Every route 99. 19 of 25.

Sunday 16th August 2026

My latest journey of discovery on all of Britain’s 25 bus routes numbered 99 turned out to be the busiest journey yet – even beating TfL’s route 99 between Woolwich and Erith/Bexleyheath – and perhaps fittingly it’s part of the high profile Bee Network in Manchester, which, of course, was famously spearheaded by the Prime Minister until June.

The number 99 is used to denote short journeys between Manchester’s Sudehill Interchange and Prestwich on the busy corridor that continues north to Bury via either Unsworth or Whitefield. All told there are six buses an hour between Manchester and Prestwich with two of them being classed as 99s and the others as 97 (which continue half hourly to Bury via Unsworth) or 98 (which continue half hourly to Bury via Whitfield) as shown on the Bee Network route map below.

It takes around half an hour for the journey from Manchester to Prestwich whereas the full route through to Bury is an hour on the 97 and an hour and a quarter on the 98, so the 99 covers only about half that distance and journey times.

Buses on the 97 and 98 are out on the road from around 05:30 to 00:30 with a later 07:30 start on Sundays but journeys numbered 99 are just a Mondays to Saturdays affair with a span of day between 06:16 and 19:44 on Mondays to Fridays and 08:05 and 19:18 on Saturdays with no Sunday service. Three buses operate journeys numbered 99 but more cover the 97/98 journeys.

I decided to give the route a try out in the morning peak period and see how busy an inbound journey into Manchester’s city centre would become and to be even more of a test I made a journey before the schools broke up for the summer holidays.

First off I headed north out of Manchester on the 07:35 route 99 departure from Sudehill Interchange up to Prestwich.

The route is contracted to Stagecoach and the bus was in the new yellow Bee Network livery as it pulled up at the Sudehill Interchange departure stand on time with three passengers boarding and we set off nicely on time.

Buses were on a diversion in the area around nearby Victoria station due to “safety issues” caused by parked cars which from the online update looked as though they’ve become a permanent feature with the diversion set to last between February and the end of the year.

Our first stop was close by in Victoria Street where five more passengers boarded with one more joining at the next stop. I wasn’t expecting a journey which was essentially ‘against the peak flow’ to be very busy and sure enough the numbers travelling were fairly light with one of the nine on board alighting at the Lower Boughton Health Centre and five more getting off at the next stop at Boughton Lake leaving just three on board, but we were soon joined by six more at the next four stops including four school children. These alighted at the Longfield Centre with two more at the next stop and we then soon reached the terminal point which is on the main Bury New Road outside a large Tesco store and next to Prestwich Hospital just before the junction with the M60/M62.

We arrived three minutes ahead of time at 08:03 and the driver took a break until ready for the next journey back into Manchester at 08:16.

I took the opportunity to pop into Tesco before returning and crossing over the dual carriageway and wait for the bus to turn around the large roundabout for the M60/M62 junction and come back to the southbound stop which it did at 08:14 ready for an onetime departure.

As you can see the bus is a ’24’ plate ADL Enviro400 MMC and was also kitted out in the Bee Network branding internally…

… which gives a smart impression as you board.

While waiting at the bus stop I noticed the departure time display still shows the unnecessary complication of identifying(every) journey as operating with an accessible bus…

… but also noted the stop was served by the limited stop 20 minute frequency WitchWay branded route X43 from Burnley which also runs to Sudehill Interchange (from Transdev’s Burnley Bus Company) as well as hourly route X41 from Accrington to Sudehill from sister Blackburn Bus Company adding some competition for Bee Network routes and sitting outside the franchised regime.

We left spot on time at 08:16 with one passenger joining me on board, and stopping at each of the next seven stops where we picked up one, four, two, one and one followed by five and then four school children making for 19 on board. By now the traffic was starting to get busy and we began a slow crawl from the junction of Scholes Lane…

…for the next 10 minutes.

We continued to stop at every stop picking more passengers up…

… but progress was frustratingly slow…

… especially on certain sections where it looked to me as though there was room for a bus lane to give the bus the necessary priority it needs in such situations.

It was interesting that at the first stop once this slow queue of crawling traffic had dissipated we picked up 14 passengers at one stop making for 33 on board. It was now 08:32. Six school children soon alighted but were replaced with seven more passengers, then four more then 17 boarded at one stop including younger children going to school with their parent/guardian. Another six boarded and by the time we reached The Broughton and another six boarded followed by one and then three – if I had counted correctly – we now had 69 on board making it by far the busiest bus on a route 99 in Britain.

Into Lower Broughton and we started to lose passengers with the young scholars alighting and 16 passengers getting off at Trinity Church before we made our way on diversion around by Victoria station and 25 alighted leaving a similar number on board for the final fling to Sudehill Interchange which the bus reached at 09:03, 10 minutes late.

As you can see, apart from the southern deviation to serve Lower Broughton, the route taken by the 99 (and 97/98) is very much a north-south trajectory along the Bury New Road, part of which towards Prestwich goes back to Roman times, and indeed it’s this straight section which could do with a southbound bus lane for inbound morning journeys. Let’s hope bus priority measures are on the agenda for the new Mayor.

And finally a shout out to the Black Friar on Trinity Way on the approach to Victoria railway station which I couldn’t help notice has given its fulsome support to all things Bee.

Roger French

Did you catch the previous 18 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, 16 Newcastle-under-Lyme-Chell Heath, 17 Doncaster-Retford, 18 Barnsley-Denby Dale.

Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu