Changes to bus route B

Stagecoach will take advantage of the new West Huntingdon Link Road to re-route buses to/from Peterborough on service B, enabling them to serve Huntingdon Railway Station.

Details of the change of timetable, which will start from 1 September, can be found here.

'Catch The Bus' Week 29 April - 5 May

Stagecoach is teaming up with Greener Journeys and other bus providers to encourage the public to travel by bus. We know there has already been a huge shift from cars to buses as a result of the opening of the guided busway, so it's anybody's guess how successful  'Catch the Bus' week will be.

As an inducement, Stagecoach East will be offering the chance to obtain free East Dayrider Gold tickets. These free tickets will be available  between 12.00 and 14.00 at the following places:

Monday 29 April - St Ives Town Centre
Tuesday 30 April - Cambridge Petty Cury/Market Square
Wednesday 1 May - Huntingdon Town Centre
Thursday 2 May - Peterborough Cathedral Square
Friday 3 May - Bedford outside the Harpur Centre

Look for a large green hand.

Details here.

A trip to Peterborough on the guided bus

Today was the last day of the unrevised  Stagecoach service B, so I decided to take a trip to Peterborough. I caught the 1321  B from St Ives. This was in the interest of 'research' but I did visit Peterborough Cathedral.

The13.21 bus left St Ives 5 minutes late, and reached Peterborough 9 minutes late. So we dropped 4 minutes against the schedule.   2 minutes were lost between St Ives and Hartford, which it is not possible to cover in the 10 minutes allowed by the timetable. So Stagecoach are right to ease the time on this section of the route.

I had imagined that the B ran as an express between Huntingdon and Peterborough, but this is not the case. The bus stops on request  at all bus stops en route, so on this trip we picked up of set down passengers at Stukeley Meadows, RAF Alconbury, two different stops in Sawtry, Norman Cross ( possibly someone heading for Stilton which has been bypassed by the new timetable) and Serpentine Green. At no point were there more than 11 passengers on board, and only 8 alighted at the end of the journey.

The return journey was at 1615 from Peterborough with 21 passengers on board.  Passengers boarded or alighted at Serpentine Green, 4 different stops in Sawtry,  and Great Stukeley. We were 6 minutes late reaching Huntingdon, but made up the time between Huntingdon and St Ives, arriving at St Ives on time.

The extra 10 minutes allowed in the new timetable due to start from Monday 6 August should give enough  flexibility to allow for passenger stops and traffic conditions.

It is a puzzle why Stagecoach have cut the large village of Stilton out of the route. And I do not see how they imagine that tacking what is really a 'stopping' service onto the end of the busway route is going to attract people to use the bus for Peterborough-Cambridge journeys.

Has anyone else travelled the Huntingdon-Peterborough section?

More changes to service B timetable

Stagecoach are having to make changes to the service B timetable in order to improve punctuality. In an email today, they say these amendments will be introduced from Monday 5th August, but I assume that should read Monday 6th August. Here are the changes they are making:

• Buses from Peterborough, Hinchingbrooke Hospital and Huntingdon rail station are retimed to leave up to 15 minutes later.
• Buses from St Ives towards Huntingdon will arrive at Hartford and all stops to Hinchingbrooke Hospital up to 3 minutes later.
• Buses are retimed between Huntingdon and Peterborough to give extra time for the journey. All leave and arrive slightly later.
• Evening buses from Huntingdon to Cambridge after 1900 hours and return buses from Cambridge after 2000 hours run 10 minutes later throughout.
• There are no changes to bus times on The Busway track during the daytime.
• There are no changes to route A.

Attached to the email is a pdf of the amended timetable , but it does not yet appear on the Stagecoach website.

Despite what the email says, the revised departures from Peterborough seem generally to be 5 minutes after the current timetable. Hinchingbrooke Hospital and Huntingdon Rail Station departures are 15 minutes later than now. the Peterborough to Huntingdon running time is slowed from 48 to 58 minutes ( 44 to 49 minutes northbound), and Peterborough to Cambridge Drummer Street is now 2 hours 2 minutes ( 1 hour 59 minutes going north).

Evening buses on service B from Drummer Street will leave at 1953 (as now), then 2103, 2133, 2233 and 2333. There are As from New Square (but not Drummer Street) plugging the long gap between the 1953 and 2103  B departures.

I guess they will now have to reprint their recently published timetable booklet!

Busway extension to Peterborough 'an experiment'

According to the Cambridge News, the extension of Stagecoach's busway service B to Peterborough is an experiment. The article also covers the worrying fact that some of the advertised services to Peterborough  terminated at Huntingdon last week. This is being blamed on driver confusion or coming to the end of his/her shift. It would be charitable to think these problems are just teething troubles, but  poor organisation and inadequate driver training seem more likely culprits. Stagecoach really have no excuse - after all they have been in the business of providing bus services for years.

Busway services to Peterborough

The timetable for the busway service B extension from Huntingdon to Peterborough is now available on the Cambridgeshire County Council website here. Or here.

Departures from Huntingdon are at 05.50 then hourly until 16.50 then 17.20, 18.20, 19.20. From Peterborough they are at 06.45, 07.45, 09.15 then hourly until 20.15. The service operates Monday to Saturday. Journey time is 44 or 45 minutes.

Intermediate calling points are described as follows: Little Stukeley opposite RAF Alconbury Main Gate (northbound), Alconbury near RAF Main Gate (southbound), Sawtry opposite Tinkers Lane, Hampton Serpentine Green.

Bizarrely, the Huntingdon to Peterborough journeys are shown in the same table as Huntingdon to Cambridge journeys, and vice versa - so  there is no indication of whether they are through journeys between Peterborough and Cambridge.

Link to Studley's tidied up version of the Peterborough-Cambridge timetable here.

Busway route B extension to Peterborough

Following the proposal by Stagecoach to extend busway service B from Huntingdon to Peterborough calling at Sawtry only, and to withdraw its service 46 between Huntingdon and Stilton, thereby leaving the Alconburys without a bus service, there has been a protest meeting attended by 250-300 people. See Hunts Post ( 27 June, page 3). The Hunts Post says that Cllr Maguire has suggested Stagecoach increases fares rather than cut the service, and that Cambridgeshire county council's Transport Manager, Paul Nelson, is investigating a 'community transport solution' for the Alconburys.

On page 7 of the same issue are 3 letters about the bus changes. One asks where in Sawtry the route B will stop, and suggests the need for an alternative bus route , presumably to link the string of villages, between which it will soon be impossible to travel by bus. A resident of St Ives calls for an enforceable public transport policy. Councillors Kadic and Brown write to say they are determined to ensure that the Alconburys have a bus service that meets local needs.

Busway extension to Peterborough

The intention of Stagecoach to extend its busway service to run between Huntingdon and Peterborough has taken a step forward, with Andy Campbell of Stagecoach stating that he has applied to the local authority to change existing service 46 and to register a new route B between those two places. The B will run through to/from the busway and link Peterborough with Cambridge (Hunts Post, 20 June, page 7). This information is provided in an editor's  note and responds to letters from residents of Stilton and Alconbury Weston, villages that are affected by these changes. The 46 will be withdrawn south of Stilton, and the new service B will serve Sawtry, thus depriving Stilton of a serve to Sawtry and Huntingdon. The villages of Alconbury, Alconbury Weston and Upton (total population about 2700) will be left without a bus service, it seems. The decision is being made, says Mr Campbell, on commercial grounds, and he thinks the new timetables will 'replace most of the current passenger journeys to and from Huntingdon'.  Options for intermediate journeys, it seems, are of no interest to Stagecoach, and neither is the concept of providing a regular ( until now hourly) service linking the string of sizeable villages on the route with the towns at either end. On of the letter writers wonders why Cambridgeshire County Council made the investment in the busway only for bus companies to withdraw feeder services. Elsewhere in the same issue of Hunts Post ( 20 June, page 15) are two articles on the same topic. Andy Campbell is said to blame the County Council for cutting its subsidies to bus services, combined with a cut in the bus service operators' grant for Stagecoach's decision.

Busway news in this week's Hunts Post

There are four items in the Hunts Post (16 May) about the busway. On page 2 is a report about the proposed bus stop in Station road, St Ives, outside the Hyperion auction house. It is likely to be completed by the end of June. The County County held trials which confirmed that there is room for a bus standing at the bus stop to be overtaken by another bus. However, local councillor, Debbie Townsend, reiterates concern about congestion. Next is a charming story about a bus driver rescuing a family of goslings who had walked onto the guided busway (page4). The letters page features a comment about the fact that the Bank Holiday market once again occupied St Ives Bus Station and questions why the market should be allowed to take precedence over the guided buses. In an earlier post, I noted that Station Road had no market stalls this time, yet the buses were diverted via Meadow Lane. Lastly (page 35) is a report about various changes to bus routes around Cambridgeshire. There may be changes to the bus service between Huntingdon and Peterborough - this would happen if guided buses from Cambridge were to be extended to Peterborough. The current hourly local service to Alconbury and Alconbury Weston will be affected.

Peterborough to Cambridge via the guided busway?

Stagecoach has announced plans to run buses from Peterborough on the busway.  ( See link to Cambridge First below). They hope  this will provide a less expensive alternative to the train for commuters. The buses would join the busway at St Ives, presumably using the A14/A1M for the northern section of their route. Extra vehicles will have to be purchased.

But will it be viable timewise? Andy Campbell, of Stagecoach describes the train as 'going round the houses'.  This is the pot calling the kettle black. The train takes about 45-50 minutes between Peterborough and Cambridge, usually with two stops - March and Ely. The guided buses, on the other hand, go all round the Oxmoor, the Hill Rise loop, call at all the villages between St Ives  and Cambridge, then if it's a service B, trundles through Orchard Park and squeezes through the narrow and congested Magdalene Street.  

We know the  guideway buses are taking longer than they used to by the old route - so how does Stagecoach imagine it can offer a fast service from Peterborough, when they can't offer a fast service from Huntingdon?

It's 29 miles from Peterborough to St Ives. That's going to take 45-60 minutes, then add on another 36 minutes from St Ives into Cambridge, and you're talking about well over an hour. Plus there is the added complication of traffic delays on the A14 near Huntingdon.

I watch this proposal with interest.

I think they'd be better concentaring on how to provide an all day, frequent service to Cambridge from places such as Godmanchester, Houghton & Wyton, Ramsey,  Warboys, Somersham, Earith, Fenstanton and, of course, Huntingdon.

In the same article, there is a comment about the four fast journesy from Huntingdon to Cambridge that were introduced a few weeks ago. Unfortunately they haven't been well used, and Stagecoach might have to review them. There are probably two factors to this. First, most people joining the service B in Huntingdon and travelling to Cambridge, do so in the Oxmoor, rather than the town centre. Second, the fast buses are still pretty slow when you consider that Huntingdon is only about 17 miles from Cambridge. So perhaps not a very attractive proposition for commuters

http://www.cambridgefirst.co.uk/news/guided_busway_could_link_cambridge_with_peterborough_1_1116357

This this story also appears in the Hunts Post (9 November, page 27) and the Huntingdon & St Ives News & Crier (10 November, page 31).