BusAndTrainUser Verify

Tuesday 11th November 2025

It’s been a while since I looked into the veracity of media reporting but recent positive headlines extolling the completion of a ‘Bus Rapid Transit’ scheme on the A33 caught my eye, so while I was in Reading last Thursday I took a ride to find out more.

The Reading Chronicle carried a report by ‘AI Assisted Reporter’ Gemma Parry headed up with an official Reading Borough Council photo of Reading Buses CEO Robert Williams along with Councillor John Ennis, Lead Councillor for Climate Strategy and Transport, in front of a smart looking bus on a section of the bus lane while the BBC featured a new pedestrian and cycle bridge which has reportedly “created space for a bus lane without removing any carriageway from general traffic”.

This all seemed a very positive story of a pro public transport local authority (which Reading Borough Council most certainly is) using Bus Service Improvement Plan funding to provide improved priority for buses.

The section of A33 involved in the scheme is a kind of by-pass built some years ago to the west of the original A33 Basingstoke Road (now served by route 6 as shown in the above map) and is used by route 50 which serves the Green Park Business Park area every 15 minutes (10 minutes in the peaks) and route 600 (650 on Sundays) which serves the Mereoak Park and Ride (15 minutely) with alternate journeys continuing to either Riseley or Thames Valley Science Park via Spencers Wood and Shinfield. That’s 10 buses an hour in the peaks and eight in the off-peak using this section of the A33.

It’s a two lane dual carriageway making it possible for one of the lanes to be given over to buses with the scheme beginning way back in 2016 when the first priority measures were introduced. This fifth phase, which has just completed, has seen bus lanes to the north and south of Rose Kiln Lane joined up as well as additional bus stops for Matalan and other retail stores. The high profile installation of a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the River Kennet completed the phase.

The odd thing about this bridge which occurred to me as the bus glided by was the absence of a bus lane on the northbound carriageway at the very point where it’s been built, as shown above. However, a bus lane has been added on the southbound carriageway as you might just be able to see in the above photo.

The 47 metre long and five-metre-wide bridge weighs 53 tonnes and “was transported to the site in two sections and lifted into place over one night” according to the news release.

It’s interesting to take a ride down to the Mereoak Park & Ride site and back again and see just how extensive the bus lanes are, particularly in the southbound direction coming out of town.

Join me on route 600 for a ride. It only takes about 16-17 minutes.

Leaving the bus stop close to Reading station and negotiating all the twists and turns around the town centre’s one-way streets it doesn’t take long to reach the first section of bus lane on the slip road as traffic joins the start of the A33…

…and continues south along the dual carriageway passing the Rose Kiln Trading Estate…

…where one of the new bus shelters paid for by the scheme has been installed…

…before continuing south to the junction with Rose KIln Lane where the bus lane now goes right up to the traffic lights (having let the left turning traffic through) as well as through the junction itself, as highlighted in the news stories…

… which makes for an interesting comparison when the Google Map camera car passed by…

The bus lane now continues beyond the junction passing the newly installed 53 tonne pedestrian and cycle bridge alongside the opposite inbound carriageway…

… and again this is how it was before. confirming the veracity of the claim no road space has been taken away from traffic.

The next southbound bus stops haven’t gained new shelters, but I guess most passengers alight from these, rather than board…

… then as we approach the roundabout for Green Park and the Madejski Stadium (which confusingly advertises a Park and Ride site which is only open on match days)…

… there’s a very handy section of bus lane so buses don’t need to use the roundabout (interestingly it’s not depicted on the above photographed road sign)…

It’s then not far to the huge M4 junction, and to prepare for that the bus lane moves over to the offside of the southbound carriageway…

… with a shelter-less bus stop handy for shoppers at Aldi…

… and those staying at the Premier Inn.

When Google came through there was a much shorter stretch of bus lane, and bus shoppers could have spent their cash in Toys-R-Us rather than Aldi.

Something new for me as we approached the M4 junction…

… was, instead of the bus continuing south over the M4, it turned off to the right to cross the northbound carriageway…

…with the help of traffic lights…

…to serve a huge development called Campus Reading International.

… where there’s a newly installed bus stop. Robert Williams tells me “Campus Reading International opened in late 2000. It was originally HQ for MCI Worldcom, later Verizon, and became known as Reading International Business Park (RIBP) before rebranding to Campus Reading International in 2021.” I queried whether it was the correct name with the words in that order, as it doesn’t sound right to me, but Robert explained “Campus Reading International is the correct arrangement but is still quite a confusing name when it is nothing to do with Reading University! Apparently, it is inspired by the university campus-like facilities and international businesses that are based there. They have been having a bit of a revamp recently to try and increase lettings.”

It was all very quiet with not a soul in sight when I passed through so we continued around the block to retrace our route back across the northbound carriageway again…

… over to Aldi and the southbound carriageway and back towards the M4 junction again.

It adds about 3-4 minutes to complete the loop as I’ve depicted in the Google satellite image below and it rather undermines the ‘Bus Rapid Transit’ descriptor for the corridor although there’s no other option for how to serve it in the southbound direction and obviously it’s quicker northbound as buses don’t need to do the loop to cross the carriageway.

In the image above I’ve also shown how the bus lane continues on its own exclusive trajectory over the M4 through the middle of the junction flyover.

This section of bus lane has been installed for a long time….

… but is now only used in the southbound direction with northbound buses avoiding it so they can serve the Campus Reading International more efficiently. Southbound and leaving the roundabout, the bus lane/s continue/s between the carriageways for the short stretch of the A33 south of the M4…

… before turning off to the west to access the Park and Ride site, which doesn’t take long to reach, and use the bus only access entrance.

The site has 570 spaces for cars with buses operating to both the town centre (600/650) and the half hourly 300 to the Royal Berkshire Hospital site.

As you can see below, in addition to the bus fare a £1 parking charge is made which also applies to concessionary pass holders.

Sadly the waiting facilities for passengers are not brilliant and maybe it would have been good if some of the A33 Public Transport Enhancement Scheme funds could have been spent on upgrading the bus shelters.

Perhaps it’s assumed buses laying over will have their doors open for passengers to board, but as you can see that doesn’t always happen.

Heading back into Reading, as already explained, northbound buses don’t use the bus lane across the centre of the M4 junction…

… so they can use the main roundabout…

… to access the new Campus Reading International site, or Reading International Business Park to give it it’s ‘formerly known as’ title.

What intrigued me most about the trip down to Mereoak and back was that whereas there are bus lanes and mostly no bus shelters in the southbound direction, in the northbound direction the bus stops have gained new bus shelters…

…(and they’re not the most plush bus shelters available on the market these days)…

… and the northbound route doesn’t have the benefit of much bus priority…

… in fact, there’s hardly any at all. This seemed counter intuitive to what you’d expect – with more traffic and potential congestion heading into town than coming away from it. I queried this with Robert and he kindly provided a logical explanation…

….“whilst the outbound-heavy provision on the A33 might at first feel a bit odd, it is based around reaching key junctions more easily, and the junctions where traffic from the opposite direction has to cross. There can be significant queues outbound because of the way the traffic from the various business parks filters on during the afternoon peak, or after football matches, where in the morning the traffic peels off without too much disruption. There also just happens to be more junctions on the outbound side than inbound because of the flood plain, and the M4 junction is pretty busy in both directions due to the London commute.”

Robert added…“It is part of a phased approach to create continuous bus priority in both directions between Mereoak park&ride and town, as funding permits….

…this was phase 5 to fill in gaps between two existing sections of bus lane, and to add space to provide additional stops near Matalan [see below] without blocking the carriageway. The long-term plan will also do the inbound sections, and is being strategic about which funding stream might cover different aspects. Traffic levels are expected to grow significantly due to a new garden village just outside Reading, ongoing development of Green Park, and potential hospital relocation.”

After Matalan, it’s not long before the bus approaches the town centre…

… and in a fit of nostalgia, passes the site of the original Reading Transport Mill Road bus garage which I remember so well from my time in Reading just over 50 years ago and is now the Oracle Centre and car park.

From my travel experience I can confirm this is definitely something worth celebrating although I’m not sure I’d call it ‘Bus Rapid Transit’ quite yet – perhaps once phase six and phase seven with bus lanes northbound and bus activated traffic lights, not least to speed up that loop-the-loop access around Campus Reading International, but those involved in the first five phases should rightly be congratulated for what’s been achieved so far.

