ac6000cw
Established Member
Is that referring to the car park itself, or the PR4 bus service that serves it? (I use both regularly)
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Cambridgeshire Bus Franchising?
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I was particularly referring to the large number of people who get off the City bound PR4 buses at Addenbrookes, frequently leaving the bus almost empty between the hospital and the old railway station.
The same happens on the A from Trumpington.
Dwarfer1979
Member
They would if the council was offering money to do it, that is how it works everywhere else and has done so for years, and working with existing commercial services and operators would normally be cheaper as some of the resource is already provided by the operator. If CPCA had approached Stephensons with some money to enhance the corridor through Burwell including a link to Soham I'm sure they would have bitten their hand off and as part of the service would be commercial your would probably be paying for half the resource. Likewise if they had worked with one of the operators providing services south out of Wisbech to enhance & extend their services they could have achieved the same impact for less funding (or enhanced more corridors for the same money improving the provision for more people).
What they would have found more difficult is sticking their own Tiger branding across commercial buses.
That would be the council doing the trying, not the operators.
It isn't particularly how it has worked in Cambridgeshire in recent times, most services are on a commercial basis.
Which takes us back to franchising. I doubt that the Tiger brand would exist without the mayor and franchising. The Tiger branding is part of an attempt to get people onto buses in a way where marginal changes, of the type that you describe, would struggle to make an impact.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
We have had this argument before. I provided independent figures that showed otherwise and you blithely dismissed them as they didn't agree with your view. I seem to recall that you argued that you couldn't have more buses as there would be no poor people to drive them as they'd all be molecular scientists but here we are...
The idea that most of the passengers from those villages on the T4 (thinking of the clientele here - ENCTS pass holders and the like) are heading to somewhere other than the city centre is somewhat unlikely.
@Dwarfer1979 is absolutely right.
There is this argument that absolutely nothing can happen without franchising. That is bunkum. The fact is that nothing can happen without MONEY and that is something that has been in short supply since 2010/1. So whether the money comes from central government, or a local precept, is sort of immaterial at the base level. Operators have been increasingly reluctant to make speculative forays - running empty buses is a great way of shaping your managerial career (and not for the good). Since Covid, that has been exacerbated.
Those of us can remember the Kickstart programme where local partnerships between local authorities and bus operators where there was exactly this type of pump priming going on. There would be a commitment from the operator (usually in the form of new vehicle investment) and that would be underpinned by revenue support to bridge the gap between the improvement starting and commercial sustainability. Of course, it was pre-ordained that those schemes were ones that had a realistic likelihood of achieving sustainability - it weeded out those services that simply consume money. Instead, for those services that cannot and will not be commercially sustainable, that's exactly what council tenders were designed for. Three buses trundling across the Fens on the T7 - it will never be commercial (which is why no operator has sought to do it).
The Tiger brand may well be a means of trying to give services a higher profile. Again, referring to a Kickstart scheme, Stagecoach and Devon CC did that with Culm Valley Connect 20 years ago.
It is right that services like the T2 and T7 wouldn't have happened without local government involvement. It wouldn't be experiment that operators would entertain unilaterally as the farebox will not get anywhere near the costs. Ever. So it would have to be a supported service. Whether that is the best use of funds is certainly open to question, and as @Dwarfer1979 says, it may have been more cost effective to work with existing operators and even with partial funding, extend some form of coherent branding across those services (and even perhaps across commercial services).
greenline712
Member
I'm out and about today, so trying to link to documents is difficult ... but Google "Local Sustainable Transport Fund" and you will become informed!! The AI write-up is quite good, for once!!
This was a coalition / Liberal Dem initiative, sponsored by Norman Baker, that did exactly what it said on the tin .... provide financial assistance for startup bus initiatives, in the expectation that most would become self-supporting.
This was a coalition / Liberal Dem initiative, sponsored by Norman Baker, that did exactly what it said on the tin .... provide financial assistance for startup bus initiatives, in the expectation that most would become self-supporting.
Dwarfer1979
Member
But the point was that it doesn't require franchising, it can be done under the current structure, has been done in Cambridgeshire before (Kickstart & Rural Bus Grant for instance) and is being done as such elsewhere right now through BSIP schemes. There are all sorts of things that operators have in their files that they couldn't make a business case for (either the evaluation says the risk is too high that it won't work or the up front costs cannot support any short term pay off) that with some funding assistance may be feasible to try and it may always be the case that the council are getting asked for things that operators haven't thought of. I work for a bus operator doing precisely such things in such a role and I would never claim we are the sole source of good ideas, we have worked with numerous councils where they have had an idea or a request we just haven't thought of as well as the council approaching us for ideas we have had that we couldn't justify from a pure business case but that ticked may box for the council and with a bit of time and funding we think may pay off in the end.
That would say more about Cambridgeshire then the operators if purely true, most counties have a core purely commercial spine with a strong collection of largely commercial services that are assisted by council funding for certain aspects (early/late journeys, extensions or diversions or better frequency) and then a number of fully contracted routes at the bottom. The core commercial network in Cambridgeshire isn't clearly poorer than those elsewhere, it has historically been better in many ways but Stagecoach did lose their way a little over the last decade and they were badly affected by the driver shortage, but the marginal network (which are routinely provided with some funding from the council on top of a basic commercial provision) has struggled for a while which may say more about the council and their willingness/ability to work in partnership though it would surprise me if that had always been the case. There will be a lot of routes that are thought of as purely commercial by the general public but which the council have some small involvement in to pay for something that wouldn't be commercial on their own.
If the only reason you are franchising is so you can stick a distinctive brand name and not very good livery on all the buses that isn't a good justification. Operators have shown elsewhere they aren't against such marketing efforts but they would expect something more. I do question launching a network of routes with a single brand operated by multiple operators when you haven't really sorted out or marketed a decent multi-operator ticket. Multibus still exists but isn't well promoted and isn't accepted on the Stagecoach Busway services (which should have been the easiest to enforce as they must be operating under a much tighter agreement than most partnerships so someone missed something there). Too much of this scheme appears to have been rushed out, by the previous mayor clearly, to be seen to be doing things (probably with the intention of getting in before the election until the tendering issues) rather than taking time to do it properly.
My position has always been the only real justification for franchising is if the council/government have a lot of money to invest over a sustained period of time and you want more control over how that is deployed. If you have no money to spend, or you can't be sure you will have it in future years, then all you are doing is spreading the same income over more costs as the council will need more staff to administer but there aren't a lot of savings for the operators to compensate (so you won't be able to make the improvements everyone expects and just create a bigger cycle of decline). At the moment the big cities are seeing the money appear, though not in any sort of long term agreement way so they can't really be sure they will have the same funding in 5 years time but they hope it will but that isn't as clear in the shire counties or even combined authorities so the risk is greater of making problems worse not better.
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Leedsbusman
Member
Not necessarily- in my experience across a number of local council areas many BSIP enhancements arose from operator propositions rather than councils with funding reducing the risk.
The problem with services that can be introduced rapidly, is that they can also be removed rapidly. If a new service is good for your commute, that is great if its a journey that you were already making. Would you change job, or move house so that you would be reliant on a new service?
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Many councils have been hollowed out during the last 10-15 years so they don't have the skills or resources to really bring much to the table.
mattb7tl
Member
I don’t think anyone seriously believes franchising is the only way to deliver improvements. But I do think people are right to be sceptical about partnerships. They’re not new, we’ve had versions of them for decades. They just get rebranded every few years when the previous iteration inevitably fails. QBPs, VPAs, SQPs, EP and now EP+ it's the same idea with a new badge. The “EP+” branding only adds to the cynicism. If EP+ doesn’t work, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see "EP++" next...
I’ve repeatedly tried to get my concerns taken seriously by some of the most vocal advocates for partnerships in the industry. But their answers tend to be remarkably one-dimensional, almost everything gets reduced to “bus priority.” That argument might sound good on paper, but it’s tone-deaf to places that already have substantial bus priority measures in place, like Cambridgeshire or West Yorkshire. These are areas where partnership working has been in place for years, yet the long-term outcomes are underwhelming. At best, they delivered short-term improvements that quickly faded. They’ve aged like milk.
When you point this out, the response is often silence or something unrealistic. One particularly surreal example was a discussion about the Headingley corridor in Leeds. It's already heavily prioritised for buses, you physically can’t add more without demolishing homes. Yet the suggestion was to just “do more priority.” This came from someone who has published articles on partnerships and is in direct contact with operators. If that's the best idea the experts can come up with it really underlines how limited the partnership model is in practice.
And crucially, partnerships offer no real solution for areas where physical bus priority simply isn’t viable or possible. Nor do they support the kind of cross-subsidy required to maintain socially necessary services, unless additional public funding is constantly injected. This is why so many authorities are now turning to franchising, not because it is perfect, but because it gives them real control to design a network that works in the public interest. Partnerships have achieved nothing other than short-term results. If they worked we would have at least one example of a good NETWORK (stress on that part) and yet at best we have a corridor or two with good results after decades and decades of partnership, which for the Thatcherites, involves substantial amounts of public money.
I’ve repeatedly tried to get my concerns taken seriously by some of the most vocal advocates for partnerships in the industry. But their answers tend to be remarkably one-dimensional, almost everything gets reduced to “bus priority.” That argument might sound good on paper, but it’s tone-deaf to places that already have substantial bus priority measures in place, like Cambridgeshire or West Yorkshire. These are areas where partnership working has been in place for years, yet the long-term outcomes are underwhelming. At best, they delivered short-term improvements that quickly faded. They’ve aged like milk.
When you point this out, the response is often silence or something unrealistic. One particularly surreal example was a discussion about the Headingley corridor in Leeds. It's already heavily prioritised for buses, you physically can’t add more without demolishing homes. Yet the suggestion was to just “do more priority.” This came from someone who has published articles on partnerships and is in direct contact with operators. If that's the best idea the experts can come up with it really underlines how limited the partnership model is in practice.
And crucially, partnerships offer no real solution for areas where physical bus priority simply isn’t viable or possible. Nor do they support the kind of cross-subsidy required to maintain socially necessary services, unless additional public funding is constantly injected. This is why so many authorities are now turning to franchising, not because it is perfect, but because it gives them real control to design a network that works in the public interest. Partnerships have achieved nothing other than short-term results. If they worked we would have at least one example of a good NETWORK (stress on that part) and yet at best we have a corridor or two with good results after decades and decades of partnership, which for the Thatcherites, involves substantial amounts of public money.
You recall incorrectly, that isn't what I argued. Driver recruitment and retention is a key constraint for bus services in Cambridge but that isn't because they are all molecular scientists. Cambridge is one of the most unequal cities in the UK and that's mainly driven by housing undersupply and hence high prices except for those in social housing. The shortage of drivers is because most of them can't afford to live in Cambridge. It was a telling fact that the driver injured in the recent busway collision lived near Spalding, almost 50 miles away.
Actually it is very likely, because the hospitals are on the Biomedical Campus, not in the old city. Lots of ENCTS pass holders have outpatients appointments, or inpatient relatives to visit, and they are higher priority than their occasional visits to the Grand Arcade. The latest estimate from Cambridge Biomedical Campus is almost 40k visitors per day. And, as I have already pointed out, Addenbrookes is also a far better destination for the VIth Form students (of which there are lots) than the old city.
I don't disagree with any of that. I'm sceptical about franchising, but that's where we are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Franchising was one of the old mayor's flagship policies but the new mayor has committed to continue with it. Cambridge has severe issues with congestion, and bus franchising is a new lever that they are keen to try. And, after all, franchising is what is in the discussion title!
Cambridgeshire is not like most counties, and Cambridge is a city like no other, including the other place. Cambridge is a booming economy which means that Stagecoach East have been able to run the Cambridge City services and the major village routes without financial support for many years. That includes the evening and weekend services. Then add on the Park and Ride and busway routes. But, as the driver shortage and increased congestion have squeezed resources, Stagecoach have concentrated on the most profitable routes and ditched the more marginal routes, notably those where they struggle to compete with the train. They are a commercial operator, and put their resources where they can make most money.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Ok - here it is. Greater Manchester are embarking on a brave new world of franchising but, seeing as you are keen on terminology, let's say what it actually is. It's not franchising - they are direct operating contracts. In Manchester, such is the control that there is a mandated internal spec. However, let's also look in Manchester at what is happening. Are they recording like for like increases in patronage... they say 5% but that's not a like for like comparison. I might also point out that they are also trumpeting improvements in reliability and punctuality... but as we've seen, that's not because they've done anything about congestion. Instead, they have added in extra resource so you have the same revenue base but higher costs. That's not a solution. So sorry if you think that bus priority gets too much emphasis but it is the single most important aspect affecting bus ridership. If you don't do something about it, then you have to put in more resources for the same service (most cost - how is that financed/recovered) and journey times become more elongated and less attractive, or you keep the same resources but journey times still become elongated and you have to reduce headways. It's the judgement of Solomon.
