From our legal correspondent...

A post I wrote back in June 2020 attempted to bring readers as up to date on the legal claims surrounding Busway construction as was possible, given the paucity of information in the public domain. If nothing else, it served as a reminder that the issue is far from resolved.

Fast forward 7 months - which probably counts as "speedy" in the legal world - and the current case has taken another turn. It's reported that BAM Nuttall, alongside insurance company Zurich, have recently submitted a counter claim, alleging that the County Council owes them £1m in "retention fees" from when BAM Nuttall was hired in June 2008.

So to recap: the County Council is claiming £74m, whilst the contractors and their insurers are claiming £1m or so. Don't expect a speedy resolution!

The information comes from a legal news website Law360 (part of Lexis Nexis). Unfortunately, most of the article sits behind a paywall, but in case any of you has access, here's the link.

How the flooding problem might be overcome?

A recent petition to the County Council raised the issue that is the almost annual closure of the Busway bridleway/maintenance track due to flooding between St Ives and Swavesey. The petition collected 244 signatures in the 3 months it was open.

The petition reads:

• Every year the guided busway cycle path is closed due to flooding between st ives and cambridge. This normally means having to swap from using environmental bikes to commuting by car.
• There are a number improvement options to keep this commuter path open, the most basic being a small path slightly up the bank on the sections that flood for example.
• Will you please consider these improvements to allow this cycleway to be a reliable option for commuters please?

The County Council response reads as follows. Note, in particular, the 3rd paragraph.

• The maintenance track runs alongside the busway in this area.  This is designated as a bridleway but can be closed at any time for works required on the Busway itself under the 2005 Busway Order.  The track sits within flood zones varying from type 2 to type 3 (areas at significant risk of flooding).  This area is designated a flood plain by the Environment Agency.
• At some times of the year the flooding is severe and can reach several metres up the track bank.  To institute a path wide enough for two way cyclists along the bank, without restricting the width of the existing maintenance track for maintenance and without undermining the structure of the bank could prove to be an expensive and unsatisfactory solution.  To have cyclists moved closer to vehicles going 56 mph would be the opposite of what most individuals would wish to achieve.
• The major infrastructure team have been asked to look at whether a solution could be found on the other side of the maintenance track, away from the Busway track itself and if this proves possible, to find sources of funding for it.
• Over 30 million passenger journeys have been undertaken on the Busway since opening in 2011.  The rapid transit system has achieved its goal of being a reliable option for commuters rather than to commute by car.  Therefore the obvious option at present when the maintenance track is flooded is for commuters to use the buses rather than to revert to using their cars.

The petition was formally introduced to the 16 June meeting of the County Council's Highways and Transport Committee, but was not discussed.

Busway construction issues - it's back to court again!

Longer-term readers of this blog will be aware that the original construction of the Busway raised a number of issues regarding costs and alleged construction defects. Back in August 2013, the County Council and contractors BAM Nuttall settled a case out of court. There's more information about this in a couple of our 2013 posts - those of 30 August and 8 September.

Then in December 2016, New Civil Engineer reported that the County Council was suing BAM Nuttall for a £31 million for repair of defects - see the 15 December post. I haven't been able to trace what happened to that claim.

Fast forward to 2020... and the Cambridge Independent reports that the County Council is again pursuing a case against BAM Nuttall. And again over the cost of repairing what the Council alleges are defects. The Cambridge Independent report can be found here.

Now, given the speed at which civil court cases proceed it's possible that this latest one is simply a development from the 2016 claim. Or it might be entirely different.

BAM Nuttall is defending the claim.

New timetables - postponed!

Stagecoach had been planning to introduce new Busway timetables on 1 March (following on from last year's consultation, and the acquisition of additional vehicles). Although the intended timetables are now available to view on Traveline, the rather more important piece of news at this stage is their introduction has been postponed to "an as yet unspecified date". This date will presumably be the one when Highways England and Cambridgeshire County Council finally manage to reopen the stretch of Busway between Histon and Orchard Park. Anyone like to hazard a date for this (I feel I should offer a box of chocolates for the most accurate estimate...)?

Timetable changes from 13 January

[UPDATE 13 Jan, 0835. A friend spotted Stagecoach's announcement of the changes detailed below on the Stagecoach East "Promos and Offers" web page - yes really! That's the only place the information is provided - and it's less complete than my attempt below.

Here are links to: (a) the announcement, and (b) the new timetable.

Enjoy!]

======

I was taken by surprise at St Ives Station Road stop this morning to see a new departure sheet posted. I've checked both the Stagecoach and County Council Busway websites and can find no details of changes to services (or even a simple announcement). But new timetables are available from Traveline, and I've attempted below to identify the changes involved.

Note, first, that there are no changes to Sunday services.

As for the rest of the week (including Saturdays)... The most significant changes are to routes A and D. There seems to be a significant increase in journey times on the stretch between Orchard Park and St Ives town centre. How is this reflected in the timetable?

On city-bound trips, most services will depart St Ives 7 minutes (or thereabouts) earlier than at present, and operate 7 (or so) minutes earlier to Orchard Park. Thereafter timings seem unchanged.

On St Ives-bound trips, most services will depart from the city stops as at present, but after Orchard Park will run 7 (or so) minutes later than at present.

There seem to be changes to how the services are being organised in St Ives beyond the town centre. In addition to changes to the times of buses, there may be some switching of routes between the A and the D (and possibly changes to the routes themselves). Check the new timetable carefully!

The first Mon-Fri departure from Ramsey will be at 0605 (i.e. 15 minutes earlier than at present). Morning departures from other villages and towns into St Ives and Cambridge are 5-10 minutes earlier than previously.

There are changes to the routes taken by both services inside the Biomedical Campus. Southbound services will call at the Royal Papworth only as they leave the campus. Northbound services will call at the Royal Papworth only as they first enter the campus.

There are minor changes on route B, affecting - so far as I can see - only the indicative times at intermediate stops. So, for example, outbound services will notionally call at Shire Hall 3 minutes after leaving Drummer St, 2 minutes earlier than at present. (But this seems a pointless change, since it's rare for buses to arrive by the indicative time even on the 5-minute schedule, so why they're any more likely to reach the Shire Hall a full 2 minutes sooner defies logic!)

There seem to be no changes to services south of Trumpington, nor to route B services north of St Ives.

I apologise if I've missed something that's key to an individual reader's particular journey, but there was a lot of data to wade through. And I was aware that those of you heading off for your Monday commute might appreciate some advance warning.

(When I checked at 2300 on Jan 11 the new timetables were not available on the Stagecoach website, only from Traveline.)

What's in a name?

Apologies to those who already know what follows, but I'm working on the principle that there are some to whom this might be new - and even some of those who might be interested.

It might come as no surprise to learn that there is a national database of bus stops - or, rather, a national database of access points to public transport (including, therefore, all bus stops). It's maintained by the Dept of Transport. Anyone interested in more background in this might want to follow this link. You can even download a copy yourself of the whole or part by following this link.

There are at least two "problems" with this database. One is that some operators choose not to use any of the authorised stop names in their timetables or apps, or on tickets. It's not like there's any penalty for non-compliance! The other is that data schema provides for a number of different names for a particular stop. Whilst there are sound reasons for this (length, for example), it doesn't exactly help provide any sort of consistency.

One particular example may be of interest to readers of this blog. What do you call the Busway Fen Drayton stop? Since there's no obvious ambiguity (nobody's likely to confuse it with one of the stops in Fen Drayton - or are they?), perhaps you simply go for "Fen Drayton". Context is everything!

According to the national database, the official "Common Name" of this stop is:

The Busway Fen Drayton Lakes

The registered short form of the name (needed in situations where the Common Name is too long) is:

Busway Fen Drayton

I don't think I've ever seen either of those in use.

The schema also has a field for 'Landmark'. In this instance the name "Fen Drayton Reserve" is assigned. And Busway users will have no difficulty spotting that this is the name that the signboards on both platforms carry. Someone (not me!) even took a photo of one of the boards, and here it is.

The County Council's Busway map (and their real-time data service, provided by an external contractor) uses "Fen Drayton Lakes" - a simplified form of the Common Name, but not one invested with any authority by the national database. Stagecoach avoid the issue by excluding the stop from its Busway timetable and pretending it doesn't exist (although all this means is that it's not a timing point for journeys).

But at least all of the above are intelligible to the average traveller. Which is more than you can say for an extreme variant which the County Council included in one of their frequent  closure announcements back in September. What is the average passenger supposed to make of this?

"Holywell Ferry stops will be closed"

How much local knowledge should a passenger be expected to bring to their prospective journey? Hands up anyone who was alive when the ferry last operated?

Is there no end to the diversions?

SO,...yet again there's a Busway closure this weekend - this one's between Oakington and Longstanton and will last all day Saturday and Sunday.

The County Council's announcement claims that "all services will be running as normal", but as the diversionary route takes several minutes longer than the direct Busway route, it's hard to take this statement at all seriously. Indeed, one wonders why the County Council feel it's necessary to make this sort of false statement Wouldn't passengers - or those who haven't given up in disgust following a summer of closures and diversions - rather be given accurate, reliable and, above all, truthful information, rather than this misleading spin? Feel free to offer your thoughts in the Comments!

NB: the closure applies equally to buses, cyclists and pedestrians. And, presumably, horses as well.

Ticket machines - going, going, gone...

It's ony a few days since Andrew's post drawing attention, amongst other things, to the fact that the Busway ticket machines have been out of order for some time - and that there was no sign of them being fixed any time soon.

Well, now we know why! According to a CambridgeshireLive report, published earlier today, the County Council is planning to withdraw ticket machines from all Busway and Park & Ride sites at the end of this month - no, make that the end of this week!

I am lost for words. Let's leave it there...

New stops for Houghton & Wyton (at last...)

It's over 6 years since the need for Busway services to be able to serve Houghton & Wyton was first raised on this blog. In early 2013 the parish council commissioned a survey of local residents. And it's just under two years since this blog reported that design work was under way to see the project to fruition.

Well, it finally happened! February 22 saw the official opening of the new stops on the A1123 Houghton Hill Road. There's even a crossing to ensure that villagers aren't mown down by traffic when accessing the new stops.

The Hunts Post was there to record the occasion.

With the recent diversion of half of the daytime Route B services via RAF Wyton, the new stops will see a half-hourly service in both directions. (There are a handful of peak-hour "A" services as well.)

Note: at the time of writing this, there's no indication on Traveline that the new stop exists, or that it's being used. So this is still a "work in progress". But the Parish Council is quite clear that they're operational.

Speed monitoring happens - but only in Trumpington

This is a follow-up to a January 4 post. I said at the end of that post: "I suspect Cllr O'Connell will be persisting with her questions." And that turned out to be an accurate assumption, because a few days later Cllr O'Connell asked the County Council to undertake an internal review of its handling of her original FoI request.


Well, the results of that review have now been posted - and have already been covered in the local media (I saw a piece on the late-evening Look East yesterday).


Two main points gave rise to Cllr O'Connell's request.


1. Non-disclosure of details relating to the portable camera. It turns out the reason for any non-disclosure is that the portable camera "has not yet been utilised". Readers with long memories - an interest in the Busway is assumed, of course! - will recall that the County Council acquired a speed gun (or "portable camera")  back in August, at a reported cost of £17,000 (covered in a post of 12 September). That's the one that hasn't been used since. (Although I think it was unpacked so that it could be demonstrated to the BBC, before being put back.)


2. Non-disclosure of data [about speeds recorded]. This relates to the information recorded from fixed cameras on the Trumpington stretch of the Busway. The County Council has now released this information.


The full exchange on this FoI request, including the records of speeds logged by the cameras, is at this URL.


Now, according to a BBC News report, "The council said the portable camera had not been needed because it had no evidence of speeding since fixed cameras were put on parts of the route." But this ignores the other places on the Busway where speed limits are applied and where there are no fixed cameras. And the whole Busway is subject to a maximum line speed, which means that the use of a portable device would be justified on any guided section (although it's clearly impossible to exceed the maximum speed in a number of places, even if one were to try).

The County Council spokesman also came out with this rather puzzling statement: "Since cameras were installed along the Trumpington route, we haven't recorded any evidence of speeding therefore the portable camera hasn't been needed." I've had more success trying to make sense of the relationship between the various films in the Star Wars franchise than I had with that! Apparently, if drivers observe the limit in the Trumpington section that means they're never going to speed anywhere else. Forgive me if I need to go and lie down whilst I work out the logic behind that.

"Grounds" maintenance

According to a report prepared for the County Council's Economy and Environment Committe, and due to be discussed at the next meeting of that committee on 11 January, the current contract for maintenance of the Busway "grounds" is due for renewal from October.

The existing contract - which also covers the county's Park & Ride sites, and which is let in partnership between the County and South Cambridgeshire District Council - was issued for 3 years in 2015. That shared contract allowed the number of contractors involved to be whittled down from four to just one. Overall savings of 6% were achieved as a result.

The Busway maintenance costs are covered by the access charges levied on bus operators.

One proposal to be considered by next week's meeting is that the new contract should run for 5 years. According to the report:

"This longer period may encourage contractors to offer greater savings to the overall contract and may also allow them to invest in bigger equipment such as tractor and flail type machinery to speed up certain aspects of grounds maintenance currently undertaken, especially along the Busway."

 Eagle-eyed readers will already have observed that there's no mention of improving the quality of the maintenance - so we've no reason to expect the issues of overhanging trees, or growth obstructing the maintenance track, to be alleviated as a consequence of any new contract. "Cheaper" and "faster" appear to be the Council's objectives.

Speed monitoring - FoI request reveals all (or not much?)

There have been a number of posts on this blog in recent months cncerning traffic speeds on the Busway (too many for me to bother to post all the links here). And here's another one!

Cllr Zoe O'Connell - picking up on earlier developments regarding the monitoring of speed along the Busway - recently submitted an FoI request to Cambridgeshire County Council. She asked:

Please can you provide any records of speed monitoring carried out on the Guided Busway by the county council using the speed monitoring device purchased in August or September of this year.
If possible, please can you include:
1) The date, time and location of any monitoring activities
2) The speed limit at that location
3) The speeds of any vehicles obtained.
4) Any follow up action by the council.

Now,  the request is slightly ambiguous because it relies on her understanding of the "speed monitoring device" being the same as the County Council's. (For what it's worth, I thought she was referring to a portable device covered in my December 5 blog post.)

The County's response has now been posted. It's brief, and doesn't reveal very much!

We have a portable camera we use to monitor speed on the Guided Busway. The only fixed camera we have at present is along the Trumpington single track section. The monitoring here is constant between 05:00 and 21:00 Monday to Saturday (whilst buses are running)

We capture anything that travels over 20 mph (to rule out cyclists etc).

Details of any bus travelling over 33 mph (limit plus 10%) will be sent to the relevant bus operator. The first block of information will be sent during January 2018. The Speed indicator device has been in place since November and during this time the device has been tested and calibrated to provide us with the accurate data that we require.

The County's response fails to provide any information at all about the use to which the portable camera has been put (why? Isn't that part of the point of the original FoI request?). And the fixed camera is too new for there to be any results to report.

So we're not much the wiser at this point!

I suspect Cllr O'Connell will be persisting with her questions.

If you want to look at the full exchange, follow this link.

Speed monitoring - again

Cast your mind back to the August 4 post about speed monitoring. From that, we learned that the County Council carries out speed checks and passes the results on to the operators. Subsequently, as reported on August 18, it was revealed that the communication is entirely verbal, and that no written record of what's reported to the operators is kept.

Now, in its initial statement, the Council noted that
"The current devices we use do not have the ability to record the data, it has been primarily a monitoring exercise. We are looking into expanding our monitoring capability which will lean more towards enforcement and the different types of speed recording devices, which will log data, in future."

I've been informed that the BBC ran an item last week, both on Look East and on the radio, about a new laser speed gun that the County Council has just acquired. My correspondent notes that it's reported to have cost £17,000. But at least this one will, apparently, keep a record of the results. On Look East's late programme there was the briefest of clips of it in use on the busway. Unfortunately, the BBC iPlayer only has the previous day's Look East available for catch-up viewing, so I'm totally dependent on others for providing this information. Thanks!

Problem solved, perhaps?

 

Operations Handbook - FoI request

In another recent Freedom of Information request, Cllr Zoe O'Connell asked Cambridgeshire County Council to "provide copies of all versions of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway Operations Handbook, both current and past". The County Council's response makes the current edition, v.1.10.1 dated June 2017, publicly available. Earlier editions have been made available to Cllr O'Connell for downloading (as they're too large to attach to an email).

Here's a link to the FoI request, from where anyone can access the June 2017 edition of the Handbook:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cambridgeshire_guided_busway_ope

Curiously, this edition, although postdating the opening of the Busway extension to Cambridge North station, provides no diversionary route should that section be blocked or otherwise unavailable for any reason.

Speed-related correspondence - FoI request

It was only a matter of time before the recent batch of Freedom of Information requests spawned some follow-ups. There have been two in the past week or so, both submitted by Cllr Zoe O'Connell. In no particular order...

One of them requested from Cambridgeshire County Council "copies of any 'information passed on to bus operators' relating to speed checks on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, as referred to in your response to FOI request 8012" (covered by this blog in a posting dated 4 August).

 The County Council responded, saying that is "does not hold a record of this information. The reason there is no correspondence is because the information was passed on verbally to the relevant operator control rooms. The conversations were not recorded so no record is held of the times / dates or content of the telephone information passed to either operators in regard to speed checks."

So who knows what was said to whom, or when, or how frequently. Or anything, really...

Here's a link to the full FoI request:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/correspondence_with_bus_companie

Plans, sections and book of reference - FoI request

The County Council has just posted what is, for the time being, only a partial response to the last of the current crop of Freedom of Information requests.

This request came from Sam Webster (who, careful readers may recall, was responsible for the first of the requests covered by this blog). He asked:

Could you please provide copies of the 'plans, sections and book of reference' referred to in the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway Order 2005 Explanatory Note ( http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/... ). Although the information is available during working hours at the County Council’s offices, this is not accessible for those of us in full time employment who must be at our own places of work during these hours. As these documents form part of UK legislation, they really should be available on your website given how cheap and easy this is.

For the time being, the County Council has made the relevant documentation available only to Sam himself. It turns out that there are currently 58 documents, some of them substantial in size. However, the Council is working to upload these documents to its website, a task which it anticipates should take no more than a "couple of weeks".

As usual, I'm providing a link to the full FoI request:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/plans_sections_and_book_of_refer

I'll try to remember to keep an eye open for the appearance of these documents on the County Council website - and, if successful, post a follow-up to let you have the URL.

Busway speed monitoring - FoI request

Information of the second of the four recent Freedom of Information requests that I introduced in my 23 July posting.

This one was submitted by Zoe O'Connell, one of Trumpington ward's City Councillors. In essence, Cllr O'Connell asked the County Council:

Please can you provide policies for and records of any monitoring of the speed of buses using the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway carried out by or on behalf of the council.

There are two aspects to the County Council's response. The lengthier part extracts all of the speed-related clauses in the Bus Operations Handbook for Drivers. Most of this information has been in the public domain at some point in the past. The first part of the Council's response is, I suspect, less well-known. Here it is in full:

Cambridgeshire County Council carries out speed checks along the Guided Busway and this information is passed onto the bus operators. The current devices we use do not have the ability to record the data, it has been primarily a monitoring exercise. We are looking into expanding our monitoring capability which will lean more towards enforcement and the different types of speed recording devices, which will log data, in future.

Here's a link to the FoI request, including the County Council's response:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/speed_monitoring_on_the_guided_b

The Cambridge News has this morning published a story based on this FoI request. Here's the link to that Cambridge News item:
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/guided-busway-drivers-face-speeding-13427802

Two further FoI requests await responses - both are due in the next few days. 

