Every route 100. 2 of 26.

Saturday 20th January 2024

Metrobus 100 between Crawley and Redhill

Second in this years fortnightly series featuring all Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100 brings us to another busy cross county border, inter-urban route in the shape of the Metrobus operated service between Crawley’s Maidenbower residential area and Redhill’s Park 25 development.

It has similar characteristics to Arriva’s Stevenage to Luton route featured a fortnight ago, being single deck operated and running every 20 minutes, but as well as serving bus stations and the commercial centres in both Crawley and Redhill, Metrobus route 100 also serves Three Bridges railway station, Gatwick Airport’s South and North Terminals, the large East Surrey Hospital, Crawley Business Quarter, both the Maidenbower and Northgate residential areas of Crawley as well as Horley, Salfords and the small residential area just beyond Redhill railway station called Park 25 making for a significant number of trip generators.

Consequently the route performs many journey functions with commuting, shopping, hospital visits and airport traffic including short and long journeys being made throughout the 12-15 mile route.

Journey time from Maidenbower through to Redhill is about an hour and 20 minutes resulting in nine buses allocated to run the route.

And along with just one other of Britain’s bus routes numbered 100, this busy route has a 24 hour timetable to cope with the round the clock demand from serving an International Airport.

It’s branded as one of the Fastway routes serving Crawley and Gatwick Airport (along with routes 10 and 20) but whereas those routes enjoy the benefits of Crawley’s guided busway the 100 doesn’t, with minimal bus priority provision along the route, save for a bus lane approaching Gatwick’s South Terminal.

I took a ride on the 09:11 from Maidenbower to Redhill on a recent Saturday morning to sample the route.

I boarded at Three Bridges at 09:05 prior to the bus entering the Maidenbower residential area which it serves by way of a large anti-clockwise loop which take about 15 minutes to complete. It’s a well heeled area but the numbers attracted to the 20 minute frequency were reasonable and we picked up ten to take into Crawley as well as another three when we got back to Three Bridges.

Almost everyone alighted in Crawley bus station for some Saturday morning shopping and we picked up five new passengers round the corner in the Broadway giving us seven on board as we headed north towards Gatwick Airport. The route diverts through the Northgate residential area where two alighted and then through Crawley’s Business Quarter where we set down another passenger. At Gatwick Airport South Terminal we picked one up but there were no takers at the North Terminal. The route then heads towards the Long Stay Car Park before using an ‘Authorised Vehicles Only’ barrier controlled cut through to bring us out on to Povey Cross Road where we picked a passenger up before continuing into Horley where nine boarded.

Before leaving Horley the route takes in some twisty narrow residential roads in the Meath Green area on the west side of the A23 before rejoining the A23 through Salfords towards Redhill. On the outskirts of Redhill the route includes a double run under the Brighton Main Line railway to serve East Surrey Hospital. We’d already picked another five passengers up and dropped three off but at the Hospital another one alighted and eight boarded making the five minute diversion worthwhile. Two more boarded as we continued into Redhill with all 18 on board alighting in the bus station which we reached on time at 10:34.

It’s then a short extension to serve the Park 25 development with two passengers boarding and alighting at the first stop leaving just me on board to the next and final stop where the bus turns round and enjoys a nine minute layover before returning all the way back to Crawley and Maidenbower.

As you’d expect from Metrobus with its high standards of information, bus stops all had timetables and a very welcome network map…

… as well as some with real time departures, and on the bus itself there was a diagrammatic route map showing every bus stop (all 80 of them) with their names.

Buses used on the service are mainly Scanias with OmniCity bodywork. I’m not a great lover of the internal layout Scania deployed on these vehicles with only six seats with flat floor access (and another six tip-ups) …

… and there’s an area for buggies as well as the designated space for wheelchairs but the rear always looks a bit higgledy piggledy to me with an unwelcome four rearward facing seats.

It’s certainly not as bad as a Mercedes and it has to be said both the interior and exterior condition of the bus belied its 15 years age although one of the tip up seats looked a bit dodgy, but a passenger did sit on it for some time during the journey without slipping off.

And I also noticed two of the passengers who boarded with shopping in Crawley’s Broadmead travelled all the way to Redhill bus station.

The Park 25 development is relatively recent – around fifteen years old. The extension of route 100 is a handy way to provide a regular bus service for the residents to reach Redhill and further south including the Airport.

It’s a good route – 39 passengers travelled at some point on the journey.

Roger French

Did you catch the first ‘Every route 100’ blog? Here’s 1 of 26 in case not.

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS including a special extra Su blog tomorrow: “LNER are taking us all for fools”. Don’t miss it. It’s a zinger.

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