This A33 corridor is home to thousands of employees in various offices in the Business Parks and retail outlets, as well as plenty of shoppers, so there’s huge scope to encourage bus use and it’s so pleasing to see this being done, not least when I popped into “the Reading bus shop” in the town centre…

… commendably now open on Saturdays too…

…and found what must be the most impressive display of timetable leaflets anywhere in the country.

Well done to Robert and his team for this exemplar of excellence.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

23 thoughts on “BusAndTrainUser Verify”

  2. Thanks for this cheering report. I had a quick look at bustimes.org: it looks as if Robert is correct about the slightly counter-intuitive lack of bus priority northbound, as – allowing for the routing in central Reading – the times for buses into and out of town are pretty comparable. An extra two minutes is allowed for southbound buses to serve Campus Reading International.

    Hopefully, when the scheme is fully complete they will manage to co-ordinate the 50 and 600 routes to give an even every 7/8 minutes off-peak service in both directions along the combined section. From experience and talking with other bus users, I think that is the frequency which will generate the greatest increase in custom, particularly for journeys involving a change: most people are happy to go and wait at a bus stop if they can be reasonably sure that a bus will turn up within seven minutes.

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  3. The 10 to Kennet Island also used the A33 until recently (and before that was served by buses on the 50 group diverting). It’s now been changed to run via a similar route to the 9 via RBH and halfed in frequency to hourly. It’s interesting that Reading Buses seems unable to settle on the best way of serving the lower traffic areas south of the town, the 9 has been through numerous changes over the years and has a fraction of the service levels it had at one time. In contrast, the 5/6 have been pretty stable since the trolleybus replacement days and the 21 hasn’t changed much since Lower Earley stopped expanding.

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    1. Route 9 was eclipsed once Reading Buses started the leopard 3 in June 2014, replacing Thames Travel’s route 144 between Reading, Arborfield and Wokingham. Frequency increases to serve the fast-growing housing developments south of Reading mean that the leopard has become the dominant route along Shinfield Road, with route 9 being reduced to a ‘coverage’ service.

      Julian Walker

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      1. Indeed, although I found an old 9 timetable (from the year the colour branded routes were launched) and I was shocked how high frequency it used to be. As a former resident of Silverdale Road, there seems to be a similar problem serving that part of Lower Early, with the Wokingham Road routes on one side and the 21 on the other there just isn’t enough traffic to support more than the hourly Wokingham tendered routes (19A/C). I suspect traffic absraction by the X40 also makes it hard to provide a decent frequency upto Caversham Heights on the 22.

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  4. Are you sure the Madejski Stadium park and ride site is only open on match days? That would seem to be the very time when it was needed for car parking at the stadium itself?

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      1. That signage still showing the Madejski Park & Ride would indicate that Reading suffers from the near universal issue of highway authorities not updating their signage. One of my big frustrations around the local bus network in Leicester is that 15 years after they opened neither of the large north & south Park & Ride sites are signposted from any of the trunk roads including the motorway (the south site being close to the main M1/M69 junction) but instead car drivers are still signposted to the small western site at Meynells Gorse which is very difficult to find and access from the motorway in either direction.

        Dwarfer

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  5. It’s worth noting that in the Monday-Friday morning peak, route 600 buses from Mereoak skip Campus Reading International (CRI) until after 09.30, and in the evening buses towards Mereoak do not call at CRI after 16.00. This means faster with-the-flow journeys for Mereoak users at peak times, whilst CRI still has a with-the-flow peak service from Reading Station in the morning and back in the evening. In between the peaks, buses in both directions call.

    Another quirk of the Mereoak service is that occasional journeys divert instead into the Tesco Distribution Depot, which works on a three-shift system (early-late-night); these journeys are timed to coincide with shift change times. Occasional emerald 6a journeys also operate to/from/via the Depot at these times.

    The routes along the A33 corridor were originally branded Fasttrack, but were relaunched in May 2013 as Greenwave with brand-new gas-powered Scania/Enviro300 saloons. Latterly the service pattern along the A33 corridor had become fiendishly complicated, but was simplified dramatically in November 2021 when the current routes ruby 10, Green Park 50 and Mereoak Park & Ride 600 were created. These routes have always been supported by Reading Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council also supports the Mereoak service.

