Bank Holiday services return to southern Busway

Yes, I know that Good Friday and Easter Monday have been and gone, so apologies in advance for this retrospective posting.

One (less-than-desirable?) feature of Sundays and Bank Holidays is that there are no services on the southern portion of the Busway, between Cambridge Railway Station and the Biomedical Campus. As I've commented elsewhere, it seems that operators (and one particularly large operator locally) are keen to lock as many buses as possible away in their depots. Bank Holidays are supposed to be like Sundays (tell that to the 30-35 passengers on a "U" service at 1925 on Good Friday evening)!

Well, Whippet broke with that shabby "tradition" this Easter, and ran a full "P" service on both Friday and Monday. Which means that there were Bank Holiday services on that southern stretch for the first time since... well, I think it's the first time ever, but stand open to correction from someone with a better memory than mine.

Unfortunately - and didn't you know there was going to be a "but" to this good news - it helps if people know those services are running. According to Traveline there were no services on this route on either day. The Whippet website, and the print "P" timetable (plus its online equivalent) made no mention of Bank Holiday services. All I could eventually track down was a single tweet from Whippet HQ informing its followers what was happening over the holiday weekend. It's possible they also showed up in apps offering real-time operating data (e.g. the UK Bus Checker, or Traveline's own).

So 10/10 for daring to offer the service. But a rather lower score for making sure people know that the buses are out on the road, waiting to be used.

Changes to Stagecoach busway Routes A and N

I was wondering why I hadn’t seen a route N bus for a while. and had noticed that some Route A buses in the middle of the day were diverting via Cambridge North Station and calling at all bus stops along Milton Road.

It turns out that for some weeks, the N has been ‘temporarily’ discontinued. This comes as no surprise as it never had more than a handful of people on it, and the fact that it served Cambridge North was scarcely advertised.

Departure sheets posted at bus stops don’t indicate which buses serve Cambridge North.

The timetable for the A,B,N and R services valid from 29th July (here) shows the N as still running, but includes an extra mini timetable,  after the ‘village’ timetable pages, for the variant As which replace the N and starting from 14 August.

Today, while cycling, I stopped at Longstanton Park & Ride. In the Cambridge-bound waiting shelter a paper copy of this extra mini timetable has been pasted up, but no information that the N no longer runs.

What a shambles! First of all, Stagecoach fails to provide a frequent service between St Ives and Cambridge North. Then it extends the N to St Ives P&R. Then it replaces the N with an occasional diverted A soon to be re-named as the D.

Why don’t Stagecoach run every A to/from Cambridge North? That way, St Ives would have a much improved access to trains to London, Ely, Norwich and Kings Lynn.

Nor is Stagecoach providing a viable service from the northern suburbs to Cambridge North. OK, the Citi2 goes to Cambridge North. But how about extending the Citi1 and the 9/X9 to Cambridge North as well?

The new A,B,D,R timetable, valid from 16 September, can be viwed here here.

Weekend fares

Whippet were offering a special fare of £1 single on either their busway services or on the old route via Bar Hill, on both Saturday and Sunday. This was great, as long as you knew not to buy a ticket from the ticket machines, which hadn't been re-programmed to offer the reduced fare. Unfortunately, some people had bought their tickets from the machines, so you can imagine they were not best pleased to discover about the cheap deal!

I had to go in to Cambridge early on Sunday so the 09.00 Stagecoach departure got me in earlier than Whippet's 09.25 via Bar Hill or 09.35 via the Busway. I discovered that the St Ives to Cambridge single has gone up from £3.20 to £3.50 - I don't remember any advertising about that. On the way back I benefitted from the £1 ticket.
Talking to a passenger who had tried to catch the Whippet Service C from Cambridge Railway Station. He hadn't realised that the busway stop is round the corner from the station in what looks like a building site. Maybe there is a sign posting issue here. He'd tried to flag the Whippet down as it emerged into Station Road - but it didn't stop for him. He then caught one of the citi buses into town and sprinted that last bit to the bus station.