Every route 99. 9 of 25.

Thursday 21st May 2026

This one will be over in a flash. I thought route 99 in Thurrock was a short route involving just 13 wheel turning minutes to complete a circuit (coupled with 17 minutes layover time across three locations on the route to make for a half hourly frequency), but as a reader pointed out at the time, this latest route 99 being featured today holds the prize for the shortest journey of all 25 bus routes numbered 99, as well as being the only bus route numbered 99 in Wales.

It’s Pontypridd’s Town Circular, operated by Stagecoach, with a 12 minute journey time for a complete anti-clockwise circuit of the route with three minutes layover in Pontypridd bus station making for a 15 minute frequency.

As you can see, the bus is on the road from 09:15 to 17:22 with a half hour break at lunch time and a widened 20 minute frequency during the late afternoon to keep the bus running to time with busier roads.

But my recent experience when travelling on the route the other week indicated the daytime timetable was also very tight with no margin for delay. A couple of slow boarders …. meeting all traffic lights on red on the circuit …. more traffic than usual …. and the bus soon loses time. Indeed, on the journey I made (11:30 from the bus station), we set off exactly on time, but it took two minutes to get through the traffic lights at the exit to the bus station…

… one passenger had stayed on the bus from the previous circuit and two had boarded in the bus station. After negotiating the bus station exit we avoided the main Gelliwastad Road used by all other bus routes that by-passes the town’s main shopping street and instead spent another minute or so waiting to turn right into that otherwise pedestrianised street called Taff Street where there are three stops specifically for the 99 along its length; the third being outside M&S and seemed to be the busiest.

One passenger boarded at the first stop and travelled to the third stop (for M&S), the passenger from the previous circuit also alighted at M&S and the one from the bus station alighted at the second stop. At M&S three boarded to travel back round to the bus station.

It took a little time at each stop, as passengers were reluctant to pass into the main seating area of the Mercedes Sprinter minibus, allocated to the service on the day I travelled, preferring instead to sit in the accessible area which necessitated a slight rearrangement of shopping bags and trolleys each time.

Furthermore, we only travelled along Taff Street at a snail’s pace as pedestrians have priority.

After that it was more traffic lights then out on to the main dual carriageway called Broadway past the railway station (for which there is no convenient stop for the 99 entailing a 330 yards walk to the M&S stop) and headed over to a large Sainsbury’s, Currys and B&Q on the other side of the River Taff with the former and latter both served by a bus stop and where we picked one and two passengers up respectively.

It’s then through a busy roundabout (where there is some bus priority) and back to the bus station where we arrived at 11:46 having taken 16 minutes instead of the scheduled 12. All five passengers alighted and four more boarded and I stayed on to have another ride down Taff Street where we picked one up at the first stop, two alighted at the second stop with four boarding then I alighted at M&S where one boarded, but by then it was 11:53 which the timetable shows as an “estimated time” at Sainsbury’s and there’d be no way the bus would get back to the bus station for the 12:00 journey to depart on time.

It looked like a popular town circular bus carrying high single figures on each journey, especially late morning, but it also looked like the time allowance was very optimistic. Indeed I’d been monitoring earlier journeys on bustimes.org on my way to Pontypridd the morning I travelled and noted at 11:13 the cumulative lateness had got to 25 minutes and spotted the bus skipping two journeys using Gelliwastad Road to get back on time.

I’ve subsequently taken a look at the vehicle tracking on other random days and it does seem to be a regular occurrence. For example just the the other day, an Enviro200 was on the service and at 11:46 the bus was running 20 minutes late (effectively having missed a journey out)…

,,, and subsequently got back on time by missing another journey, yet at 14:56 it was 17 minutes down again.

At about the same time on another random day it was runing 33 minutes late, meaning effectively two consecutive journeys had been cancelled.

And on another day even by 10:32 it was running 15 minutes lare…

… and another day I looked at 12:50 and it was 23 minutes late.

It would seem either best to downgrade the entire service to every 20 minutes or build in another scheduled break, of say 15 minutes, around 11:00. That way passengers waiting for the bus at the five stops around the route would have greater certainty it’s coming at the scheduled time and the timetable departures listed at each bus stop…

… and in the bus staton…

… can be relied on.

It may only be a short route, mileage wise, but it’s obviously greatly valued by those using it to get across the town centre either side of the river as well as between the bus station and the shops. It just needs its timings sorted.

Roger French

Did you catch the previous eight blogs in this series? 1 Eastbourne-Hastings, 2 Petworth-Chichester, 3 Woolwich-Bexleyheath, 4 Tilbury Town-Tilbury Ferry Terminal, 5 Chippenham-Swindon, 6 Ubley-Chew Valley, 7 Exmouth-Brixington-Exmouth, 8 Tauton-Chard.

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS