Government announces "New mass transit taskforce"

[Magdalia]

THe same constraint applies to any new bus priority measures. Without priority measures, there's no feasible way of massively improving transport along these routes without banning private cars completely (unworkable). What do you propose?

What I don't do is fantasy proposals for mass transit on single carriageway roads with lots of side turnings.

If you want to get anywhere other than Cambridge city centre or the town in the other direction

Where people want to get to is places of employment and education. Many of them are located near the railway stations.

Look at a route like Trumpington (west side, where most of the homes are) to Arbury.

Why? This is a journey that very few people are making.

PR3 to city centre (susceptible to congestion), walk to other bus stop, then the 1 to Arbury (also susceptible to congestion).

Or get the A straight through to Histon Road and Orchard Park.

Or you can walk/cycle to Cam South, take the train 2 stops, then walk/cycle at the other end. Won't be faster and you're lucky if your bike is still there when you come back.

Anyone that has a bike will cycle all the way.

Additionally there'll be no east-west links at all, particularly with no Cherry Hinton train station.

It now looks like there will be Cambridge East. There will be Cambourne too when EWR comes.

If you're looking to establish better links into Cambridge city centre from outside the city

Cambridge already has 4 rail lines and 2 busways, with more to come. The 2 rail routes coming in from the south and the 2 busways both have spare capacity. The first thing to do is to make best use of what's already here.

What is most needed is to get traffic that's going from one side of the city to the other off the roads and onto the trains. My main action would be through bus/rail ticketing, and bus routes to/from Cambridge North and Cambridge South.

The font of all true knowledge- er, Wikipedia- identifies seventy-six urban areas in Britain with a population of over 100,000, the smallest of these being Worcester, although there are inevitably some questions of where you draw the line

The Office for National Statistics produced Built Up Area populations for England based on the 2021 census, with 66 places outside London having more than 100k population.

 

[The Ham]

I'm not sure about "clearly"

The point was around the desire of many places in the UK wishing to have better public transport solutions.

We can't build our way out of traffic congestion, as "just more lane" never works (unless it's one more bus/cycle lane) as all that does is encourage more car use.

My point about Basingstoke wasn't to say that it should have a tram, rather that we've got a lot of places with much larger populations (do i need to mention Leeds) which could justify a tram yet other places with a population of the size of Basingstoke have justified a tram (and one which has an underground section).

Clearly there's places which have little or no public transport, but that's not an option for many (if any) of our cities.

Actually, arguably many high rise buildings have a mass transport system.

I presume that few would have a significant issue with this definition:
A mass transport system is a shared, high-capacity transportation network designed to move large volumes of people or materials efficiently along fixed routes within a defined space or region.

As such a lift meets this definition:
Shared, yes as rarely are lifts solely for only one person ever (although there's examples of dedicated lifts to penthouses these are fairly rare and likewise then there's plenty of examples of buses under private ownership which aren't shared)
Large volumes, yes rarely is it designed for less than 3 people and as the building gets bigger lift capacity increases to meet peak demand without significant delays - again where lifts are limited in size that's often due to limited demand or trying to fit one into an existing building (which can also be the issue with buses, trams and rail schemes)
Transportation, yes they move people and/or goods
Fixed route, yes
Defined space, yes

Yet the perception of them is very different to many people, for example people will happily use a lift but never want to use a bus.

 

[Magdalia]

Yet the perception of them is very different to many people, for example people will happily use a lift but never want to use a bus.

That's because the lift does not have another option that is analogous to the car, the only alternative to the lift is the stairs, which is analogous to walking.

I live in an apartment block with lifts, and I have worked in many office blocks with lifts. There are lots of people not happy using lifts. Here I have neighbours who always use the stairs. But my favourite example is a work colleague when I worked in a tower so tall that it had inner suburban and outer suburban lifts. One set of lifts served floors 1-15 and the other set floors 15 and above. We worked above the 15th floor, but my colleague would use the inner suburban lifts to the 15th floor and then walk up the stairs, to avoid sharing an outer suburban lift with anyone they knew. If there had been an option analogous to the car, then my colleague would have used it.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Can we please not make the same mistake in Bristol of trying to call buses mass transit (like we did with the metrobus scheme). Yes buses are an important part of public transport, especially somewhere like Bristol where large portions of the city are entirely disconnected. But they are not replacements for rail (be it heavy or light).

