The Cambridgeshire 'Busway'

[deltabravo]

The long awaited Cambridgeshire Busway will finally open this Sunday. I'm going to be very interested to see how many people will use this. Its fair to say that its not been that popular since construction started.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-14418525

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/around/thebusway/howitworks/

 

[transportphoto]

Yes, I am making a trip out on Monday to pay a visit

 

[gingerheid]

I'll be having a run on it tomorrow.

I moved away from Huntingdon because the hassle of travelling to Cambridge was too much, but I don't think the Busway would tempt me to move back.

In particular; the buses will take longer to get there than they did when I moved away in 2006...

 

[radamfi]

I'll be having a run on it tomorrow.

I moved away from Huntingdon because the hassle of travelling to Cambridge was too much, but I don't think the Busway would tempt me to move back.

In particular; the buses will take longer to get there than they did when I moved away in 2006...

Anyone else go on it today?

Busway seemed remarkably smooth and swift. However there was a massive turn out and buses were overwhelmed despite extra buses running meaning huge delays.

 

[gingerheid]

I really wasn't impressed. The GPS on my phone said the bus was going at 45-49mph, which it could have easily have managed on the A14, and given that disruptions on the busway are more likely to be serious than disruptions on the A14 (harder to drive around), even if less frequent, I'd rather take my chances on the A14.

I didn't think the ride quality was that impressive - I'm pretty sure I felt every joint, and the people around me were moaning about it too.

I was on the first bus out Cambridge, which wasn't that busy and certainly wasn't close to full, but it also lost extra time on top of it's already late departure time while on the Busway.

The return journey from Huntingdon was very busy and full most of the way from St Ives. It lost 27 mins over the course of the trip, the majority of this being on the guided section!

There seems to be a lot of small teething problems to be ironed out. The traffic lights in Orchard Park stopped the bus at every junction, one set of traffic lights on the guideway was being controlled by someone with a laptop on top of the control box, a lot of the ticket machines weren't working, many of the electronic displays were giving wrong timetable information (ie at Drummer Street) or information for the wrong time of day, and some of the publicity material is confusing (like the routemap being upside down and Cambridge station appearing on it twice).

There's also some usability issues with the ticket machines, like the destinations likely to be most commonly travelled to being hidden well down the list of options, and them only selling four tickets at at time (which could be a problem if you wanted to buy five tickets by debit card and the fifth one was under the £3 transaction limit).

Lasting impression would be that I can't believe they spend so much on something that's... not that wonderful.

I live hoping that one day it will see tram trains that will finish up with an on street section from Cambridge station to a loop round the outside of Parker's Piece. Other countries can do it; we ought to be able to do it too.

 

[radamfi]

I live hoping that one day it will see tram trains that will finish up with an on street section from Cambridge station to a loop round the outside of Parker's Piece. Other countries can do it; we ought to be able to do it too.

Where else is there an interurban tram line the length of St Ives to Cambridge? There is the 68 km Kusttram in Belgium I suppose but that was built over 100 years ago. And is pretty urbanised along most of the route. I can't think of a modern tram line that passes through such a large amount of countryside. I guess tram-trains following the Karlsruhe model might be feasible, although the Cambridge area is low population to consider such as system.

I still think the Zuidtangent system in the suburbs of Amsterdam is the best busway I've seen, although not guided.

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuidtangent_(Noord-Holland)

A 40 km route with its own road from the airport to Haarlem and comprehensive priority along the rest. Several viaducts and tunnels were built for this project. The Dutch were prepared to spend over 200 million euros to make the best possible bus service.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Quite how bosses in one of the world's most intelligent cities approved this is beyond me. I hope it fails. I want it to be worse than the Millenium Dome, the Big Bang and the Edinburgh Tram combined. I would take a trip on it, yet I suspect I would throw up on it in self-disguist.

As you can tell, I hate it.

 

[WestCoast]

As you can tell, I hate it.

Is that in addition to light rail now?

I don't think there is much point to a guided busway - why not just build a road for buses only like the Kent Fast-track? It would be a lot cheaper and quicker by the sounds of it, but it doesn't sound quite so "innovative"...:roll:

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Is that in addition to light rail now?

I don't think there is much point to a guided busway - why not just build a road for buses only like the Kent Fast-track? It would be a lot cheaper and quicker by the sounds of it, but it doesn't sound quite so "innovative"...:roll:

I don't mind light rail too much now, I think the entire coverage of the ML on Saturday has helped a bit to that.

 

[WestCoast]

I don't mind light rail too much now, I think the entire coverage of the ML on Saturday has helped a bit to that.

It beats a bus every time! I do like the trams in Sheffield whizzing up and down the hills and on the roads.

Is Go Whippet (always loved the name!) running any buses on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway or is it all Stagecoach?

 

[gingerheid]

@radamfi - it was Karlsruhe and Nordhausen that I was thinking of - they set trams off into some very rural areas, and Nordhausen itself is a fraction of Cambridge's size! Also, just about every major city in E Europe proves (and many in W Europe as well, like Freiburg) that's it's possible to run trams down ordinary streets and stop them at ordinary stops and just tell people not to get run down.

@WestCoast Go Whippet are running one bus an hour M-Sa daytime and 4 buses on Sun, but only on the northern part of the route (v either 3 or 6 Stagecoach buses an hour, depending on the part of the route). I fear they may not last long. They are also carrying on running on the non-guided route, where I think they may have some success!

In general terms:

As well as the project being wrong; there's a million reasons the implementation is bad too.

For example, who thought it was a good idea to insist on the buses of two operators that don't take each other's tickets being in the same livery? And who thought it was a good idea to run a service 'B' non stop down a road where the stopping service is the '8'?

