Sunday 15th June 2025 As the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority gears up for bus franchising, recently elected (six weeks ago) Conservative Mayor Paul Bristow wasted no time launching a raft of new bus roues at the end of last month. But I wonder if he really appreciates what a waste of money some of... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th March 2025 The much anticipated autonomous bus trial on public roads in Sunderland city centre began earlier this month. I took a ride last Tuesday, interested to see how it compares with other trials I’ve experienced in Didcot, Edinburgh, Milton Keynes and Harwell campus over the last few years. It was the Aurrigo... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Tomorrow is the last day for most Megabus coach services operating in England and Wales. Stagecoach launched its low-cost inter-city megabus coach network 21 years ago in 2003 challenging National Express's monopoly for much of the express coach travel market in England and Wales. At the time the company predicted megabus.com,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 19th November 2024 I was back in Kent yesterday for a ride on the brand new Dover Fastrack service which began on Sunday. It's been designed to provide a quick link from the expanding Whitfield area, north of the town, with the town centre and Dover Priory railway station where route D (as it's... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th September 2024 Here's another one of those community involvement success stories. It's from the Lake District where a volunteer-led community group called Sustainable and Integrated Transport for Ullswater (SITU) has set about organising and funding two additional bus routes to supplement Stagecoach's successful and well used bus network through the National Park. Key... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th September 2024 Over fifty keen, energetic, enthusiastic young bus professionals working in the bus industry met up for just over 24 hours in Cambridge on Thursday and Friday last week for the network’s latest conference. Over the the last 13 years I've had the pleasure of jointly hosting these proceedings and, as always,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 23rd JULY 2024 Many years ago Stagecoach ran a bus route (numbered VT99) on behalf of Virgin Trains linking Milton Keynes Central station with Luton and its airport. Press fast forward and it became route MK1 and more recently Stagecoach linked the service to its Luton to Bedford bus route creating a pronounced V... Continue Reading →
Sunday 30th June 2024 Blog reader Stuart got in touch and kindly recommended I take a ride on the Faringdon Tourist Bus. It was a new one on me. A Saturday only route exploring border territory where Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire come together, comprising three circular round trips, each lasting almost two hours. Journeys leave... Continue Reading →
Thursday 23rd May 2024 No wonder Monday's online webinar about Cheshire West and Chester Council's iTravel DRT scheme was promoted as a "DRT rural success story" with "strong uptake". When asked what the target had been for judging success of the service (introduced at the end of July 2023), the Council's Team Leader Transport and... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Crewe’s newly built bus station opened for business last Tuesday. It’s a huge improvement on what went before... ...including a former Crosville bus garage on the site... It's been built in four stages over the last couple of years... ... and together with a new 389 space multi- storey car park... Continue Reading →
Thursday 2nd May 2024 A few weeks ago a partnership between Arriva and Stagecoach was announced. It's part of the Leicestershire Enhanced Bus Partnership and has seen the two bus companies amend timetables of their respective hourly routes (X3 and X7) between Market Harborough and Leicester so there’s a more even half hourly frequency from... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th March 2024 This month sees three high profile public transport networks change hands. Firstly in Northampton, unō withdrew from its operations last weekend (9th March) after 11 and a half years in the town to be replaced by Stagecoach. Secondly next Thursday (21st March) Stagecoach ends its 27 year tenure operating the Sheffield... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th February 2024 A fortnight ago I explained in the blog about Flitwick's Transport Interchange that Stagecoach was withdrawing its hourly route 2 between Bedford and Flitwick after 17th February. The two buses saved from that cut were redeployed on an extension to the company's half hourly route 9A/9B which perviously ran from Bedford... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th February 2024 Barry Docks isn’t the only location with a troubled Transport Interchange. Just before Christmas, the Central Bedfordshire town of Flitwick finally saw buses begin using its new £4.8 million three-bus-stop Transport Interchange, built close to the entrance to the railway station (on the Midland Main Line, one stop south of Bedford).... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd February 2024 Third in this year’s fortnightly route 100 odyssey is another cross-county-border inter-urban bus route but, unlike the first two already featured (Stevenage/Hitchin and Crawley/Redhill), this one really is pure inter-urban. No wandering around residential estates in the urban centres for this double deck operated 35 mile route across some of England’s... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 14th November 2023 Cardiff may be struggling to get its Transport Hub completed (as featured in Saturday’s blog) but up in the North East North Tyneside Council opened a sparkly new facility in North Shields at the beginning of September having only finalised plans for its construction as recently as February 2022. North Shields... Continue Reading →
Sunday 24th September 2023 Cheshire West and Chester Council was awarded £1.075 million from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund as long ago as March 2021 for a DRT scheme in the Borough. You’d hope in the two and a quarter years since then it would have learnt lessons from the many DRT schemes introduced and... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th June 2023 I blogged about the West Ealing to West Ruislip ‘ghost bus’ when it began back in January. Readers may recall Arriva owned Chiltern Railways' rail replacement division awarded the contract to operate this useless single bus journey a week on a Wednesday morning to Diamond South East for an initial three... Continue Reading →
Sunday 11th June 2023 After my Exmoor Coaster bus ride last Monday, described in yesterday’s blog, I turned my attention to East Devon for three more interesting bus journeys on Tuesday. First up was new route X30 introduced on 3rd April thanks to Devon County Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan funded by the DfT. Operated... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16th May 2023 In what's describe as a “world first”, Stagecoach began operating the much hyped and long awaited autonomous bus trial across the Forth Road Bridge yesterday. And if you’re thinking that “world first” claim rings a bell - you're not mistaken as it was just over two months ago I reported on... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Following the closure of Arriva's bus garages in Macclesfield and Winsford and the company’s withdrawal from Mid Cheshire on Saturday 22nd April I took a few rides around the area last Friday to see how the first week of the new regime was going with D&G Bus principally at the helm.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Last Friday Rob Jones, managing director, Stagecoach in Cumbria and North Lancashire (that name is going to need an update now Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness councils have replaced Cumbria) kindly invited me to the launch of the company’s circa £3 million investment in nine smart new Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st February 2023 All this week I'm describing travel experiences on brand new bus routes. It certainly makes a change from cataloguing routes about to be withdrawn and with Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding now starting to flow, we can expect to see many more forlorn initiatives like the ones I'm featuring in... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st January 2023 Tomorrow sees one of England’s seven jointly operated inter-urban bus routes change to be operated by just one company. After today Arriva are quitting the long established route 685 between Newcastle and Carlisle with fellow operator Stagecoach taking over Arriva’s three bus workings increasing their commitment from two buses up to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th January 2023 This month’s miscellany I spotted on recent travels. Coalville information I was in Coalville on Tuesday. It has two locations in the town centre where buses congregate - one called Marlborough Square and the other Memorial Square. It can be confusing for visitors but credit to Leicestershire County Council which has... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th December 2022 I spent a couple of days earlier this week in Inverness checking out some recent bus and train developments. 1. Request to Stop This innovation is being rolled out by ScotRail on the Far North Line from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. The idea is when passengers require a train to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th September 2022 Nottsbus On Demand It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen a DfT funded DRT launch but two more have recently hit the road including one in High Wycombe this week and another in Nottinghamshire at the end of last month which had sneaked passed my DRT launch antenna until now.... Continue Reading →
Thursday 28th July 2022 Today sees the start of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham continuing through to Monday 8th August. It's a great opportunity for public transport to show off its credentials, as happened during the 2012 Olympics. But, oh dear, ten years on and circumstances are rather different, not least the impact of driver... Continue Reading →
Sunday 12th May 2022 King's Lynn lies south east of The Wash in the Fenland area that connects East Anglia with Lincolnshire. It's the western most sizeable town in Norfolk with a population of 43,000 falling within the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. Nearest large towns include Spalding around 25 miles west,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Photo courtesy Network Rail Aside from the shiny new mega-size stations about to open in the Crossrail core there are quite a few other brand new stations currently under construction on the national network which are due to open during 2022. It’s a bit of a sweepstake to see which will... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 1st March 2022 It's just over ten weeks since Arriva pulled out of Surrey so I took a ride over to Guildford last Wednesday to see how things were going. Bus networks in Crawley and Burton-on-Trent as well as Cannock have prospered since Arriva gave up on those towns so I wondered if the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 13th February 2022 Having explored a couple of southern towns to kick off this year's A to Z of public transport provision in small to mid sized English towns last month I thought I’d better level up and select this month’s two contenders in the north. And what’s more they’re both cities rather than... Continue Reading →
Friday 29th October 2021 This week’s DRT bus service launch is Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s trial in that rural part of ‘West Huntingdonshire’ lying west of Huntingdon and St Neots. It’s got the same features and challenges I’ve covered in other blogs about rural DRT operations so I won’t repeat the same old stuff... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th February 2021 The Government's new-look-cautious irreversible-one-way-road approach to unlocking means the 'stay-at-home' message will be eased, subject to data, "data not dates", in four weeks (at the earliest) on 29th March (which sounds like a date to me, as does 12th April, 17th May and 21st June, but I'm sure it's all splendidly... Continue Reading →
Monday 7th December 2020 The order was announced in a fanfare of publicity on 4th March: "Europe's most frequent coach service set to get even better with 34 new coaches this summer.... the largest single order of coaches in the history of Stagecoach .... the latest technology designed to enhance the customer experience". Their deferment... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th September 2020 It was disappointing to hear Stagecoach has split its Oxford to Cambridge route X5 in Bedford. The X5 is the well established bus equivalent of East-West Rail now under active development. The half hourly frequency has been retained throughout but the opportunity has been taken to convert the more heavily used... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 According to its website, the Marketing Lounge Partnership (MLP) is"one of the UK's only combined incentive, loyalty, partnership and CRM agencies" which struck me as odd. It seems double dutch to say you're 'one of the only' of anything. Either you're ‘one of a few’, or you're ‘the only’. Surely? Anyway... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th August 2020I had high hopes for fflecsi (it’s Welsh for flex) - the Welsh version of DRT (Demand Responsive Transport).Transport for Wales (TfW) are replacing existing fixed-timetable small-scale bus routes with a bookable flexible bus running along the route and its environs according to demand. It’s a bit like how Go Coach Hire... Continue Reading →
Monday 2nd March 2020 Stagecoach rolled out its high profile £16.5 million investment in 32 BYD ADL Enviro400EV double deckers yesterday so I popped up to Manchester today to take a look. They're zero emission electric buses and in a nice piece of purchase symmetry the Government's Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme contributed a handy £6.9... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th February 2020 After Friday's Tees teaser I spotted the new 'Tees flex' app became available to download over the weekend so armed with that and the zonal maps which blog readers kindly pointed out were on Stagecoach's 'Tees flex' webpage as click throughs from the zonal names, I was able to plan today's... Continue Reading →
Friday 21st February 2020 (updaated Saturday 22nd February) The latest Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) scheme gets going on Monday so I thought I’d prepare travel plans and be ready to try it out. Except it’s proving a bit trickier than I thought. It’s in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area and comprises three separate geographic... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 19th February 2020 I took a ride on the Cambridge Busway earlier today to look at Stagecoach's latest vehicles purchased specifically to increase capacity to meet growing demand on the popular link from St Ives to the city as well as other destinations as far away as Peterborough and Royston. Eighteen vehicles costing £5... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th February 2020 One of the benefits of being a member of the Chartered Institute of Transport is being able to attend its extensive programme of fascinating meetings and organised visits. One of these took place this afternoon to London Underground's relatively new control centre in Hammersmith overseeing the four 'sub-surface' lines (Metropolitan, District,... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 5th February 2020 I’ve yet to see a bus in what is officially dubbed the “people-powered new look” actually out on the road so these initial comments come with a health warning it might all look much better when seen in the flesh and I reserve the right to change my opinion. In the... Continue Reading →
Friday 31st January 2020 Bordon and Whitehill are two linked communities in East Hampshire situated midway between Alton on the A31 and Hindhead on the A3 and south of Farnham. The area is one of ten demonstrator sites in the Government’s Healthy New Towns programme. Launched in 2015 the programme aims “to explore the development... Continue Reading →
Monday 13th January 2020 Ride sharing's been around since the first horse bus began plying it's way but the modern incarnation envisages using a website or app to book a journey and clever software linking you up with other people going the same way, because that's what clever software can do. The fact there aren't... Continue Reading →
Monday 6th January 2020 Universities are good business for bus companies. Many towns and cities benefit from having a network of attractive frequencies and buses running late into the night thanks to student travel. Despite this few, if any, University travel markets are hotly contested with competitive bus services. One exception is the University of... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 4th December 2019 The recent announcement by Oxford Bus of the withdrawal of their long standing X90 coach route between Oxford and London in a month's time on 4th January surprised a good few industry observers. Me included. But when I thought about it and read more of the background it really wasn't surprising... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 6th November 2019 Today's been an auspicious day for me. It's not my birthday but by dint of political chicanery back in 2010, my postcode and date-of-birth numbers have today, at last, come up in the concessionary bus fares entitlement lottery. There are now 8,500,001 people in England enjoying free travel on local bus... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th October 2019 It's good to see Stagecoach introducing another new commercial inter-urban bus route with the Group's Yorkshire company trailblazing a brand new service between Chesterfield and Nottingham this week. The new X1 provides an attractive alternative to the long standing Pronto branded route Stagecoach East Midlands operate jointly with TrentBarton running every... Continue Reading →
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