 

[aron2smith]

(Without getting into another tedious argument about exactly how the oh-so-perfect Germans would pigeon hole such schemes) Urban networks function in places like Sheffield and Liverpool because there's clear demand to get between "suburbs" and the city centre, that's where the high frequency bus corridors would otherwise be.

It's an obvious link from where people live to where they work/ shop/ socialise

Throwing together a bunch of satellite towns around the northern bit of the M25 to create an orbital link in a region where most of the traffic seems to be north/south seems "brave"

Maybe there's some huge untapped demand to get between Welwyn Garden City and Harlow, but it feels more like some councils trying to get central government funding to create a kind of "everyone but London" club.

I can see why someone living in e.g. Southport will want to travel into the nearby big city to work/ shop/ socialise. There'll obviously be 'some' demand from Welwyn to Harlow but nothing like the demand that there obviously will be for travel between those satellites and the huge city on the other side of the M25

Whilst these seven towns will have a larger combined population, the main demand isn't necessarily to travel between them, and the low density of all the modern housing estates that you'll be including in these figures will be very hard to penetrate

Riding the buses here, there is a lot of town to town travel, more than you think. The problem is an inconsistent messy web of services, all with different frequencies and standards. Herts BSIP tried to coordinate things a bit more but buses stuck in mixed traffic can only go so far. Buses only running hourly in many cases are another limit to their usefulness.

I've used the 907 since it launched and these days it really surprises me how Hertford and Ware seemingly pack out the bus with everyone wanting to go to Stevenage, which was awkward before. Similarly a lot of people going between Hatfield and St Albans, St Albans to Hemel Hempstead and St Albans to Watford. Interestingly Uno claims their ridership between Potters Bar and Hatfield basically doubled after taking over the 242 and 243 and co-ordinating their timetables to run every half hour over this section. Seen people online say the 724 is regularly packed over night when its least expected.

The trains may be quick but in a number of towns here, stations are in useless isolated locations, away from town centres, employment areas, hospitals etc. The university also miles from Hatfield station. Also I don't think it is accurate people only want to go north to south, that's basically all the infrastructure really allows for if you don't drive, hence all the congestion. With your logic, even Superloop imperfectly around London wouldn't have been tried and yet there's clear demand for point to point connections between outer town centres, whether it's infill development or fields between them.

And London would benefit from improved public transport and infrastructure to the north of it, less pressure on its roads from everyone who feels they have to drive and less pressure on the tube and big London terminuses. The basic idea is to make it easier to access more opportunities. You don't judge the usefulness of a bridge by how many people are willing to swim across.

And even as satellite towns they still need high quality public transport and with the lack of a regional transport authority encompassing both London and the Home Counties, it unfortunately still falls on county level. I get your point but the approach needs to be different, Herts has a highly urbanised population now, it part thanks to the green belt and new towns policies making that population more spread out and further away from London. It's only getting more built up and at the same time, North London is densifying, government at every level looking at the bigger picture and joining the dots is essential.

 

[The Ham]

Riding the buses here, there is a lot of town to town travel, more than you think. The problem is an inconsistent messy web of services, all with different frequencies and standards. Herts BSIP tried to coordinate things a bit more but buses stuck in mixed traffic can only go so far. Buses only running hourly in many cases are another limit to their usefulness.

I've used the 907 since it launched and these days it really surprises me how Hertford and Ware seemingly pack out the bus with everyone wanting to go to Stevenage, which was awkward before. Similarly a lot of people going between Hatfield and St Albans, St Albans to Hemel Hempstead and St Albans to Watford. Interestingly Uno claims their ridership between Potters Bar and Hatfield basically doubled after taking over the 242 and 243 and co-ordinating their timetables to run every half hour over this section. Seen people online say the 724 is regularly packed over night when its least expected.