    Julian Walker

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  6. The road may also turn into a revenue generator as they have also dropped the speed limit from 40mph to 30mph on parts of the road. I am not sure that much traffic will be generated for the likes of Matalan area etc as no buses serve population areas like Coley, Whitley etc to serve these stops, especially now the 10 has been diverted. Maybe that should become a circular?

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  8. I prefer Bus Lanes to have at least a bus every 5 mins, ideally 3. But this seems a good way of creating something usable and a priority for bus users through junctions – which are the biggest frustration being on a bus stuck in a queue going nowhere. The route through the roundabout is interesting and perhaps could be adopted where practical and traffic lights work in conjunction with other entry arms to such roundabouts elsewhere.

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  9. Interesting insight into the continuing development of the A33 corridor in Reading. I first came across it in 1976 when I joined Thames Water Authority at its Berkeley Avenue depot (formerly Reading Borough Waterworks). Part of what is now the A33 was then the rail freight Coley branch. Rose Kiln Lane was a road branching off the original Basingstoke Road, crossing the Kennet on a bailey bridge to serve what had been the Coop jam factory. It didn’t link through to the north then.

    Roger’s original bus depot had been the tram depot and included the power station for the tramway system.

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  10. Dear Roger,

    I like that…having a Bus Information shop, in the middle of a Shopping Centre, as per your example, at Reading.

    It makes a lot of sense, having, literally, ‘a shop window’, for Public Transport, in the area, so therefore, people should know where to go, and get local timetable & fare information…and ‘no excuses!!’

    Thank you.

    Kind regards,

    Ben Walsh, Cambridge.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Some of the street scenes remind me of a journey quite some time ago on two different Route 7 trips: one from Aldershot to Fleet and the other from Fleet to Reading. This was quite recently after a service change. If I recall correctly, Stagecoach South had loaned a few vehicles to Reading Buses for the “northern” Route 7 service. On this journey I noticed quite a number of “modern enclaves” (small new build estates) and shuddered to think that a small minority of those who lived there had to rely on such a meagre bus service. In 1976 I had a pre-Christmas treat using an Alder Valley wanderbus ticket: the joys of making my way home from Oxford on a Route 275 from Reading to Guildford with a bus change inside Bracknell Garage.

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    1. Reading Buses took over the northern section of route 7 from 16th April 2018, in an agreement with Stagecoach South. Two Dennis Tridents (18062/18073) transferred to Reading Buses as part of the deal and were numbered 536/537, operating initially in Stagecoach livery with Reading Buses fleetnames but repainted later that year into full Reading Buses generic livery. Both vehicles had been new originally to Stagecoach South West for the busy Torbay route 12, and 536 appeared at the Devon General Centenary Rally in Newton Abbot in August 2019.

      Both vehicles went into reserve during the Covid pandemic and were later withdrawn and sold. Route 7 had a chequered operation during the pandemic and was finally withdrawn in January 2022, although the Reading-Riseley section was revived in the March. This was replaced by an hourly extension of Mereoak Park & Ride 600 to Riseley from September 2022.

      Julian Walker

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  12. Very interesting as it follows the much lamented route 7 from Fleet over the M4. We now use the Mereoak P&R instead.

    malcolm chase, Fleet

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  13. I think this sums up Reading well, continued incremental progress between the operator and the local authority leading to the excellent network seen today.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. The bit where you mention that the bus lane skips the roundabout but it isn’t on the street sign, that street sign is for the previous roundabout that doesn’t have any skip lane.

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  15. Sadly although there is a multi -operator bus ticket available in Reading, the Bus Shop only has Reading Buses timetables.

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  16. Hi Roger,

    A couple of corrections.

    Robert is actually the Chief Executive Officer, not the Managing Director.

    There are actually three roundabouts that the 50/600 pass between Reading and Campus Reading International. It’s the second roundabout, opposite Reading Gate Retail Park (where B&Q and TK Maxx are), that has the bus lane crossing the roundabout.

    A good write up as always.

    Richard

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