Cambridge (JJ Thompson Avenue, etc.). As you may be aware prior to 5^th December 2016 the university service was operated by Stagecoach as the Uni 4 and served all these destinations except from the end of Huntingdon Road.

We would be especially keen to hear from local people who were/are affected by this change and would be interested in seeing a service restored both in the short and long term and thought you would be the best organisation to ask about this.

Henry Wright, elected Vice-President External of the Homerton Union of Students

Comments may be left below, or you can email Henry directly.

Following upon the Stagecoach feedback session, on 28^th November 2019 at the Tamburlaine Hotel, it is confirmed that the service is to be improved and capacity strengthened through the purchase of 12 100-seat tri-axle, double-door double-deckers, for route A and six additional single-deckers for route B.

At peak times the ‘core’ of the route – St Ives P&R – Central Cambridge – Railway Station – Biomedical Campus (including Addenbrooke’s & Royal Papworth) – Trumpington P&R will see a five-minute frequency.

There is also a planned Sunday service on route A along the southern busway – Central Cambridge – Railway Station – Biomedical Campus (including Addenbrooke’s & Royal Papworth) – Trumpington P&R. A welcome new development.

If passengers were wondering how a 100-seat tri-axle, double-door double-decker would navigate the Jesus Lane / Bridge Street corner or the Round Church Street corner, the answer is that Stagecoach plan to swap the A and B routes with in Cambridge, with the B serving Cambridge North station and continuing via Milton Road, whilst the A is planned serve Orchard Park and continue via Histon Road.

These planned upgrades will, unfortunately, be delayed until the A14 upgrade works on the Histon Road and Milton Road roundabouts have been completed and the section of the northern busway. Thereafter, Greater Cambridge Partnership’s remodelling of Histon Road will commence, meaning that there will be further diversions for route A…

Whilst Stagecoach stressed that the timetables are not ‘set in stone’ it seems certain that route R Railway Station – Trumpington P&R direct will be withdrawn. The loss of the Station Square roundabout in the redevelopment has already had a detrimental effect on this service, with the need for buses to make time-wasting ‘loops’ via Hills Road, Station Road and Brookgate.

This development has not pleased Trumpington Residents’ Association who have written to Stagecoach East, saying (inner alia):

While pleased to hear of possible improvements to the busway service, the Association is very concerned to hear of the proposed cancellation of Route R, to which we are opposed.

Many passengers who use the guided bus wish to go direct to the Rail Station and beyond, not having to detour to Addenbrooke’s Hospital which takes a minimum of six minutes – often significantly exceeded at peak times. In our view, the R service should be extended to allow this. We are, therefore, very concerned to hear that Stagecoach intend to cancel the R service in favour of more route A services, all of which make the minimum six-minute detour round the Biomedical Campus. Residents will not be impressed with this.

We understand from last week’s feedback event that the logic is to provide extra buses/drivers to improve the frequency and reliability of the Route A service, thus offering a “turn up and go” ability which is intended to more than offset the minimum extra six minutes. Psychologically, this does not work for passengers. For anyone not actually heading to the Campus, the detour will in practice undermine the Busway’s USP as an otherwise express service by forcing it to grind around the Campus serving a number of stops on a 20mph internal road system which, not infrequently, is gridlocked at peak times. This is an impossible sell for many actual and potential passengers.

It conflicts directly with the intention of the Cambridge Autonomous Metro which demands direct travel from the Trumpington Park & Ride and the new Cambridge South West Travel Hub – in addition to, not instead of a good service to the Campus – to which of course the R does contribute in its service to Astra Zeneca and others on the short loop it presently follows. It will be a disincentive to the significant change in people’s mode of travel which is the overriding objective of the Greater Cambridge Partnership and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority/Mayor. This makes little sense to us and we ask that it should not proceed.

David Plank
For Trumpington Residents’ Association
2^nd December 2019

What is unclear at the time of writing, is whether route A will be permitted to serve passengers along Histon Road. Histon Road Area Residents Association have long campaigned for restoration of their former direct bus link to Addenbrooke’s. The Cambridge Area Bus Users view is that allowing route A services to pick up and set down along Histon Road would be an excellent New Year’s present for local residents.