The trains may be quick but in a number of towns here, stations are in useless isolated locations, away from town centres, employment areas, hospitals etc. The university also miles from Hatfield station. Also I don't think it is accurate people only want to go north to south, that's basically all the infrastructure really allows for if you don't drive, hence all the congestion. With your logic, even Superloop imperfectly around London wouldn't have been tried and yet there's clear demand for point to point connections between outer town centres, whether it's infill development or fields between them.

And London would benefit from improved public transport and infrastructure to the north of it, less pressure on its roads from everyone who feels they have to drive and less pressure on the tube and big London terminuses. The basic idea is to make it easier to access more opportunities. You don't judge the usefulness of a bridge by how many people are willing to swim across.

And even as satellite towns they still need high quality public transport and with the lack of a regional transport authority encompassing both London and the Home Counties, it unfortunately still falls on county level. I get your point but the approach needs to be different, Herts has a highly urbanised population now, it part thanks to the green belt and new towns policies making that population more spread out and further away from London. It's only getting more built up and at the same time, North London is densifying, government at every level looking at the bigger picture and joining the dots is essential.

An hourly bus service is all but useless for most people as it's unlikely to match up with when they want to leave or get somewhere.

One thing which could work is to create a number of hourly bus service (which runs in both directions adding each route) which runs something like:
Route 10: Town A, Village A, Village B, Town B
Route 20: Town B, Village B, Village C, Town C
Route 30, Town C, Village C, Village A, Town A

In doing so the frequency between villages isn't great at 1bph, however between each village and their nearest town they have 2bph.

It also gives the potential option for going the long way around (Village A to C via Village B, over going directly between Village A and C) as whilst the journey time may be longer it still might be quicker than waiting for the next direct bus.

To get travel between the villages to almost 2bph there could be an hourly bus service which runs in one direction creating a loop between the three villages (probably with a 4 minute pause within each village as padding to give recovery time). The next upgrade would be to run that in both directions to shorten the time to get from (say) Village B to Village A (assuming the loop is A, B, C, A).

If any route gets busy enough to become 2bph there's then 3bph on the village to nearest town links if both buses through a village got to being 2bph the village to nearest town becomes 4bph and so becomes transformative in terms of bus use.

Although, the loop between the villages could be at risk of being cut if there's 2bph on all three of the other routes, as the need for it reduces.

Obviously that would need 3 fairly large villages laid out in such a way that it could work (i.e. not just in a straight line along a road with no viable alternative routes).

The other thing which would aid bus travel is to run buses through a town (where they currently go to a bus station and stop), as then for those on the outer edges of the town it becomes much easier to get to the part of the town which is the other side of the centre served by the same bus.

This becomes super useful for out of town centres of employment and hospitals as it increases the number of people with a direct bus to them.

 

[The exile]

Even before we start putting spades in the ground on multi-billion £ projects - let’s start where the most successful continental transport areas did - full ticket integration (closely followed by doing the same thing with timetables). But I forgot - that doesn’t generate headlines so the politicians aren’t interested.

 

[Magdalia]

Even before we start putting spades in the ground on multi-billion £ projects - let’s start where the most successful continental transport areas did - full ticket integration

For Cambridge this is number 1 on my list. Someone living in Northstowe and working on the Biomedical Campus needs to be able to commute with one ticket on the bus to Cambridge North then the train to Cambridge South.

 

[geoffk]

I read somewhere that this is what happens in France, it does seem a good idea

France and Spain have both outstripped the UK in building new light rail networks since the 1980s, all three countries having started from a similar point by closing most of their first generation tramways after WW2.

What lessons can be learnt from them, apart from planning transport provision into new housing development, rather than as an afterthought, higher density homes, and the right local powers and funding?