Smarter Cambridge Transport publishes major report on Busway defects

Many readers of this blog will know of Smarter Cambridge Transport (SCT), the initiative of an impartial group of local volunteers, who are developing and promoting a modern vision for integrated transport in Cambridge and the surrounding region. They have recently posted a major report, with accompanying commentary, on the Busway's defects. Actually, I'd go further than that - although the title of the report mentions only "defects", the report itself explores the whole long-term viability of the Busway, not just the immediate repairs which are required (and which are likely to be the subject of legal proceedings between the County Council and BAM Nuttall).

Here's just a short taster from SCT's blog post:

Smarter Cambridge Transport has prepared a detailed review of reports commissioned by the County Council. It identifies more than twenty areas of concern with the busway not identified in those reports. The council leader, Councillor Count, has indicated that two companies, Capita and Atkins, are continuing investigations and that our findings have have already been investigated. We cannot verify this until a new report or statement of claim is published.

Perhaps the most important question we pose is whether the problems are due in part not to construction defects, but to inherent design flaws that repairs alone cannot fix.

The review runs to 22 pages. For those who don't have the time or energy to read the whole thing (although it comes highly recommended for anyone interested in the future of the Busway), there's the usual Executive Summary. And the blog post which helped launch it also provides a useful (but different) summary.

Although the report was launched on 20 July, the version currently available from the SCT website (and to which the link below leads) is dated 26 July (the blog post was updated on that date as well). There's no indication as to what changes were made that I can find.

Here are the links you need:

Blog post: http://www.smartertransport.uk/guided-busway-defects/

Report (PDF): http://www.smartertransport.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Guided-Busway-Defects-1q.pdf

According to the Cambridge News, the County Council "do not consider that [the SCT report] raises any new issues that need to be considered as part of our claim [against BAM Nuttall]." In addition, the council leader, Councillor Count, has indicated that twenty areas of concern with the busway listed by SCT as not having been identified by Capita's reports into the Busway's defects "have already been investigated". Smarter Cambridge Transport say they cannot verify this until a new report or statement of claim is published. Here's the link to that Cambridge News story.

[Declaration of interest: earlier this year I was asked to comment on an early version of the SCT report  - which I did. I have had no involvement with the report or its authors since then.]

Busway derailments - FoI request

In the three weeks following the 21 June derailment on the Busway south of Cambridge railway station, four Freedom of Information requests relating to various aspects of the Busway and its operation were submitted. I will attempt to track them and to provide more information as responses to these requests are posted.

First up in this mini-series is a request from Sam Webster, who asked the following of the County Council:

There have been a number of derailments on the guided busway. For each of these, could you please provide:
1. Date, time, location and type and operator of the bus
2. A brief description of any damage to the busway caused by the derailment
3. The cost of any repairs to the busway (a rough estimate is fine)
4. Copies of any reports compiled on the derailment
5. Details of any penalties applied to operators as a result of the derailment
6. Details of any changes made to the operation of the busway as a result of the derailment

The County Council's response details four such derailments:

A: 20/11/12 15:00 St Ives-bound guideway north of junction with B1050 at Longstanton Single decker bus operated by Stagecoach
B: 22/2/16 13:59 St Ives-bound guideway north of Trumpington cutting Single decker bus operated by Stagecoach
C: 7/7/16 07:33 Northern end of single guideway section in Trumpington cutting Single decker bus operated by Stagecoach
D: 21/6/17 15:47 Trumpington-bound guideway south of Hills Road bridge Single decker bus operated by Whippet Coaches

Reports were compiled on B and C - these have been in the public domain for some time. A report on D is currently in preparation. No report was ever produced on derailment A, even though the cost of repairs for that one (ca. £100,000) cost twice the anticipated combined totals of the three other incidents. No penalties have ever been imposed (although it's too soon to say what might happen regarding the most recent derailment).

Anyone wanting to read the full response - or to have a handy link to the two reports referred to - is advised to follow this link. The Cambridge News also picked up on this request - its story based on the information provided can be found here .

Bus stop for Houghton village

Houghton village is situated about 2 miles west of St Ives. The guided service B does not call at Houghton because there are no bus stops on the A1123. Local residents have been campaigning for several years for bus stops to be provided. That campaign is soon to be realised with design work currently under way for new bus stop lay-bys, a pedestrian crossong point and real time bus information.


Hunts Post 22 March 2017 page 13.