 

[jopsuk]

gingerheid- that's not quite right, Whippet's "C" service is half hourly, as are the Stagecoach "A" and "B" services, giving every-ten-minutes along the northern Busway only- the southern has a lesser service.

As for busway versus new road? The advantage is the Busway is narrower. This means that there's plenty of space for the foot/cycle/bridleway along side. Which is nice. This doesn't excuse the cost, or the whole "the problem's the centre of town, where the buses will still get stuck anyway" issue.

 

[radamfi]

For example, who thought it was a good idea to insist on the buses of two operators that don't take each other's tickets being in the same livery? And who thought it was a good idea to run a service 'B' non stop down a road where the stopping service is the '8'?

There is a joint smartcard scheme between Stagecoach and Go Whippet where you get 10 singles for a set price depending on distance, and almost uniquely in Britain, allows for free transfers. But yes, deregulation applies on the busway and therefore companies are free to compete on fares. They could have a Statutory Quality Partnership meaning complete inter availability of fares but that requires agreement with all parties. Go Whippet were charging £1 singles yesterday suggesting they aren't in the mood for compromise.

Of course, we would all love every bus route to be run by modern trams but the costs are prohibitive. I just can't see this route being run by tram when there are so many far more obvious potential bus to tram conversions in major cities up and down the country.

Would a tram be much quicker anyway, given that there are stops every mile or so on the busway? Did heavy rail enthusiasts want intermediate stops?

 

[gingerheid]

gingerheid- that's not quite right, Whippet's "C" service is half hourly, as are the Stagecoach "A" and "B" services, giving every-ten-minutes along the northern Busway only- the southern has a lesser service.

No - Whippet's C is only hourly, it is their service that doesn't run on the busway that is half hourly. Stagecoach's A and B both run every 20 mins, which gives a combined Stagecoach frequency of 6 an hour on most of the northern busway, but not the Orchard Park and Science Park stretches.

You can get timetables from www.thebusway.info

 

[jopsuk]

Ah, I see- I'd only skimmed the timetables, thought the services were interlinked- the Whippet service means the guideway service is seven an hour.
As for a tramway- I'm not sue where you'd route the tramway after it reached Milton Road- the centre would be especially tricky.
For heavy rail, there were stations previously at Histon, Oakington, Longstanton, Swavesy and St Ives. I think the proposal would have included a parkway/junction station at Chesterton. That's pretty much all the stops on the northern guideway apart from Cambridge Regional College and Fen Drayton Lakes.

 

[anthony263]

Ok sounds good in theory, but i think it was a waste of time & money, personally think a tram line would have been better that said how about a trollybus?

 

[gingerheid]

As for a tramway- I'm not sue where you'd route the tramway after it reached Milton Road- the centre would be especially tricky.

If tram-trains were used then the wonderful thing would be that the railway starts pretty much where the busway ends Other countries would manage to fit trams down Station Rd and Hills Rd, so we could too if we wanted to!

 

[jopsuk]

Station Road and Hills Road would be no problem, Regent Street would be a bit tight as would the south end of Milton Road.

Anthony- what possible problem would a trolley system solve? One of the saving graces of the busway is that the buses can divert via normal roads in the case of a brekadown, if you added trolley wires to the mix (no technical reason why you couldn't have a guided trolley bus) it would just be a mess.

 

[radamfi]

I would have thought that the buses could be replaced by battery powered buses within 10 years. Buses could be charged at terminii and charging could also be undertaken whilst stopped on each stop on the guideway if pads were placed between the rails.

 

[gordonthemoron]

surely a guided trolleybus is a tram? or one of these:

 

[HST Power]

Saw a bit about the scheme on BBC News today. Apparently, it would've been better to just rebuild the railway line. Whilst the buses have the chance to avoid the Cambridge A roads, they still end up going through the city, so it does little for congestion. Though I rather like the idea, and I hope it turns out to be a success for the people of Cambridge.

 

[radamfi]

Saw a bit about the scheme on BBC News today. Apparently, it would've been better to just rebuild the railway line. Whilst the buses have the chance to avoid the Cambridge A roads, they still end up going through the city, so it does little for congestion. Though I rather like the idea, and I hope it turns out to be a success for the people of Cambridge.

But the railway line would not stop in the city centre, which is the main reason for not reinstating the railway line.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Wikipedia's front page mentions the opening of the guideway. So it is one of the most important events in the world!

 

[WatcherZero]

Indeed the point is to serve the stops in the city centre, not to just dump you on the edge of it and leave you to make your own way to your ultimate destination.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

So if Cambridge station was in the city centre, the line would have reopened as heavy rail?

 

[WatcherZero]

And you would still have had to change to a bus to get to your destination.

 

[radamfi]

How's the service running today?

 

[gingerheid]

Someone I know that isn't a regular bus user decided to try out the southern section, but got cheesed off as they waited 10 mins after the departure time while the display changed between 2m, 1m, DUE and back again.

Other than that no idea!

 

[yorksrob]

And you would still have had to change to a bus to get to your destination.

Not if your destination was London, Kings Lynn, Stanstead Airport, anywhere via Peterborough etc......

 

[Aictos]

Wikipedia's front page mentions the opening of the guideway. So it is one of the most important events in the world!

It's only because it's now the longest operational guided busway in the world which means it now ought to also be in the Guinness Book of Records....

surely a guided trolleybus is a tram? or one of these:

Now that looks far better then the the white elephant aka Guided Busway in use, surely it would have been far better to use Trams as you lose all benefits of the Guided Buses anyway in Cambridge city centre.

 

[WatcherZero]

Not if your destination was London, Kings Lynn, Stanstead Airport, anywhere via Peterborough etc......

So you think that these services would be routed onto the former line to Huntingdon if it was reopened? A town of 20,000, what kind of rail services do you expect it would have recieved? Else the bus goes to the station anyway.