Information: Bus Stops

Here’s how responsibility for bus stop infrastructure is/isn’t provided within the Cambridge area:

  • Cambridgeshire County Council (the Highway Authority) is the body which has traditionally approved the siting of bus stops – although the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority is now the Transport Authority, so there are overlapping responsibilities.
  • Bus stop locations are, or should then be, entered on the National Public Transport Access Nodes (NaPTAN) database.
  • The Transport Authority and/or Highway Authority provides (or fails to provide) good hard-standing for bus stops; and Cambridge Area Bus Users believe, should provide a bus-stop pole, although a street-lighting column may be used.
  • Provision of a bus stop flag – by the bus operator – is optional, as is a timetable case and printed timetable. Only about half the stops have a flag, the rest are unmarked.
  • An integrated RTPI pole and display, if provided, is the responsibility of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, the RTPI feed being operated by contractor VIX on behalf of the Transport Authority.
  • Bus shelters are, generally, the responsibility of the lower-tier authorities (eg Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council) who may have agreements with advertising companies (eg Clear Channel/JC Decaux, now Bauer Media Outdoor UK) which provide and maintain some shelters (in which they will sell static or moving advertisements). Additionally Parish Councils may choose to install such infrastructure. (Good examples can be found in the Histon & Impington and Great Shelford parishes.)
  • However, when roads are re-modelled (Hills Road, Histon Road, Milton Road) using Greater Cambridge Partnership money it is unclear who approves the often sub-optimal design and siting of shelters.
  • Cambridge Area Bus Users could find no evidence of the existence of any agreed design parameters followed by these authorities.

It was only on 15 November 2023 that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s Transport & Infrastructure Committee agreed that:
(7.2.e) The CPCA would go through an options process to understand what was the right approach for a combined authority to take in regard to ownership and maintenance of bus stop infrastructure.

Nationally, the Campaign for Better Transport has issued a report on creating a National Bus Stop Standard, with a followup on printed passenger information.