Similarly, Milton Road residents and, in particular, Hurst Park Estate Residents’ Association would welcome route B serving at least some stops on Milton Road.

We understand that the new vehicles will be in a are in the a Stagecoach ‘Limited stop’ livery of ‘Duck Egg Green’. Cambridge Area Bus Users wonders if these ‘Limited Stop’ (express) services will still be required to give longer-distance passengers a scenic tour of Huntingdon’s Oxmoor Estate en-route between Huntingdon bus station and St Ives.

It is pleasing that passengers will be benefitting from Stagecoach’s multi-million-pound investment in new, high-quality vehicles. Cambridge Area Bus Users welcomes this, and hopes that route improvements will be of benefit to all.

Stagecoach have announced a number of changes to Cambridge-area services, to take effect from 5th January 2020.

Evening journeys on the Citi 4 will follow the same route around Cambourne as daytime services, so including Upper Cambourne.

The hourly off-peak journeys on the Citi 5 which extend to the villages east of the A14 (Longstanton, Over, Swavesey and Willingham) will, in future depart from/terminate at Bar Hill Tesco. Passengers to/from Cambridge will need to change at Bar Hill. The new timetable shows the relevant connections, although it is unclear what will happen if any of the relevant buses are running late. Clockwise trips around the villages are to operate as service 5C, and anti-clockwise as 5A. Passengers for Cambridge city centre may want to consider Longstanton Park & Ride as an alternative connecting point. Swavesey Village College service 96 has been discontinued, but the trip runs instead as a 5C service.

There are minor timetable changes to the Citi 6, Citi 7, Citi 8 and 18.

The Stagecoach website has more details, as well as links to the revised timetables.

Thank you to St Ives Town Council, for sharing their narrative response with us. We would welcome similar feedback from any other Parish/Town Councils and Residents’ Associations. Please email us.

Click here to download a PDF of this response.

Have your say on future bus services

This survey has now ended.

Cambridge Area Bus Users submitted a narrative response. Click here to read/download our submission (PDF 397KB). There is a summary of the main points here.

Thank you to St Ives Town Council, for sharing their narrative response with us. Click here to view the document. We would welcome similar feedback from any other Parish/Town Councils and Residents’ Associations. Please email us.

This morning, Wednesday 6th November, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Kev Lawrence Breakfast show were celebrating the scheduled early opening – on Monday 9 December – of the new 12-mile A14 Huntingdon bypass, between Swavesey and Ellington.

Read Nicola Gwyer‘s Cambridge News article here: Guided Busway closure extended again because of A14 roadworks.

Stagecoach service updates: The Busway, Cambridgeshire – November 2019 Update;  The Busway, Cambridgeshire – 21 June 2019 FURTHER UPDATE.

Cambridge Area Bus Users say: More priority for private cars; more disruption for buses. Something has to change!

The Greater Cambridge Partnership‘s controversial ‘improvement’ scheme for Histon Road, which will see this key bus route disrupted by the road’s southbound closure for up to a year have been suspended. Works, which were scheduled to start in November 2019, are now expected to commence in April/May 2020.

During the road closure traffic will be diverted from A14 junction 32 (Histon Road) to junction 33 (Milton Road). All city-bound buses will run via via Milton Road.

However, A14 upgrade works are currently affecting both these junctions.

The delay to the controversial ‘improvement’ scheme for Histon Road will allow the A14 works on these junctions to be completed before the Greater Cambridge Partnership scheme commences.

The decision was announced at the Greater Cambridge Partnership Executive Board meeting on Thursday 3^rd October 2019.

See Local Democracy Reporter Ben Hatton’s report Year-long closure of southbound Histon Road delayed so A14 junction work can be completed in the Cambridge Independent for more details.

Whilst this will be of benefit to all traffic and is, in our view, a sensible postponement, neither Cambridge Area Bus Users nor Histon Road Area Residents Association are happy about the major disruption these works will bring to their (already inadequate) bus services.

