In my Inbox

Saturday 10th January 2025

Another look at interesting news, views and snippets you’ve kindly been sending me by email.

The demise of express coach services in rural areas

First up is David who wondered if I could look at the reduction in express coaches serving towns and villages outside major conurbations. He’s been casting an eye over new express coach timetables introduced by National Express this month highlighting the withdrawal of the service between Swanage and London (via Bournemouth, Ringwood and Heathrow Airport). David observes this follows “last autumn’s withdrawal of journeys between Birmingham and Cheltenham Spa, Swindon, Southampton, Ringwood and Bournemouth”. 

David, who is a member of the ‘Western Gateway Coach Forum’ tells me they are pressing the DfT to protect the rural coach network pointing out “coach services get public funding through concessionary pass reimbursement and grants in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but not England.” He also refers to “Newcastle City Council, the owners, needing to reopen the passenger facilities at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne coach station’s terminal buildings including toilets, accessible toilets, waiting room, information point and realtime information”, adding “Flixbus want to use it”.

There’s no doubt Flixbus are shaking up the express coach market and it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out in 2026 but a sad downside of this is the loss of lesser used routes which provided some excellent links between towns.

Beware the Tap-in/Tap-Out contactless trap

Robert emailed to express his understandable concern at the loss of ticket options where contactless is being extended to cover more stations in the South East. There was a significant expansion of contactless to more stations last month and Robert observes “at the stations at which it was introduced on 14 December, paper ticketing options have allegedly been aligned with those for contactless.  I say allegedly as you cannot travel contactless with a Railcard but are charged as if you could.  So you do not get the flexibility of PAYG and capping.” He picks up on an article which appeared in the Daily Telegraph highlighting the changes as “stealth fare increases”. For example. Robert adds “off peak travel does not start until 0930 [with contactless] which means it is later before one can get into central London with an off peak ticket, ‘so as to match with the Tfl system’.” 

He’s absolutely right to be concerned and adds “It strikes me as being rather like the LNER ‘experiment’ –  Introduced without consultation allegedly to simplify things, when it doesn’t, and has a lot of stings in the tail into the bargain.”

I share Robert’s concern that the so called “simplification” is going to mean “a lot of stings”. LNER is proof of that, together with a complete denial of reality by the company’s management and DfT. At the moment passengers using the Brighton Main Line can use an off-peak ticket on trains that arrive at a London terminal after 09:45 meaning leaving Brighton at 08:39 on the first such train. Imagine the outcry if that became ‘not before 09:30’. On current form the ‘powers that be’ will ignore that, put their heads in the sand and say “passengers want simplification” and “contactless is proving increasingly popular”.

Incidentally, there’s one sure way of making passengers wary of contactless and that’s to charge passengers more “due to an ongoing technical issue” with no resolution in sight until March as explained in posters at GTR run stations, on its website and in the media.

More Cambridgeshire & Peterborough withdrawals

I’ve commented before on the excellent transparency of data and decision making by Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority with comprehensive reports for its Transport Committee including fascinating detail about how services are performing financially.

Paul kindly emailed me a link to papers for the upcoming Committee meeting next Wednesday when there’s a recommendation to give 112 days notice to withdraw services 13B, 19A, 65, 117 and 129. The first two are isolated journeys, the last two are market day journeys into Ely and the 65 comprises three return off-peak journeys a day between St Neots and Buckden via Great Paxton, Offord Darcy and Offord Cluny. The interesting thing to note is the quoted average 2.53 passengers per trip at a cost per passenger of £14.24 and “there is considerable overlap with the existing Tiger on Demand service”. It continues “as such, removing this duplication would improve value for money in this area” – ie knock off the fixed timetable journeys to prop up the DRT – which flies in the face of what some other authorities are now doing – notably Merseytravel, Kent County Council, and Tees Valley, all withdrawing DRT in favour of returning to fixed timed journey replacements.

The cost per passenger for the West Cambridgeshire Tiger on Demand which covers St Neots is £26.45. Mind you, another Tiger on Demand DRT in South Cambridgeshire is showing a cost per passenger of £212.22 and just 4.25 passengers using the service each day. Yet there’s no immediate proposal to put that service out of its misery – it will be ‘reviewed’ rather than withdrawn with public consultation as “by conducting the public engagement and considering integration and efficiency options will enable faster solutions and a more stable and integrated network and would enable the committee to make a more informed decision in June.”

Route T7 between Wisbech and Chatteris, which I reviewed last June, over seven months on, is carrying 1.68 passengers per journey at a cost of £47.62 per passenger. The Report notes “reducing this service from a three-Peak vehicle requirement to a one vehicle requirement would reduce operational cost by up to £750k, however that would involve tradeoffs in reducing the frequency, hours of operation and places served.” The current thinking is “to revise routes 46, 56 and T7 to form two new routes with a combined half hourly frequency between Wibech and March then hourly frequency to either Ramsey or Chatteris.”

Also under review is my favourite Tiger branded route the famous T2 which connects Cambridge’s three Park & Ride sites in an arc across the north of the city. The Committee Report confirms seven months after introduction it’s carrying 1.87 passengers per journey at a cost of £18.64 per passenger. The fun idea being considered for this service is to “merge the two services (T2 and T3) to provide links between Cambridge North and Cambridge South Rail Stations via Impington, Eddington, Coton, Grantchester and Trumpington.” I’m not sure if that means abandoning the eastern sides of both routes (the T3 performs a southern arc), but if not and the T3 continues to serve Babraham Road Park & Ride as well as Trumpington that will mean the new combined T2/T3 will serve five Park & Ride sites and two stations. Can’t wait.

