Every route 100. 1 of 26.

Saturday 6th January 2024

A new year heralds a new fortnightly series of BusAndTrainUser blogposts.

And for 2024, instead of another A-to-Z, I’ll be featuring all Britain’s bus routes numbered 100, as by the wonders of numerical coincidence there just happen to be 26 of them.

Britain’s bus routes numbered 100 provide a fascinating mixture of mainstream urban and inter-urban routes together with a couple of Park & Rides, a few circulars and one or two quirky routes including a Sunday only tendered route. They can be found right across Britain from Campbeltown in Scotland to New Romney in Kent as well as in Yorkshire, the north west, the Midlands, central London and South Wales. Pedants, please note, I’m ignoring school day only routes and Chester’s Sightseeing route which technically uses route number 100.

Go-Ahead companies and Stagecoach both operate five route 100s, Arriva has two and First Bus one, as does Lothian Buses, West Coast Motors, Preston Bus and Adventure Travel along with six other smaller independently owned companies, while the Centrebus/D&G Bus/Chaserider combo operate three (one each).

So there’s plenty of variety to look forward to over the next twelve months and the series gets going today with one of Arriva’s two routes: a busy inter-urban cross-border affair linking Hertfordshire with neighbouring Luton with what turns out to be a rather unusual timetable.

Arriva route 100 between Stevenage and Luton

Operated by single deck buses it’s a busy route linking these two important towns 15 miles apart with Hitchin a key intermediate location on the journey.

Strictly speaking, using the purest of route definitions, Arriva’s route 100 runs either once or twice an hour depending what the hour is. However, between the termini in Stevenage and Luton there are three journeys an hour. Confused? You’re about to be.

You see there’s also a route 101 which covers some of the same roads as the 100 except for three variations; two between Stevenage and Hitchin (the 100 runs direct along the A602 whereas the 101 takes in Little Wymondley followed by the 100 using Whitehill Road and Hollow Lane in Hitchin itself and the 101 Stevenage Road and Hitchin Hill) with the third variation at the Luton end where journeys numbered 100 operate via Luton Airport and those numbered 101 go via Great Offey and Lilley.

Until November last year it was a very simple matter of both routes 100 and 101 each running twice an hour making for a combined 15 minute frequency as shown below.

Unfortunately it’s not been as simple as that since the timetable was reduced in frequency to every 20 minutes. This being Arriva, there’s an oddity in that the 100 and 101 continue to provide alternate journeys. Which doesn’t quite work when you have three journeys per hour.

So, for example in the off-peak leaving Stevenage there are departures at 05, 25 and 45 with buses on route 100 leaving at 09:25, 10:05, 10:45, 11:25 etc alternating with buses on route 101 at 09:05, 09:45, 10:25, 11:05 etc. That is, each route is every 40 minutes.

Obviously this doesn’t matter for passengers travelling to points served by both routes if they board at the termini but when boarding along the route the timings get out of sync quite quickly. The two route variations between Stevenage Lister Hospital and Hitchin, for example, mean departures from Hitchin’s St Mary’s Square towards Luton are at 12, 27 and 52 minutes past each hour (ie a 15-25-20 pattern) but with the added complication of the alternate journey 100/101 in each hour to remember, so you need to know which hours the 100 are at 12 or 52 or just 27 and which hours those departures are 101.

Even more confusing, at peak times departures shift by a few minutes as is the way these days and as described in Thursday’s blog, using the new fad of data driven, computer compiled schedules making the whole timetable completely unmemorable, and frankly, not helpful to passengers, although I’m sure the tech lovers are delighted.

My journey was on the 12:05 from Stevenage. The bus arrived in the town’s relatively new bus station on its incoming journey from Luton on time at 12:00 and after passengers had alighted the driver reversed back into the layover stands and it soon became obvious there was going to be a driver changeover. Once this had been enacted the bus returned to the stand, 17 passengers boarded and we left five minutes late at 12:10, so not a particularly impressive start.

It didn’t take long to reach Stevenage Old Town where, to my surprise seven passengers alighted after such a short journey with five more joining followed at the next stop by three more, including one using a wheelchair which the driver oversaw boarding by unfolding the manual ramp. We lost four more of our original passengers at Lister Hospital meaning 11 of the 17 were only on the bus for up to 11 minutes.

As we headed out of Stevenage on the A602 dual carriageway towards Hitchin a broken down lorry at the roundabout with the A1M was causing a very long slow moving tail back in the other direction, and I’m guessing it must have happened not long before, otherwise the bus would have been much later arriving than 12:00.

Thankfully our progress was unimpeded and we reached Hitchin’s St Mary’s Square only three minutes late at 12:30 where three alighted and two boarded.

But then we met another broken down lorry stuck on the busy junction of Queen Street and Hermitage Road with police on scene causing us a ten minute delay as we inched forward in a long queue. Four more passengers alighted in Hermitage Road once we’d got going again with two boarding.

From Hitchin we head in a south westerly direction on the A505 towards Luton and the Airport through Stopsley where we picked up three more passengers.

Thanks to a fast run along the A505 we arrived at the Airport just two minutes down at 13:00, dropped two off and picked two up and then spent four minutes waiting for the green light to give the all clear for our reverse manoeuvre off the stand, as is the strict control of bus movements at this bus station.

We arrived into Luton’s Interchange at 13:12, six minutes late and 14 passengers alighted making for a total roll call on the journey of 33 passengers. Not bad for an hour’s journey for patronage but I dread to think what AI will make of our timings to build into future timetables.

The next journey for the bus is on a 101 back to Stevenage leaving at 13:15 so the timetable is quite tight but it’s obviously a busy route linking two key towns in Hertfordshire over the border with Luton in what used to be Bedfordshire.

It’s a good route, but it might help if companion route 101 was reduced to hourly (as explained, it serves the villages of Little Wymondley, Great Offley and Lilley rather than the Airport) and make the 100 a twice an hour service so that the timetable is more consistent and easier to remember with its combined 20 minute provision.

One other thought, now Arriva are getting adventurous with its portfolio of inter-urban routes in the northern Home Counties (new X branded routes begin tomorrow across Buckinghamshire), why not go all out for a high profile route brand to highlight the key links this route 100 (and 101) provide? I’m sure there’s scope to attract more passengers. The only public transport alternative option is a lengthy journey via London on Thameslink/Great Northern/LNER/EMR and at considerable cost too.

It’s a pity a way can’t be found for Hertfordshire and Luton to throw in some of their Bus Service Improvement Funds and work with Arriva to increase the combined frequency back to four buses an hour …. while the money lasts.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

Comments are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.