Every route 99. 16 of 25.

Sunday 26th July 2026

From the South East, the South West, South Wales, East Anglia and the Midlands my slow but sure journey northwards checking out all Britain’s 25 bus routes numbered 99 brings me to the Potteries to travel on the fourth and final route 99 of the 25 which are operated by First Bus (check out the two operated by Ensign and Eastern Counties in previous blogs).

This one runs between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Chell Heath.

As you can see from the map the route serves a very urbanised area linking Newcastle-under-Lyme with the suburbs of Longport, Tunstall and Chell.

Here’s a Potteries network map from First’s website which shows the route’s context (shown in very dark green) within the overall conurbation together with its sister route 98 (shown in light green) which parallels the southern half of the 99 between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Longport.

But, of course, this isn’t the complete picture as there’s also a significant presence by D&G Bus in the area, so here’s First’s route 99 superimposed (in very dark green) on D&G’s network map.

From this you might just be able to make out much of the 99 runs parallel with D&G Bus’s route 94/94A (light blue) with the northern end of the route into Chell Heath also being served by D&G’s route 9A (yellow).

Buses run roughly every half an hour on Mondays to Saturdays (no Sunday service) on route 99 as do buses on the parallel 98 as far as Longport, but, this being First Bus, departure times vary by a few minutes each hour from both ends of the routes not making for either an even 30 minute headway on the 99 or even a 15 minute headway on the 98/99 combined section of route.

For example, from Newcastle-under-Lyme after departures in the morning peak on the 99 at 06:46, 07:21, 07:54 and 08:32 passengers enjoy buses leaving at 09:08, 09:47, 10:17, 10:47. 11:19, 11:49, 12:21, 12:52, 13:22, 13:54, 14:25, 14:57, 15:36, 16:15, 16:51 with the final Chell Heath bound bus as early as 17:30.

Obviously with such a precisely specified list of departures, no doubt generated by First’s expensive scheduling software, I was very much expecting the bus I travelled on when sampling the route recently to leave spot on time. After all, that’s the whole point of using these clever algorithms which supposedly take into account real life conditions to provide reliable and accurate timekeeping with no need for any experienced human involvement.

I arrived in Newcastle-under-Lyme’s from Stoke -on-Trent railway station, but unlike its neighbour in nearby Hanley, the fairly substantial bus station only offers basic shelters at each stand rather than a large purpose built structure with toilets and facilities. I’d allowed plenty of time to catch the 15:36 departure up to Chell Heath (no Tobermory type tightness here!) expecting it to probably be a busy trip with shoppers and school children retuning home with the previous journey having left at 14:57.

With buses arriving into Newcastle-under-Lyme from Chell Heath at 15:04 and 15:47 it was obvious the buses on the route interwork with another service which looked almost certain to be the aforementioned (not quite) half hourly route 98.

And, as you might have already guessed from the foregoing, 15:36 came and went with no sign of a bus on route 99.

As did 15:41.

As did 15:46.

As did 15:51.

As did 15:56.

By which time I was thinking I might give up on this route with the next departure not scheduled until 16:15.

A bus had appeared screened up for route 98 to Ball Green at around 15:50 which took most of the passengers waiting for the 99 as well as it’s own load and left on time at 15:56.

I noticed the side destination screen was showing “98 on diversion” which I thought might be explaining the non-appearance of the bus for the 99 if it did interwork and was coming into Newcastle-under-Lyme as a 98.

All this pontification then ended as to my surprise, 21 minutes after it should have left, a bus finally arrived screened up as 99 Chell Heath and 11 of us gratefully boarded and we left the bus station at 16:00 after which another passenger boarded at the first stop giving a dozen of us in total.

Not surprisingly it didn’t tale long for us to catch up with that well loaded 98 that had left just a few minutes ahead of us and that also explains why only three passengers alighted on the first half of the route as far as Longport – because they had all got on the 98.

Passing through Longport there were long queues southbound to the roundabout for the Middleport road…

… as there were for the approach from Middleport which might explain why buses were getting delayed, but surely the whole point of the expensive scheduling algorithm is that it would know about such delays which I suspect aren’t unusual for 16:15 on a schoolday afternoon.

After Longport we lost three more passengers alighting at Tunstall after which we stopped four more times setting down two and picking two up and once in the Chell area we just stopped four times to set the remainder on board down, leaving just myself and one other passenger on board for the final couple of bus stops, arriving at the terminus at 16:30 which, impressively, was only 11 minutes behind schedule indicating we’d made up 13 minutes in a half hour journey.

Perhaps the algorithm knew all along.

As the bus left Chell Heath for its return journey to Newcastle-under-Lyme at 16:30 (instead of the scheduled 16:25) I studied the timetable a bit more closely and realised while the journey at, for example, 12:31 from Newcastle-under-Lyme is given 32 minutes to travel to Chell Heath, the 15:36 has a 43 minute allowance – a 33% increase.

But, it had only taken us 30 minutes.

Work that one out.

Roger French

Did you catch the previous 15 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 Taunton-Chard, 9 Pontypridd town circular, 10 Cheltenham-Gloucester, 11 Leigh-on-Sea-Shoeburyness East Beach, 12 Malton-Chelmsford, 13 Lowestoft-Southwold-Halesworth, 14 Solihull-Kingshurst, 15 Telford-Shawbirch circular.

Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu