Cambridgeshire Bus Franchising?

[Bletchleyite]

When the franchising takes hold it’ll be interesting to see if they simply replace the current operators services like for like or try to create brand new networks from the off.

Manchester has gone for mostly leaving as is* and changing later. This probably makes most sense - changing too much at once can get messy.

* Even to the extent of still using route numbers 142/143 on former Magic Bus routes despite these just being short 42/43 workings, so they don't need to use them, there are also short 42/43s which are exactly the same.

 

[Dunnyrail]

When the franchising takes hold it’ll be interesting to see if they simply replace the current operators services like for like or try to create brand new networks from the off.

A phased hybrid approach would probably be the best option so as to not be changing too much at once.

If people complain at the moment buses don’t take them where they want, when they want simply bringing in franchising but keeping the routes exactly the same isn’t really going to make a difference.

Not to mention Cambridge’s chronic congestion - if reliability stats are going to be an important target it’ll cost a fortune adding in additional buses to PVR’s… money that would be better spent on bus priority schemes and getting them in place now.

You have hit the nail on the head by mentioning Cambridges chronic congestion, a fact that nobody has the courage to follow through to resolve. Congestion Charge, Working Place Parking Levy, pollution traffic control measures all have been proposed consulted upon and rejected by hm guess who? Yes those motorists who are the problem, the greater majority who are not just motorists tend to not respond thus meaning that creditable policies do net get taken up by windy politicians scared of upsetting voters. You can see it occurring now with local elections imminent both this year and next. A change of political colour will likely undo what little good the dood Doctor has achieved.

 

[Magdalia]

the main obstacles to better bus services, ones that keep to time, don't cost too much and go where people want to go and in a reasonable time to get there, is traffic congestion and the allocation of road space.

Almost everyone knows this already. Cambridge starts from a position where the amount of road space available is tiny, with all of the main routes single carriageway, except for a few short sections of Newmarket Road and Madingley Road. It is further constrained by having very few bridges over the river and the railway. That isn't going to change. Almost everyone also knows that one of the three biggest contributors to congestion is road works because single carriageway roads mean that road works almost always mean temporary traffic lights.

Severe restrictions on where you can drive, and severe financial penalties on not just where you can park, but the provision of parking itself.

This won't happen in Cambridge because the car parking charges are an important source of income, and cars need to get in and out of the car parks.

You have hit the nail on the head by mentioning Cambridges chronic congestion, a fact that nobody has the courage to follow through to resolve. Congestion Charge, Working Place Parking Levy, pollution traffic control measures all have been proposed consulted upon and rejected by hm guess who?

The so called sustainable travel zone fell on the stony ground of the cost of living crisis. All solutions that hit the pockets of "hard working families" are off the agenda for the foreseeable future.

given Cambridge's history, the only reason they want franchising is so they can force buses to use expensively procured infrastructure like a busway, bus lanes or park and rides.

This should be the main reason for bus reform. It is absolutely right that expensive infrastructure should be used. Whatever the guided busway history, it is here now and needs to be used much better. The bus companies have a very poor record on this, especially buses stuck in traffic in Hills Road instead of using the busway. There are also controversial proposals for new (though not guided) busways.

So that only leaves benefits like cheaper integrated ticketing with rail,

Once Cambridge South opens next year, integrated ticketing is going to be critical. For the first time in history it is going to be possible to make a daytime journey from one side of Cambridge to the other in 10-15 minutes, just by getting on a train. A key way of reducing congestion is to get through journeys off of congested streets within the city, and onto the train. For example, St Ives-Biomedical Campus journeys need to be combined bus and train via Cambridge North, not stuck in traffic on Milton Road or Histon Road.

Integrated ticketing is not a direct benefit of bus reform, but it is an opportunity created by what's in the pipeline for devolution and Great British Railways.

As always, the benefits of such things stand or fall on the competency and capability of local politicians and civil servants.

In the case of bus franchising in Cambridgeshire, this is a significant risk, and the main reason why I preferred the enhanced partnership. That's not going to go down well in a consultation response so I didn't bother to tell them that!

 

[johncrossley]

I'm not convinced that this is the right decision for Cambridgeshire. Existing adopters of the franchising model are all big cities with extensive networks, and capacity for managing the process. This is going to be much more of a challenge for a much smaller authority, and the consultation documentation did not inspire confidence that the Combined Authority understands the risks. I preferred the enhanced partnership which could have got a lot of the benefits with much less risk.

Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) has over 900,000 population. There are many franchises smaller than this in the Netherlands. Jersey and Guernsey are also franchised and obviously tiny by comparison. Franchising will likely cover most of the country within a few years, involving many areas smaller than Cambridgeshire.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) has over 900,000 population. There are many franchises smaller than this in the Netherlands. Jersey and Guernsey are also franchised and obviously tiny by comparison. Franchising will likely cover most of the country within a few years, involving many areas smaller than Cambridgeshire.

It's probably Jersey/Guernsey style whole town/whole area franchising with quite a lot of freedom for the franchisee that will work in areas where there isn't the expertise in the Council to design networks themselves. Is that the plan for Cambridgeshire? More the model based on "we want to spend £X, what can you do for us for that?" than "here's exactly what we want, what will you charge us for it?" as is the case in London or Manchester. Or in other words more similar to early rail franchising than the schemes we've had so far.

The benefit for the bus company there is the exclusivity - you can't then get the likes of UK North coming in and price-dumping and thus damaging the viability of the network as a whole. Otherwise they are still doing a fair bit of the commercial design of the service and also potentially taking the commercial risk.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) has over 900,000 population. There are many franchises smaller than this in the Netherlands. Jersey and Guernsey are also franchised and obviously tiny by comparison. Franchising will likely cover most of the country within a few years, involving many areas smaller than Cambridgeshire.

Surely the bigger issue is population density. The urban areas have a very high population density, and even Guernsey has a population density that is five times greater than Cambridgeshire.

What you have is a county with two main centres but most of the county is very thinly populated. There's a huge rural hinterland and how you serve that is a markedly different challenge.

 

[Mwanesh]

Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) has over 900,000 population. There are many franchises smaller than this in the Netherlands. Jersey and Guernsey are also franchised and obviously tiny by comparison. Franchising will likely cover most of the country within a few years, involving many areas smaller than Cambridgeshire.

For the big towns it will work what of the rural areas .Thats where the main problem is.Do you think people who live in Cambridge care about what goes beyond the borders no.

 

[overthewater]

Will this still go ahead of a Tory wins the election in May?

 

[johncrossley]

For the big towns it will work what of the rural areas .Thats where the main problem is.Do you think people who live in Cambridge care about what goes beyond the borders no.

Buses in rural areas are often already tendered by the council. Many bus operators in England currently operate both town routes and the rural routes around it. If it absolutely necessary to find an example of an area that has franchising of a smaller city with a rural area around it, obviously that doesn't exist yet in England yet, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be viable! Clearly for an example you have to look abroad. Obviously the Netherlands is well known for tendering most of its bus services so is probably the best comparison available. A map of Dutch franchise regions can be seen here;

Concessiekaart - OV in Nederland Wiki

English franchising has started with two huge metropolitan areas. The Netherlands is completely the opposite. The three biggest cities are currently excluded from franchising. So a typical Dutch franchise area covers modest sized towns/cities plus the surrounding countryside. There are a few that cover exclusively town services but they are the exception.

Somewhere has to be first. That area is likely to be Cambridgeshire.

 

[Mollman]

Will this still go ahead of a Tory wins the election in May?

Probably depends who's mayor. Wasn't the last guy also talking about franchising, when he wasn't peddling the autonomous metro anyway?

 

[higthomas]

Probably depends who's mayor. Wasn't the last guy also talking about franchising, when he wasn't peddling the autonomous metro anyway?

The conservative candidate is https://www.paulbristow.org.uk/
He's pretty heavy on the "side of motorists" and has a few posts against the mayoral bus precept, so I suspect he'd be anti franchising, but he doesn't have any Facebook posts either way.

 

[Magdalia]

Buses in rural areas are often already tendered by the council.

In Cambridgeshire lots of rural routes are operated without support from the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority. Their support is limited to the following routes listed here:

Bus Support - Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority

Bus Support; delivering a high quality bus network for the region is one main cornerstone of The CPCA / Combined Authority.

cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk

Delivering a high quality bus network for the region is one of the cornerstones of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Devolution Deal and we are committed to achieving this goal. We actively work with our local bus service partners to deliver strategic network improvements and have commissioned a local Bus Reform Taskforce to consider the varied options available for reform.

Local bus services suffered a critical blow during Covid-19 lockdown. The Combined Authority is proud to have been able to help by maintain these crucial services at a very difficult time. We have been financially supporting the following bus services, using the Covid-19 Bus Service Support Grant, since March 2020.

But another important factor in the Cambridge area is support from other organisations. Cambridge University supports the Whippet U1 and U2, Granta Park and Capital Park both have their own dedicated services from the main railway station.

Do you think people who live in Cambridge care about what goes beyond the borders no.

Probably depends who's mayor. Wasn't the last guy also talking about franchising, when he wasn't peddling the autonomous metro anyway?

The Mayor and the County Council are up for election in May, so we will get to find out.

Palmer was the first Mayor 2017-21 and one of the main reasons he was thrown out was to stop the autonomous metro.

Somewhere has to be first. That area is likely to be Cambridgeshire.

There is a high level of fatigue in Cambridge at continually being used for Professor Branestawm transport experiments. We have had the guided busway, the autonomous metro and the sustainable travel zone. Cambridge has also had the Fendon Road Dutch roundabout, the Kings Hedges Cyclops Junction and the Mill Road bridge closure.

I suspect that most people in Cambridgeshire would be quite happy for the first UK experiment in small area bus franchising to be somewhere else. It would be nice to be able to learn from others.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

So a typical Dutch franchise area covers modest sized towns/cities plus the surrounding countryside. There are a few that cover exclusively town services but they are the exception.

Even there, the comparison is flawed. Go to Limburg and you'll see a) the population density is much higher and b) the level of bus services outside the main towns (Maastricht and Sittard) and bus provision is barely any better despite the franchising.

In Cambridgeshire lots of rural routes are operated without support from the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority.

Indeed, and this is one misnomer that is often repeated. Such has been the hollowing out of local authority funding over years, many rural areas DON'T have the majority of services supported through council tenders. Instead, you have services that have been essentially bumping along with a shoulder of commercially sustainable work (peak journeys and/or schools traffic) whereas the off peak is operated commercially at marginal cost. Cambs is an example of this.

I know we've agreed to disagree in the past, having enjoyed some constructive arguments where we've ventured well founded views. However, I think we agree that franchising, in and of itself, isn't going to sort out the challenges for Cambridge and for Cambridgeshire - it needs something more progressive in terms of planning and development, road use and parking policies, and how busways can support rail (though I know we do differ on how that bit looks). That said, it will undoubtedly be the case that it is where CPCA is going.

 

[buslad1988]

It’ll be interesting to see if when franchising launches if the likes of Go-Ahead bid? (Like they’ve done in Ireland and Liverpool) With bases in neighbouring counties could be a good under-pin for their East business.

Could even see the likes of Stephensons and Ipswich Buses having a shot? The former already operating into Cambridge, the latter was interested in Haverhill in the late 2000’s.

A fast (compared to train) Cambridge - Newmarket - Bury St Edmund’s - Stowmarket - Ipswich service could be a good potential idea for students/tourists. Although with the A14 as unpredictable as ever might not be feasible to risk it.

 

[Mollman]

It’ll be interesting to see if when franchising launches if the likes of Go-Ahead bid? (Like they’ve done in Ireland and Liverpool) With bases in neighbouring counties could be a good under-pin for their East business.

Could even see the likes of Stephensons and Ipswich Buses having a shot? The former already operating into Cambridge, the latter was interested in Haverhill in the late 2000’s.

A fast (compared to train) Cambridge - Newmarket - Bury St Edmund’s - Stowmarket - Ipswich service could be a good potential idea for students/tourists. Although with the A14 as unpredictable as ever might not be feasible to risk it.

A man from Firstbus posted on LinkedIn about attending a supplier engagement events.

 

[Magdalia]

Not to mention Cambridge’s chronic congestion - if reliability stats are going to be an important target it’ll cost a fortune adding in additional buses to PVR’s… money that would be better spent on bus priority schemes and getting them in place now.

There is a recent document here that has attempted to quantify the impact of congestion on the viability of bus services in Cambridge:

Bus Viability in Greater Cambridge: Impact of Congestion - Cambridge Ahead

www.cambridgeahead.co.uk

Bus Viability in Greater Cambridge: Impact of Congestion​

21/10/2024


Discover the insights from our latest report on bus viability in the Greater Cambridge region, exploring how road congestion affects public and private bus services.

Key Findings:

• Economic Impact: Congestion increases costs and reduces passenger satisfaction.

Case Studies:

• Whippet Coaches: If there was a free-flowing network.
• Stagecoach East: Achieving 90% punctuality.
• Funding Insights: Analysis of how services are funded and the financial implications of congestion.

To dive deeper into the full report, access it here.

One of the case studies is the Whippet Universal service where Cambridge University is calling the tune, not the operator or the local authority.

Coincidentally, the U2 has been diverted via the busway all of this week because of major road works at the Hills Road/Cherry Hinton Road junction.

Also coincidentally, Stagecoach has not been particularly affected by the road works this week because it is half term holiday.

The road works continue next week, it will be interesting to see what happens, especially with lots of Hills Road sixth form students wandering around the road works.

 

[Mwanesh]

Buses in rural areas are often already tendered by the council. Many bus operators in England currently operate both town routes and the rural routes around it. If it absolutely necessary to find an example of an area that has franchising of a smaller city with a rural area around it, obviously that doesn't exist yet in England yet, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be viable! Clearly for an example you have to look abroad. Obviously the Netherlands is well known for tendering most of its bus services so is probably the best comparison available. A map of Dutch franchise regions can be seen here;

Concessiekaart - OV in Nederland Wiki

English franchising has started with two huge metropolitan areas. The Netherlands is completely the opposite. The three biggest cities are currently excluded from franchising. So a typical Dutch franchise area covers modest sized towns/cities plus the surrounding countryside. There are a few that cover exclusively town services but they are the exception.

Somewhere has to be first. That area is likely to be Cambridgeshire.

You honestly think these mayors care what happens beyond their borders.I will give you a scenario in the West Midlands at present .Nbus day tickets used to take you as far as Lichfield and Cannock .Now they dont TFWM have decided its out of their boundaries .

 

[Deerfold]

You honestly think these mayors care what happens beyond their borders.I will give you a scenario in the West Midlands at present .Nbus day tickets used to take you as far as Lichfield and Cannock .Now they dont TFWM have decided its out of their boundaries .

Who runs the nbus tickets? In West and South Yorkshire they're run by a consortium of bus and rail companies with the local authority having a vote amongst many.

Manchester has expanded the validity of its tickets beyond the boundaries on their buses where they used to largely end at the borders with the introduction of franchising - you can now get to Huddersfield on one.

 

[johncrossley]

Who runs the nbus tickets? In West and South Yorkshire they're run by a consortium of bus and rail companies with the local authority having a vote amongst many.

Manchester has expanded the validity of its tickets beyond the boundaries on their buses where they used to largely end at the borders with the introduction of franchising - you can now get to Huddersfield on one.

Similarly TfL tickets are valid on the whole TfL bus network, even those travelling outside of Greater London.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Feb 2025 ==

You honestly think these mayors care what happens beyond their borders.I will give you a scenario in the West Midlands at present .Nbus day tickets used to take you as far as Lichfield and Cannock .Now they dont TFWM have decided its out of their boundaries .

This sounds like when single company day tickets were abolished within the West Midlands. Single company tickets are still available from National Express West Midlands if you travel outside the West Midlands. But you specifically have to ask for it, otherwise you will get a ticket only valid within the West Midlands.

If I recall, you could only use nBus tickets on National Express buses outside the West Midlands and these tickets were priced higher than the single company National Express ticket. So what exists now is preferable for most passengers. Following the same principle as London and Greater Manchester, franchised buses in Cambridgeshire and the West Midlands would likely be valid on cross-boundary routes.

 

[Mwanesh]

Who runs the nbus tickets? In West and South Yorkshire they're run by a consortium of bus and rail companies with the local authority having a vote amongst many.

Manchester has expanded the validity of its tickets beyond the boundaries on their buses where they used to largely end at the borders with the introduction of franchising - you can now get to Huddersfield on one.

TFWM are responsible for the nbus tickets. .

 

[700720]

The CPCA has finally produced a map of the bus network in the region, which includes the new precept-funded routes (Tiger routes) as well as Tiger On Demand.

The map can be viewed here: https://democracy.cambridgeshirepet...cuments/s3553/Appendix A- Bus Network Map.pdf

 

[Camb]

The timetable for the T7 Wisbech to Chatteris from 27th May, operated by Stagecoach East Midlands is now up on bustimes.org, showing an hourly service with the first bus leaving Wisbech at 0615 and last arriving back at 2305, looks like a PVR of three vehicles, quite an extensive service for that part of rural fenland.

It also results in the Wisbech to Three Holes section having two separate services as the 60, operated by Lynx already covers that corridor (Norfolk County Council contract?) wonder if the plug will be pulled on that at some point?

 

[aswilliamsuk]

The timetable for the T7 Wisbech to Chatteris from 27th May, operated by Stagecoach East Midlands is now up on bustimes.org, showing an hourly service with the first bus leaving Wisbech at 0615 and last arriving back at 2305, looks like a PVR of three vehicles, quite an extensive service for that part of rural fenland.

