N is for Nottingham City Transport

Saturday 1st July 2023

We’re now passed the alphabetical halfway mark so what better way to celebrate than visit Britain’s most capped bus company for industry awards and accolades. And all deservedly so. Nottingham City Transport (NCT) simply exudes quality in every aspect of its operation.

Wherever you look you’ll find an excellent exemplar of how things should be done. Want to see how quality bus operation looks in a 350,000 population city run by lifelong professional dedicated and experienced bus managers? Then take a trip to Nottingham.

Arriving at Nottingham railway station you’ll find a display of real time bus departures for the stops outside and just round the corner in the outer foyer a display of maps, timetables and information leaflets about fares and tickets.

This used to be located by the real time signs together with leaflets for trentbarton’s services, services run by CT4N (the community bus company) and NET (the tram), but those weren’t so forthcoming on my recent visit to the city but NCT had an impressive full display.

As it did in its city centre travel shop…

… conveniently located in Old Market Square where you can obtain the company’s EasyRider smartcard …

… which enables a range of ticket options to use across the network including two zones (the city and beyond the city), consecutive days travel or non consecutive days travel or as a ‘purse’ to pay as you go. There are even complimentary pens available …

… to fill in the application form for a ticket which clearly sets out the full range of available ticket options.

As well as EasyRider, the city council oversees a Robin Hood branded ticket which includes travel on other bus operators as well as the trams.

I was also impressed to see an NCT employee patrolling the city centre available to assist passengers and provide any information.

NCT is one of the few operators to produce a printed map and it really is an excellent cartographic delight.

The city’s bus network is quite a complex affair but the deployment of colour coding which has been in use for some years really does make it easy to follow and understand the route structure.

I struggle a bit on the detail of routes in suburbs such as Arnold where there is a myriad of route numbers but each corridor helpfully has a unique colour (there are 16 different colours but despite various shades of blue they’re quite distinguishable). This arrangement was first introduced many years ago using a Go2 brand for the high frequency routes and a Network brand but these have subsequently been dropped and the presentation refined by adding lower frequency routes along the same corridor into the same colour group.

What makes it highly effective is the colour is also used for the individual timetable leaflet for each group of routes while buses used on each route feature the colour prominently in their livery.

It makes for a bright and colourful street scene in the city especially around the city centre negating any thoughts buses are dull and boring.

I didn’t see one instance of branded buses on the wrong route either. There were some generic branded buses but that’s inevitable due to needing an efficient way of allocating spare vehicles when some are off the road for mechanical attention.

Excellent information provision follows through at bus stops too with colour coded departure time listings …

… and route numbers on plates clearly displayed and colour coded (as featured in Thursday’s blog).

There also seemed to be a proliferation of real time signs at bus stops across the network, although it’s a shame they’re only two lines deep which is a bit restrictive at busy stops with many bus routes.

The company’s website uses the excellent layout provided by the tech company Passenger incorporating vehicle tracking and easy to find information on timetables (in both web and pdf formats) as well as maps, fares and tickets.

There’s an NCT app available too and the company has “now started adding QR codes to more of our mobile app tickets” which offer an alternative to the EasyRider smartcard.

NCT uses ticket machines from the init company which makes a change from the almost universal Ticketer. These incorporate a reader mounted immediately as you enter the bus which I found to be more accessible than the Ticketer machine which can sometimes be awkward to access if a screen is on the cab door and extends around the machine.

Hand sanitiser dispensers were still evident and I was impressed that they were actually filled with sanitiser too. Most bus and train companies have now given up on what were not so long ago regarded as an essential aspect of travel. The “new normal”. Personally with public conveniences in an often awful state (including on board trains) I’d like to see such hygiene measures retained on public transport.

And of course a leaflet dispenser had the right coloured timetable leaflet for the route on which the bus was travelling.

There are messages to let passengers know the company’s commitment to improving the environment …

… as well as some other subtle messages.

I liked the smart looking seats and found them very comfortable to ride in too.

NCT’s route network provides comprehensive coverage of the city. Each sub district/residential area has a direct link into the city centre running at a frequent interval, typically every 7-10 minutes with a reduction on some corridors on Saturdays to every 10 or 12 minutes and with a typical 15 or 20 minute frequency on Sundays. Evening departures run until late and there’s a night bus network.

Lower frequency routes – typically half hourly – compliment these high frequency trunk routes by linking other areas.

Arnold in the north east and highlighted earlier, for example benefits from direct links to the city centre on Lime Line 58 every 10 minutes together with half-hourly 56, 57 and 59 taking slightly different routes but combining to every 10 minutes maki g for an overall 5 minute frequency with the 58.