One other thing I learnt from the Committee Report is “Leon Daniels OBE is due to present the findings of the Independent Review into Bus Franchising to the Mayor later in January. This will be accompanied by a detailed report to officers for consideration, with the aim to bring the report and recommendations to Transport Committee and Board in March 2026.” Watch this space, as they say.

All in order

Jo was passing through Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station at the end of last month and contacted me as he was “struck by the fact that there are three stances (36, 37, 38) that have sequentially numbered routes allocated; services 87, 88 and 89 (see – poor quality – attached photograph). Apart from pleasing me it set me wondering how many bus stations have a similar arrangement and whether this is pure happenstance (after all they could be allocated as 89, 87 and 88).” I also wondered and am sure readers will let us know of any such sequential happenstances especially happening on stances.

Jo also added “on a totally unrelated point – other than I observed this on the same trip – the very comprehensive electronic information display at Buchanan Bus Station showed a Flixbus 091 departure to “Terminal” (next to the Stranraer departure I was looking for). Checking bustimes.org showed this to be the 1400 ex Aberdeen that is the 1735 service from the bus station, extended to Glasgow Airport Terminal Building (Stance 10). As I am sure you would agree, “Terminal” is absolutely meaningless by itself. There are many examples of this sort of duff information, across the UK, where the wrong part of the destination field is extracted. This may be understandable in itself. What is less understandable – but very common still – is that no one picks this nonsense up, or, if they do, nothing is done to correct it. Incorrect or misleading, information is often worse than none at all. You or I could point this example out to Transport Scotland (or other responsible body) for correction, but why is someone at TS or similar not spotting this sort of thing and dealing with it? All the best for 2026.”

Thanks Jo; it’s what this blog is all about! (Getting out there and being a BusAndTrainUser.)

Praise for Kent County Council

Andrew emailed me with information about Go-Coach’s new route 4 (see next Tuesday’s blog) and added “reading Neville’s experience – in your last round up – regarding reporting damaged bus stops to TFL, I am happy to report a better experience with Kent County Council. I forwarded details of four local bus stops in the Tonbridge area – three of which were leaning at a dangerous angle – one of them has still to be replaced – but two others already have. The other concerned graffiti covering details of services which was cleaned within a week.” Always good to hear of good news, thanks Andrew.

Quick thinking Derek beats the TfW blues

Derek had a trying time returning home from Llandudno to Gobowen immediately after Christmas. He wrote to tell me “having spent a very pleasant Arriva and TfW free Christmas at Llandudno. I walked in gleeful anticipation from the Premier Inn, just three minutes from the railway station on Saturday December 27th with the sole intention of catching the 09.42 departure to Manchester Airport alighting at Chester. Along with around thirty other travellers, I was dismayed to see the train had been cancelled, but with no explanation as to why, but advising that the next service to Manchester Airport would depart at 10.42!
Fortunately I always have contingency plans in my head, in order to deal with these irritating and often avoidable occurrences. I therefore decided to hop on the 10.12 service to Blaenau, alighting at Llandudno Junction to board the up Holyhead to Cardiff service departing at 10.28. It duly arrived formed of a two car 197 which was absolutely rammed! I managed to force my way on with my two holdalls and shoulder bag, but many were left on the platform looking very distressed. This was a feature at all subsequent stations to Chester, whereupon arrival in platform 2 everyone was turfed off, and told to join the two car 158 that would convey us to Wrexham as there was a bus replacement from there to Shrewsbury and train from there! On alighting at Wrexham, it was obvious the size of coach would only convey a fraction of those requiring to use it. By now, I had almost given up the will to live, so decided to quickly nip round to the bus station, just managing to hop on to the slightly late running 11.50 Arriva service 2A to Oswestry bus station. Even this was operating with a Solo SR rather than the booked Pulsar, so space was at a premium. It appears there were signalling and track issues between Wrexham and Shrewsbury. I don’t know, but I would hazard a guess that the sub zero temperatures had caught a few people out. For example, had checks been made that all point heaters were working satisfactorily? I noticed on the afternoon of Boxing Day, gritting lorries were out in Llandudno, so the sub zero temperatures should not have come as any shock!”

Shout out for Carousel’s Christmas Day 111

On a more positive note, Richard emailed telling me “on Boxing Day I escaped from relatives and had a brief tour by bus of the Kingston/Richmond/Hounslow area. Whilst waiting by Hounslow bus station for the 111 to take me back to Hampton, I noticed in the timetable case a timetable for Carousel’s one-off Xmas Day operation. Full marks to Carousel (presumably) for effort.”

Interestingly Robin had emailed me earlier in December to point out the anomalous situation of a TfL bus route running on Christmas Day (thanks to funding from Heathrow Airport “as an experiment”) but as it states on the above timetable with a “flat fare of £2 … including children aged 5 or over. TfL tickets will not be accepted”.

JMB’s expanding again

And on another positive note Bryan emailed with good news about JMB Travel letting me know it’s “expanding their network and coverage yet again on 11th January. The changes are: (a) a new “Glasgow Fast” route from Newarthill, Carfin and Motherwell to Glasgow. This will compete locally with First’s service 254; to me, Newarthill and Carfin are poorly served by First and (b) An extension of service 5 from Hamilton Town Centre to Fairhill and Little Earnock. This will compete with First services 226 & 228. JMB Travel took over service 5 from Ballantynes when it only ran between Bellshill and Motherwell. JMB then extended the route to Hamilton Town Centre and it is now to get further extended in Hamilton. There are also some timetable improvements.” Thanks Bryan, it sounds like another trip to Glasgow in the next few weeks is on the cards to check that out.

Roger French

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