In fact, we're seeing this writ large in London - operators build inefficiency into their fleet resources (because of punitive charges that are levied which means that all the operators do it, not surprisingly) and this is passed on in tender prices. Road speeds are now so low that patronage is falling but TfL are chopping back routes in the central area whilst having an increasingly burdensome periphery and that's despite the amount of subsidy. That's a microcosm of what we're seeing in Cambridgeshire - with the exception of the fast Huntingdon to Cambridge service, the rest are highly marginal non-core routes. Hourly Wisbech to Chatteris... imagine what the £500-700k that is being spent on that could do to improve major corridors in Peterborough or Cambridge rather than being wasted?
You are correct that any partnership has to have long term commitment from all parties - local authorities and bus operators. Those have to include clear commitments, legally underpinned, to ensure that this happens and, funnily enough, there are excellent examples from around the country. I might point you to Brighton (of course) but how about Portsmouth where there is excellent bus priority, local marketing, roadside furniture (i.e. shelters etc) and this is backed up by regular investment in new buses from the operators - IIRC, they are now onto their fifth iteration of new vehicles. Or perhaps Leicester, where they have a partnership including six operators where bus patronage is growing year on year, there is substantial investment in electric vehicles, significant bus priority and a focus on developing key corridors with minimum headways, along with integrated ticketing - yes, they have multi-operator capped ticketing. Oh, and they recorded a 14% increase in passengers.
Any partnership is only as good as a) the commitment of all parties and b) the enforcement/construct that is placed around it. Going to your Leeds example, how can you have a partnership where First were committed to a level of new vehicle investment but evidently could reduce that when Covid hit? That smacks of a poorly constructed partnership agreement! Whilst I think that Leeds has done a lot to improve bus priority, there's still a lot that can be done. Dewsbury Road is a prime example of where there is a lack of priority but even in Headingley there is still more to do - red routes that preclude van drivers from hopping out and slapping on the hazards, or blue badge holders from abandoning their cars? Perhaps even restricting cars from more city centre streets so that buses don't get stuck in congestion there.
I was being slightly flippant but basically, you were saying that low paid jobs, such as bus drivers, would be impossible to fill. Clearly, as with many operators, there was a chronic staff shortage post Covid for well documented reasons (i.e. recruitment, training and tests paused for best part of a year, Eastern Europeans heading back at Covid unable to return because of Brexit changes, some staff going on lockdown and electing to retire early).
Now we're seeing that stabilisation of the driving market and whilst there are still pressures, these are much lessened since the days of 2022, hence why additional services can be manned. I think a driver from Spalding driving to Fenstanton (and passing Stagecoach's own Peterborough depot) is perhaps atypical!
Of course, that's all old people do. They go to the main teaching hospital for their ailments rather than doctors' surgeries, health centres etc. And whilst I don't dispute that the campus is a major traffic generator, the city centre still gets footfall of 150k a day (average)
May 2025 Monthly Footfall Report — Cambridge BID
www.cambridgebid.co.uk
And of course, the T4 goes to Addenbrookes on the Saturday when both hospital and campus use is much reduced.
johncrossley
Established Member
If you were here when the Enhanced Partnerships were discussed when announced at great fanfare by the Johnson government, it was supposed to be very different to what came before. Forum members who were sceptical of deregulation and who were previously proponents of franchising were genuinely optimistic. That optimism was obviously misplaced. Even the most comprehensive partnerships, such as Leicester, persevere with nonsense such as single company tickets.
It'll be interesting to see how the opening of Cambridge South affects the levels of traffic in Cambridge. Though it will certainly abstract some patronage from the bus network, the city having its own mini-Crossrail might lead to some substantial reductions in journey time on some of the most congested bits of road.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
As has been mentioned ad nauseum to you, you can have a single operator ticket for £6 in Leicester, or a small premium for £6.30. I guess you'd simply prefer that everyone pays the £6.30 irrespective of the fact that it might be an area where there is no other operator.
Alternatively, you make ticketing easy (as in Leicester) and it doesn't seem to have precluded passenger growth.
It's called choice
johncrossley
Established Member
They are primarily for the benefit of the individual company. For example, in Cambridge there are separate tickets by Whippet and Stagecoach. If Stagecoach took over Whippet you can bet they would withdraw the Whippet tickets. Multi-operator tickets sold at a premium are only a sticking plaster and add unnecessary complexity to the fare system. Multi-operator tickets in Greater Manchester existed for years but the fare system there was still a farce before the Bee Network came in. There will surely be just one range of tickets in the Cambridge urban area when franchising comes in.
Now you're fine in Manchester.
Unless you cross the border.
Depending on whether the journey is Bee Network or not.
A couple of areas found their cross-border bus replaced by a Bee Network bus that no longer crosses the border.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
So let's use the other varsity city as a comparison.
There's a Stagecoach only ticket at £4.60 or a multi-operator on at £5.00. You'd be advocating that the £5 is mandated and the cheaper one removed?
johncrossley
Established Member
You are always going to get a boundary, whether it is at the boundary of a bus company's network or a geographical boundary. Some passengers who used to use a single company ticket now need two tickets. But that can happen under deregulation if one of the routes gets taken over by a different company.
The former West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, was somewhat sceptical about franchising yet there is now a unified ticketing system within the West Midlands. So it doesn't matter whether you use National Express or Diamond buses as long as you stay within the West Midlands county.
Stan Drews
Established Member
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Those with a glass half full outlook see a single operator ticket at a discount.
Those with a glass half empty outlook see it as a multi-operator ticket at a premium.
Thanks for finding this, I thought that it must exist somewhere, though I still can't find a way for navigating to it from the Cambridge BID homepage.the city centre still gets footfall of 150k a day (average)
May 2025 Monthly Footfall Report — Cambridge BID
But footfall is not number of visitors, unless it has a sophisticated method of eliminating multiple counting (facial recognition?), both within and between locations. I have been in the old city three times in June already, each time I have probably been counted 4 or more times, as I have walked around, based on the list of locations in the table on page 4.
Looking at the data suggests that multiple counting is not eliminated. The table on page 4 indicates the locations where footfall is measured, and they add up to 1153260. Then go to the first row of the table at the bottom of page 3: the week 19-22 footfalls average out at 1153254. The total is clearly the aggregate of all the locations without any attempt to eliminate multiple counts. The small difference between the 2 numbers is almost certainly just a rounding error.
If, on average, everyone is counted more than 4 times on each visit, then the old city number of visitors is smaller than the Biomedical Campus.
Another thing that the location data does is give an indirect indication of the tourism contribution. Most of the footfall in Kings Parade, Silver Street and Bridge Street is tourists, not ENTCS pass holders from East Cambridgeshire villages. Tourism will be a big chunk of the total in Market Hill and Rose Crescent too.
Note also that the page 4 table includes locations not in the old city, Hills Road and the main railway station, and, comparing 2025 with 2024, the latter is the only location with rapidly growing footfall.
Where footfall data is useful is in showing trends, providing it is measured in a consistent way over time. That's why the report concentrates on period to period changes.
The data on footfall by day and hour are also useful. A key feature is that morning footfall builds later than when most school and work journeys are happening, but lasts into the evening peak.
Another is that days of the week are different. I agree that there is a case for going to Drummer Street on Saturdays. However, hospitals have always been 24/7 operations, especially inpatients, A+E and maternity. Outpatients is becoming more of a 24/7 activity too, especially appointments involving expensive capital equipment such as scanners.
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Dwarfer1979
Member
There are pros and cons of doing it either way but either way the transition can't be rushed and shouldn't be forced. Most passengers, even in a city with multiple operators, only use one operator or even route and forcing them to buy a more expensive ticket just because it can be used on buses they don't use will be seen as unreasonable. Even if you want to get to a single ticket for the area it has to be done via persuasion not force. What you do is increase the price of the multi-operator ticket slower than the single operator ones do so the price gap closes to the point that customers no longer see the transfer as an unreasonable forced price rise when you finally take that step. Leicester is almost there so I wouldn't be surprised to see development there in the future though there will also be the issue that one operator may want a slightly different zone to include something that isn't within the multi-operator zone (& Leicester has this with a number of settlements just outside the zone) which may mean an operator specific ticket that is very similar to the multi-operator has to remain for those passengers. Leicester has certainly been pushing the Flexi heavily since the launch of the partnership so they may well be aiming for this end but haven't yet reached the point they feel they can take that last step, the West Midlands have got their but their partnership process started earlier than Leicester.
There is no intrinsic reason why having multiple tickets available at different price points offering different options as long as it is clearly promoted and explained and even Manchester struggles there, they have two tickets with almost identical names and almost identical prices with different validity (mostly for cross boundary travel) which creates confusion where the difference occurs.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Except that they do specifically state "total number of visitors". They've employed an independent business to ascertain indicative figures and yes, they do use technology to capture this information. Naturally, there will be limitations through their methodology, but I'd wager the 37,000 figure quoted for the biomedical campus is equally directional.