In the UK we have the Workplace Parking Levy, used in Nottingham to fund improvements in public transport and cut congestion. I believe it's the only live example to date, although Oxford and Bristol are examining its potential.

 

[aron2smith]

An hourly bus service is all but useless for most people as it's unlikely to match up with when they want to leave or get somewhere.

I agree and think Cheshunt got the short end of the straw as 3 of its 5 bus routes are hourly only. Lack of late evening services is also a major problem. I've found I can reliably get the train into London for an evening/ night out but can't do the same with the local bus to the towns 4 and 6 miles away! No wonder London is always packed while the small orbiting towns appear to be struggling.

One thing which could work is to create a number of hourly bus service (which runs in both directions adding each route) which runs something like:
Route 10: Town A, Village A, Village B, Town B
Route 20: Town B, Village B, Village C, Town C
Route 30, Town C, Village C, Village A, Town A

In doing so the frequency between villages isn't great at 1bph, however between each village and their nearest town they have 2bph.

It also gives the potential option for going the long way around (Village A to C via Village B, over going directly between Village A and C) as whilst the journey time may be longer it still might be quicker than waiting for the next direct bus.

To get travel between the villages to almost 2bph there could be an hourly bus service which runs in one direction creating a loop between the three villages (probably with a 4 minute pause within each village as padding to give recovery time). The next upgrade would be to run that in both directions to shorten the time to get from (say) Village B to Village A (assuming the loop is A, B, C, A).

If any route gets busy enough to become 2bph there's then 3bph on the village to nearest town links if both buses through a village got to being 2bph the village to nearest town becomes 4bph and so becomes transformative in terms of bus use.

This is the thing, Hertfordshire is not a string of villages anymore, Watford, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage and neighbouring Harlow are either over 100000 each or not so far off and all are expected to grow further, add in twin towns like Welwyn-Hatfield, Hertford-Ware or the string of towns making up the Borough of Broxbourne, it's significant and unsurprisingly traffic is amongst the worst in the country and comparable to congestion in London.

What I should've elaborated on is it isn't just hourly services between these places and apart of the BSIP's point was to even out frequencies between towns to create corridors between the towns, of which villages are sometimes on the way. The county has done more or less what you said but not everywhere and still more work to do.

For example, I travelled through both Stevenage and Letchworth the other day, I didn't realise there were 2 routes providing 3 buses an hour now. They did the same between Hertford and Stevenage, 2 hourly routes coordinated to provide a bus every 30 minutes between the 2, they've done this in a number of places and to avoid repeating the summary of changes, I'll link the page detailing it. https://www.intalink.org.uk/bus-services-bsip

Also fair points, I think what is lacking here is the priority and the infrastructure that consistently links up the buses with the excellent rail network. I don't know if the Hertfordshire Essex Rapid Transit (basically the Belfast Glider) is the solution but I went to an event on it recently and asked about frequency and journey times and if what they said ends up happening, it would be transformational for public transport here. This vehicle would run every 10 minutes and a maximum journey time of 90 minutes from Harlow to Hemel is their target. Given the 724 only runs hourly and takes 2 hours just to get from Hertford and Watford, that is quite an improvement.

Also they are obviously bigger but with how Hertfordshire has built up, I can't help but compare it to South Yorkshire or even West Yorkshire, just there's more fields and a lack of dominant city here (London being that here instead). And Sheffield and Leeds, yet alone their satellite towns seem quite low density to me. And quite telling with both, that Leeds first tram line is about connecting to its neighbour city, Bradford. While any expansion of Sheffield Supertram is about connecting Sheffield possibly with Chesterfield more frequently. So not so much these cities own suburbs but more about the neighbouring town.

The Tyne and Wear Metro today doing the same thing and even more true with the Washington extension.

Obviously all 3 of these regions have strong regional leaders by having mayors across sensible boundaries. Hertfordshire has neither and even if it got a mayor, it and each home county would have to coordinate with each other and with London as much as possible to avoid cock ups like the Croxley Link happening again.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jun 2026 ==

Even before we start putting spades in the ground on multi-billion £ projects - let’s start where the most successful continental transport areas did - full ticket integration (closely followed by doing the same thing with timetables). But I forgot - that doesn’t generate headlines so the politicians aren’t interested.

Agreed. Something I think should happen with the contactless expansion in the South East. Would be a missed opportunity to not include buses as well.

 

[Technologist]

The situation in Cambridge at least is that all the other methods tried to reduce congestion haven't worked great. The Sustainable Travel Zone (or any way of banning cars, that is) never got off the ground and you can't increase bus frequency and usage without reducing the rush hour congestion in the first place. The only long-term scenario that seems likely at the moment is continuous stagnation, putting a limit on how much Cambridge can grow as an 'innovative' modern city. Lots of parallels with other UK cities in this respect.

Mass transit is no silver bullet, the key issue being that most inner urban suburbs are still low density unlike on the continent, but we're at the point where non-major interventions don't make much of a difference.

This is why the powers all need to be combined, the Mayor should have the ability to densify areas (in most cases massively enriching the current land owners), put in public transport and be able to capture revenues proportional to the value these things create.

The example often given is that in France if you build a nuclear power plant you get to collect the business rates and a portion of the income tax generated there. As a result there are areas where they don't even pay their council tax equivalent because a local facility pays it for them.

 

[Magdalia]

This is why the powers all need to be combined, the Mayor should have the ability to densify areas (in most cases massively enriching the current land owners), put in public transport and be able to capture revenues proportional to the value these things create.

Cambridge won't have densification for many reasons. One of them is that the street network can't support mass transit, another is that land ownership is primarily either with the colleges or dispersed amongst many owner occupiers. This means that any remaining big parcels of land with good public transport access get gobbled up by commercial developers not residential.

Cambridge already has a clear development policy with Cambourne, Northstowe and Waterbeach, and the draft local plan shows that continuing.

As it happens there have already been two important announcements about Cambridge this week, on the Development Corporation and Cambridge East, which I have covered here:

What would the ideal Oxbridge Arc look like?

Something of interest to this thread: Centre for British Progress had released a piece of work recommending properly going all out on the Oxford Cambridge axis by having a development corporation for the whole area which would have the powers to call in all the planning powers in the region as...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[edwin_m]

In hindsight, after the (high floor) Manchester and (lose floor) Sheffield networks opened in the early nineties, we should have used them as the template for further projects

Instead, Nottingham/ West Midlands/ Croydon/ Edinburgh etc all designed and built bespoke networks, so there's no commonality.

Aren't the trams used pretty much off the shelf from Europe and interchangeable?

Metrolink was designed around the "Stadtbahn B" which is pretty much a de facto standard for the extensive high-floor networks in Germany, with a vehicle about 30m long, 2.65m wide and compatible with 25m radius curves. The original vehicles were bespoke only because that was what the original bidder offered, and the M5000 is pretty much a Stadtbahn B compatible from Koeln.

Sheffield was rather similar but went for low platforms and needed all axles motored because of the gradients. Birmingham was another one that went for a cheap vehicle and found it was a false economy, but the current fleet is the same basic design as Edinburgh. Croydon got a lightly modified version of the low-floor variant of the Koeln design, and later added more trams which had actually been built for somewhere else. Blackpool now has similar vehicle dimensions to the others but may still need sub-25m curve compatibility. Nottingham had to go for a narrower vehicle and a tighter curve radius due to the constraints of the city centre, so is incompatible with the other UK networks but similar to some in France.

So all the UK tram networks have compatibility with Continental networks that will have a continuing need for trams to the same basic specification. Also, tram suppliers offer basic "platform" designs that can be adapted in length, width and various other ways to meet customers' needs.

There is also quite a lot of commonality between the UK networks themselves except Manchester and Nottingham - technically they could probably do a joint vehicle procurement with small variations, although the risk of one of them suddenly losing funding and sinking the whole idea makes it pretty unlikely that would ever happen.