There’s also Purple Line 87 three times an hour which takes another different route into the city centre as well as Turquoise Line 79/79A three times an hour via Bestwood Park and Bulwell to the city centre, Lilac Line 25 four times an hour via Carlton to the city centre and finally Grey 53/54 which avoid the city centre providing a sort of circular route to the QMC Hospital and Clifton every half an hour.

There’s a similar comprehensive service to Bulwell in the north west which has also just benefitted from a refurbished bus station which looked very smart on my recent visit.

Bulwell has the direct Yellow Line 68/69 into the city as well as the Brown Line 15/16. Another route is the five times an hour Orange Line 35 which arcs over to the west of the city and joins other Orange Line routes including high frequency Uni34 between the University campus and the city centre.

I was sceptical whether the 35 at such a generous frequency on an indirect route from Bulwell would do well but a late morning journey on a Saturday picked up a good number from the bus station demonstrating the importance of routes that compliment the radial network.

While NCT’s operations are dominated by bus routes across the city the company also runs a couple of routes ‘cross border’ north into Nottinghamshire and south into Leicestershire. Route 26/26A runs half hourly to Southwell and route 1 is every 20 minutes to Loughborough. The latter uses the South Notts branding harking back to the independent company of that name which NCT purchased in 1991.

Tendered bus routes represent less than 0.5% of revenue with most city council funded routes provided by CT4N the name for the former Nottingham Community Transport. These don’t appear on the NCT route map – which in some ways is an unfortunate omission but as already described the map is already quite ‘busy’ with NCT’s extensive network. Perhaps the city council should make a comprehensive map available too? C4TN operate a fleet of over 40 single decks including a dozen electric Optare Solos and Versas many in specific liveries for various route groups (eg Locallink)

NCT’s got an extensive fleet of over 300 buses based at two garages at Parliament Street and Trent Bridge. The company has been at the forefront of introducing bio-gas powered vehicles and more recently has announced plans with the city council to replace its entire single deck fleet with electric buses with funding from the DfT’s ZEBRA scheme.

The company is possibly the only one to devote a page on its website to listing its fleet vehicle by vehicle with a link for each showing its precise location out on service at any moment. A wonderful resource for enthusiasts who like to photograph buses and want to track a particularly elusive vehicle. Details are also shown of the facilities available on board including contactless and the emission status as well as the livery.

NCT has been a Scania devotee for some years with its double deck fleet dominated by this manufacture originally favouring the OmniDekka body but after 2012 has taken ADL’s E400 bodies. Single decks are split between Optare Solos and ADL Enviro200s.

Nottingham has long been at the vanguard of introducing bus priority measures going right back to its famous Park and Ride opertions, and of course in more recent times the city introduced the Workplace Parking Levy.

Bus lanes can be found in strategic locations …

… and the whole central area of the city is devoted to cycles, buses, taxis and trams.

NCT has embraced the current Government funded £2 fare cap promoting it widely both on buses …..

… and at bus stops.

Nottingham has one of the highest riderships by bus per head of population outside of London (alongside Brighton & Hove) and it’s noticeable as you travel around just how varied the customer base is including many young adults which is always good to see.

Like Brighton and Hove, the city has a large student population with two universities. Concessionary travel as a percentage of total revenue is much lower than other towns where there’s a greater proportion of retired people.

I enjoyed my recent visit travelling around on NCT’s network. I always get a sense of an operator within the first hour, or even half an hour, of an arrival. It usually doesn’t take long to spot some inconsistencies and shortcomings indicating the all too common lack of attention to detail by managers. But in Nottingham it was proving impossible to spot anything negative, even a minor misdemeanour, until just after 13:20 I saw two buses by the railway station running in tandem on route 49X heading towards the Boots site in the south of the city.

That must indicate some late running I thought, but how wrong could I have been as looking at the timetable when I got home there are indeed two buses timetabled to run together at what presumably is a shift change time at the complex as both buses depart on a similarly duplicated return at 14:13. And that’s an eye for detail – to show both journeys in the timetable. And they were both spot on time at 13:24.

NCT is definitely well deserving of its award winning bus company status.

And before anyone comments it’s all down to its shareholders being the city council, take a read of previous blogs in this AtoZ series and see how Delaine, Ensign, Faresaver, JMP Travel, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire and Lynx also deliver quality but are all privately owned. It’s all about having enthusiastic and knowledgable staff working in partnership with a pro-bus local authority rather than who owns the assets and arguing about who’s “regulating” and “in control”. Nottingham as a city also benefits from privately owned trentbarton and community owned CT4N, both also renowned for quality too.

Roger French

Previous AtoZ blogs: Avanti West Coast, Blackpool Transport, Chiltern Railways, Delaine Buses, Ensignbus, Faresaver, Grand Central, Hull Trains, Ipswich Buses, JMB Travel, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, Lynx, Isle of Man Transport Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.

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