It has also been suggested that simple removal of on-street parking might provide most of the benefits for bus users, for little of the expense or disruption.

How much time will be saved on bus journeys – and how long the deficit of a year’s disruption will take to be recouped in a few minutes per bus journey – is a moot point.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that local residents will benefit from improved timings on Busway route B. Histon Road Area Residents Association‘s members are merely entitled to wave to lucky passengers on the B, but not to board the service, which currently runs non-stop along Histon Road. It is, explains Stagecoach East, ‘an express service’.

Excuse our loud ‘harrumph’ – route B is ‘express’ in Cambridge and on the Busway but, beyond there, gives ‘express’ passengers a scenic tour of Huntingdon’s Oxmoor Estate, stopping frequently…

This complaint is typical of prospective passengers who try to use the citi2 service which currently terminates at Wulfstan Way.

Dear fellow bus users,

Thank you for collating complaints re: the current diversion of the number 2 bus route. Here is mine, after a very frustrating attempt to use this so-called service:

On Monday (16th September) I waited over an hour for a number 2 bus to go to Addenbrooke’s and as a result I was 45 minutes late for work. This means that 2 buses did not arrive at all in the time that I was waiting. (A bus to Brooks Road Sainsbury’s did arrive, all of the passengers alighted at the Mill Road stop and the bus went on empty to Sainsbury’s, so what is the point of this service which resulted from Stagecoach  halving the number of buses to the hospital?)

I don’t mind so much the walk at the end from Queen Edith’s Way to the Hospital, although if I was older or frail (as many people travelling there are) I would find it very difficult. Swapping from the number 2 to the number 1 in order to avoid such a walk would not be much better for such passengers, as this doubles the amount of times they have to get on and off a bus.

Getting home was even worse, when I walked back to the Queen Edith’s stop just before 5pm, only to be told that the next bus would be in 20 minutes time, despite the fact that I had visibility of the road end and stop for at least 10 minutes before that and no bus had departed in that time.

I don’t understand why the bus can’t turn up Nightingale Avenue to get to the hospital as this route is still open. This would avoid the ludicrous re-routing through Cherry Hinton as the bus could turn round at the hospital as usual.

[Cambridge Area Bus Users agree: some temporary traffic lights on Hills Road could take care of this. See  John Carroll FREng’s solution to prevent citi1/citi2 disruption. Cambridgeshire County Council have dismissed this out-of-hand. It is still not clear to us whether highway engineers – rather than only the cycling project team – have examined this solution for viability.] 

It is an outrage that Stagecoach can treat their passengers in this callous way and it is a disgrace that the Council have allowed them to do so.

[Note: Stagecoach told Cambridge Area Bus Users that the routes which they have implemented are based upon advice which they have received form Cambridgeshire County Council officers. Many local Cambridgeshire County Councillors are trying to get officers to facilitate an improved route for buses.]

I trust that this will be rectified soon, as these diversions are currently scheduled to last until March next year, through the worst months’ weather and a period when vulnerable passengers need a reliable service to the hospital site.

J, a passenger who works on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. 

Stagecoach East are undertaking a thorough review of all of their bus services, throughout the region, including the Cambridge area. Cambridge Area Bus Users don’t have ‘inside knowledge’ on the details but we commend the company’s bold initiative. The review will be looking at:

• Frequencies
• Days and times of operation
• Point-to-point timings
• Coping with traffic congestion
• Routings
• ‘Feeder’ Routes
• Size and capacity of buses
• Interchange between routes
• Fares

At the risk of encouraging our members and followers to become ‘armchair route-planners’ we’d love to hear your views. Add your (polite) comments, at the foot of the post.

We also wondered about the best ways of promoting the changes, when they’re introduced, and recalled these quirky ads, featuring wannabe WAG Tanya Brown, academic Professor Harold Hooterson and “green” enthusiast Gayle Windybottom, with Tom Baker’s voiceover.

For these with a nerdy disposition, here’s the link to the Stagecoach press release of 18 Jun 2007.