Tourism is a key part of Cambridge's economy - again, there are (on average) 22,000 visitors to central Cambridge every day and, of course, that supports jobs. Jobs related to the tourism industry make up c.22% so that's about 12,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly related, and that's aside from non-tourist related retail. Again, I'm sure that these are indicative - you might not wish to bet your house on the actual figure but it'll be in the ball park.
After all, what you're saying is that Cambridge BID are quoting fundamentally flawed figures that are out by 400%, provided by an independent specialist research company who are equally poor at data aggregation despite it being their raison d'etre?
I'm not, and never have said, that the biomedical campus isn't an important traffic objective. However, I struggle to think of a major town or city where the centre isn't the main public transport objective.
Again, that's rather selective. Whilst hospitals are open 24/7 for A&E and maternity, the NHS is overwhelmingly a Monday to Friday operation. And of course, for A&E and maternity, you're not typically getting the bus!
In the categories that we were referring to such as consultations, follow ups, procedures, and even minor surgeries etc, these are still predominantly Mon to Fri activities. It's one of the problems of the NHS, and whilst there's been talk of a 7 day NHS for the last 10 years, the staffing and cost challenges still preclude that.
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To be fair, there are, in my area of residence at least, increasing numbers of appointments for scans and other tests that are being done at weekends and in the evening. My wife has recently had these on Saturday evening at 8pm and Sunday morning at 7.45am for instance. Whilst it cannot be expected that hospitals will be in full flow in every Department 24/7 soon, there are signs of (particularly expensive equipment) being used over a greater span of the day and week.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
Don't get me wrong - it's the right thing to do in sweating expensive assets and it's better than 10 years ago. However, it is still heavily weighted to a Mon-Fri service.
It is important to understand what the figures are and how to interpret them.
Table 4 of the report gives figures for 11 different locations, and they add up to the total in table 3. The table 3 totals clearly do not eliminate multiple counting between the 11 locations in table 4. If I walk through Rose Crescent to get to Heffers in Trinity Street, but walk back via Sidney Street, then I will be counted twice.
The BID are mainly using the footfall data to show trends over time, not levels.
22000 daily tourism visitors to Cambridge is no bigger than 22000 jobs on the Biomedical Campus. A lot more Biomedical Campus workers than tourists will be using local buses.
Yes there are people working in the tourism industry, I know some of them. But there are people working in the NHS too, and I also know some of them. Just as tourism travel includes both tourists and workers, NHS travel includes workers too. Lots of NHS staff work at weekends, on the inpatient wards, on A+E and maternity, and increasingly for outpatients too. Various laboratories will also need to be open for urgent medical tests, haematology for example. There are bits that are still mostly Monday-Friday, such as check-ups with consultants and various back office functions, but they are a declining proportion of the total as the NHS moves towards 24/7 operation in more front-line areas.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
That assumes that you are being counted at least four times and that they don't use technology to manage this.
More pertinently, you're saying that when they declare "The total number of visitors to Cambridge BID for the last 52 weeks is 55,872,216 which is 0.6% down on the previous year." then they are manifestly overstating their figures. Would be much easier if using it for trend analysis (i.e. relative to another period) as you suggest not to publish absolutes anyway? I guess we'll just have to wait until next year until Cambridge South opens and then we'll know which is the larger traffic generator.
The 24/7 NHS is still a long way off. When we first mentioned the T4, I mentioned about the redirection affecting the usual clientele of ENCTS holders and you were saying that they may well have appointments. Seems we've now moved to it being for the workers... Go to any major hospital and yes, they are busy at weekends with A&E stuff and maternity (though even A&E is weighted to Mon to Fri as that's when most people have accidents) as it always has been. Yes, there's more sweating of assets but it still is noticeably quieter away from the core hours. In fact, I could quite cheekily suggest that if the T4 was to support the NHS workers and this extended working day, it might have been better to give the T4 an evening service and not the T7
johncrossley
Established Member
This indicates to me that the city could do a lot more to encourage cycling, despite the city's good reputation for it. Cycling has even more potential in Cambridge than in the average Dutch city. Cambridge is flat just like the Netherlands but has a particularly dry climate, drier than in the Netherlands. In a typical Dutch city the size of Cambridge, cycling dwarfs bus use, meaning that buses are always unprofitable. There is an uncomfortable truth that that while optimal cycling conditions compete well with the car on short distances (which is the main reason for promoting cycling), cycling has a bigger potential impact on bus use. Hence that is why bus companies lobby against cycling. Also, I suspect the combined authority is also concerned by the potential need for increased subsidy to buses (whether or not there is franchising) if cycling use is increased.
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