It also results in the Wisbech to Three Holes section having two separate services as the 60, operated by Lynx already covers that corridor (Norfolk County Council contract?) wonder if the plug will be pulled on that at some point?

Providing an hourly service across the day seems to make sense - if it's not easy to remember and frequent, it won't get used. The big question, though - do buses connect with trains at Manea, or anywhere close? (There are also then connections to the Excel service at Wisbech, and services towards Huntingdon at Chatteris, as I recall?)

 

[higthomas]

The timetable for the T7 Wisbech to Chatteris from 27th May, operated by Stagecoach East Midlands is now up on bustimes.org, showing an hourly service with the first bus leaving Wisbech at 0615 and last arriving back at 2305, looks like a PVR of three vehicles, quite an extensive service for that part of rural fenland.

It also results in the Wisbech to Three Holes section having two separate services as the 60, operated by Lynx already covers that corridor (Norfolk County Council contract?) wonder if the plug will be pulled on that at some point?

Also for the T1; similar sorts of timings and hours https://bustimes.org/services/t1-huntingdon-cambridge

 

[Camb]

Full details of all of the new routes are now available on the CPCA website: https://cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/tiger-bus-routes/

Some interesting new links created, will be interesting to see how they perform

T1 Cambridge to Huntingdon is to be operated by Whippet, bringing the back onto the Northern section of The Busway for the first time in several years.

T2/T3 (Cambridge Orbital links) and T4 Addenbrookes to Newmarket are to be operated by Stagecoach.

T5 Soham to Cambridge and T12 Longstanton to Sutton are to be operated by A2B.

T7 Wisbech to Chatteris, as previously discussed is to be operated by Stagecoach East Midlands (although confusingly it says Stagecoach East on the CPCA website, whereas the T2/3/4 which are actually being operated by Stagecoach East just say Stagecoach!)

These just leave the T9 Peterborough Orbital to be awarded/announced as that failed to find a suitable bidder.

 

[aswilliamsuk]

No kidding that there are some interesting new links here - in particular finally providing a link from Sutton and Earith to Longstanton/Busway. Although the state of the B1050 between Earith Bridge and Willingham (subsidence), not to mention the all-too-regular flooding at Earith Bridge, should make that one interesting...

 

[aron2smith]

Providing an hourly service across the day seems to make sense - if it's not easy to remember and frequent, it won't get used. The big question, though - do buses connect with trains at Manea, or anywhere close? (There are also then connections to the Excel service at Wisbech, and services towards Huntingdon at Chatteris, as I recall?)

I'd hope they would time with trains at Manea, that would make it a much more useful service. I so wished it went to March instead though as that gets a train every 30 minutes, Manea is only served by the 2 hourly Greater Anglia service to/ from Peterborough. It is quite an uplift in bus service regardless. Hopefully the buses from March to Chatteris will gain some new journeys too.

 

[gingerheid]

It's truly remarkable that the T2 (which so far as I can see is almost entirely useless for most of it's route) runs until 9pm, but that the T4 (which serves a hospital) doesn't even run to hospital shift or visiting times

 

[RELL6L]

These routes look pretty mad to me. A service from Cambridge to Soham (T5) may be worth trying, possibly also the much faster Huntingdon service provided by the T1. But both these services look to be very tightly timed with short turnaround times, I suspect that on bad traffic days they will fall apart.

The T7 is very rural and appears to follow the Lynx service 60 between Three Holes and Wisbech. It can’t replace it entirely though because the first arrival at Wisbech is 09.05!

Looks like a kid with a budget and some crayons and I suspect this will bring rural franchising into disrepute, especially given the changes in political colour of the mayor and the council!

 

[buslad1988]

These routes look pretty mad to me. A service from Cambridge to Soham (T5) may be worth trying, possibly also the much faster Huntingdon service provided by the T1. But both these services look to be very tightly timed with short turnaround times, I suspect that on bad traffic days they will fall apart.

The T7 is very rural and appears to follow the Lynx service 60 between Three Holes and Wisbech. It can’t replace it entirely though because the first arrival at Wisbech is 09.05!

Looks like a kid with a budget and some crayons and I suspect this will bring rural franchising into disrepute, especially given the changes in political colour of the mayor and the council!

And this is the problem with franchising in Cambridgeshire - the root cause of the issue is traffic congestion and money should be spent first on bus priority measures.

Starting new services with tight timings and the least amount of vehicles will just put people off - the services will inevitably be unreliable so any new passengers will switch back to their cars.

The council were consistently told by operators before venturing into this that the problem is the road network, and that isn’t going to go away no matter who runs the buses.