Reading Green Park arrives on the bus map

Tuesday 9th January 2024

It was good to see Reading Borough Council kicking off the new year last Tuesday with funding for a bus route to serve the new Reading Green Park station which opened last May

Perhaps not surprisingly Reading Buses won the tender to run what is an extension of hourly route 9 – a Council subsidised route since the pandemic which has been providing a direct link between the Royal Berkshire Hospital and the Whitley Wood area in south Reading. It used to be a one bus operation. out and back affair. with a dog leg circle at the Whitley Wood end as shown on the map below.

Now the route has had a second bus added enabling journeys to continue beyond Whitley Wood over to the Green Park business area and the new railway station.

A couple of evening peak journeys return via a slightly different route in Green Park taking route number 9A.

The plan is to promote the route using the Buzz brand which is also used for route 42; another tendered route Reading Buses runs on a 20/40 frequency shuttle service to the Kenavon Drive area just east of the city centre as well as hourly to Rivermead Leisure Centre.

Plans are in hand for changes to this route at Easter including an extension via Cow Lane and Kentwood Hill to Tilehurst and renumbered 18.

Buses in the swish new Buzz livery weren’t on the road last Wednesday when I sampled route 9 and nor had bus stop plates been updated with Whitley Wood still displayed as the destination rather than Green Park, although someone had thoughtfully stuck a small ‘Buzz 9’ vinyl on all the bus stop plates on the new extension. I understand updates to these are in hand.

As you’d expect from a quality bus company such as Reading Buses a colourful, attractive detailed timetable leaflet complete with maps and ticket information is available for the newly extended Buzz 9 but sadly supplies weren’t available on the bus I travelled on but one has kindly been sent to me in the post (many thanks Richard) and it’s as impressive as I’d expect it to be.

Even better, it’s really good to see the timetable has been devised to provide connections to and from the twice an hour GWR trains to and from Basingstoke from Reading Green Park station. Buzz 9 buses arrive at 29/30 minutes past the hour and return back to Reading at 51 (or thereabouts) giving a generous 20 minutes layover.

GWR trains depart for Basingstoke at 39/40 minutes past the hour (as well as 14) so giving a nice 10 minute connection from the bus. The 08:40 departure departs 10 minutes earlier at 08:30 and impressively, the appropriate journey on Buzz 9 also arrives earlier at 08:22, which is good to see.

Coming from Basingstoke GWR trains arrive Green Park at 41/42/45 (presumably the variation is due to pathings for freight trains rather than any AI inspired quirk) with Buzz 9 leaving at 51 as already mentioned. And that morning peak journey off-frequency departs at 08:42 with the GWR train arriving at 08:34.

So, well done to the timetable compiler.

Buzz 9 packs up at about 20:00 and runs Mondays to Saturdays only.

Inevitably I was the only passenger who travelled beyond Whitley Wood on Wednesday morning as it was only the second day’s operation. In fact all eight passengers who boarded in the town centre on the 09:47 departure from Reading station had alighted by the entrance to the University with six of them previously alighting at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Once the extended route becomes established it might prove useful for people working in the rather palatial offices in the Green Park area who live in the Whitley Wood area, although I suspect there’s a mismatch between the demographics of the two, but commuters travelling in from Basingstoke, Bramley and Mortimer who time their train journey right will be able to enjoy a handy onward connection by bus.

Since I was at Reading Green Park in its opening week last May I was pleased to see a new bus stop pole has been placed right by the station building’s entrance/exit which Buzz 9 buses observe providing a handy canopy under which passengers can wait in the dry as well as in the ‘reception area’ of the ticket hall…

… rather than the forlorn looking pole on the far side of the bus only turn-round area at the front of the station which is redundant already…

… and oddly is still in place.

I was interested to see half a dozen passengers were waiting on the platform for the next Reading bound train when I arrived at the station.

They must have walked from the nearby flats as the car park was even less than Manea station levels of occupancy, with just one car.

Flat building is still taking place around the new station which will bring potential custom for route 9 if people want to reach the University or Hospital but I doubt numbers are ever going to reach commercial levels.

Reading Borough Council are using Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding for the extension of route 9 so it will be interesting to see what happens when that money runs out.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

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7 thoughts on “Reading Green Park arrives on the bus map”

  1. Whilst any new service or extension to an existing route is to be welcomed, I cannot see the new 9 becoming a great success. With the constant late running (except when you have a tight connection!) on the railway, will passengers risk transferring at Green Park when wishing to travel to the University or Royal Berkshire when easier from Central Reading? The route will obviously be useful to some, but linking these two already linked stations are obviously not going to produce any extra passengers.

    Recalling my days as a Reading Mainline Conductor, and hopefully things may have changed, not all Residents of Whitley Wood were familiar with the sunrise, thus unlikely to be hordes wishing to commute towards Basingstoke. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong.

    Terence Uden

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    1. It’s interesting how far Route 9 has fallen (much more so than the other main services to south Reading, the 5 and 6).
      As recently as 2013 it ran every 10-15 minutes weekdays, half hourly on Saturday and even had some night services.
      Since then it’s been chopped and changed on a bunch of occassions eventually ending up as hourly, with a succession of different projections and loops.
      The previous routing had only been in place since 2022 (I think) when it was split out of the 3 group into which it has been rather uncomfortably folded.

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  2. I suspect that I saw you at Reading station on Wednesday. The boots looked familiar!

    Reflecting on a previous comment, I have no reason (as a Basingstoke resident) to believe that there’s anything unreliable about the GWR timings on that line. Things were somewhat crazy on Thursday last week, but then almost every train in Reading was either affected by the weather or by a fatality at Pamgbourne.

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  3. Reading’s great bus services enabled me to get as far south as Riseley in the mid evening, after all train services were suspended. From there a friend got me home, by a roundabout route dictated by a fallen tree in the A33.

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    1. I was also impacted by the fallen tree on A33, with a local friend kindly taking me the other direction from Basingstoke-Reading. Eventually rerouted via B3349, got to Reading and then got Lizzie line back to London

      Off topic from Reading West: I have raised a complaint via Transport focus on SWRs handling of disrupted passengers at Basingstoke on the evening of Thur 4th. On instructions from Cross Country, SWR staff were booking taxis for disrupted passengers on CrossCountry service (a number-small double digits at 9pmish), but not for SWR services (probably more than 50), expecting passengers to self book and self fund onward travel. Many journeys being for quite long distances (significant expense out of pocket) and swamping local taxi capacity with un-coordinated bookings rather than ensuring sharing into appropriate vehicles. I am also raising the point that SWR’s actions are potentially discriminatory under Equalities act. I have made same complaint direct to SWR and had email back confirming their general policy but also where their claimed process (for disabled/vulnerable) was different to actual implementation on the night.

      As an example of what could have been better is to ask the Newbury/Reading bus (the operator of new 731/730 service to Heathrow recently blogged by Roger) to put on an extra journey to cover the gap between last departure at around 2100 and next at 0245–indeed SWR could/should have been directing London bound passengers to 731 long before the last departure (especially as it departs just outside the station). Likely the vehicle would be available, just needing a relief driver to be called in.

      MilesT

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  4. I always note that Reading is consistently one of the local authorities with the highest bus use in England outside London. In FY ending 2022 it was third behind Nottingham and Brighton & Hove in ascending order. These three areas benefit from having quality operators working closely with their pro bus LTAs.

    Peter Brown

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