Delays

In the last week or two, timekeeping of the Stagecoach buses on the busway at peak times has got worse and worse. It's not been helped by the roadworks in Hills Road, Cambridge.

Today I boarded an A at Parkside at about 17.05. This was heading for Marley Road, and although it was running more or less on the schedule of the Chatteris service, it must have been the previous Marley Road service. So it was running a full 30 minutes late.

While waiting for this bus to arrive, I noticed that three As were show as getting close - in 11, 12 and 13 minutes respectively. By the time I whipped my camera out, the display had changed to buses due in 8, 11 and 12 minutes.

Anyone else with tales of late running buses this week?

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!

New timetable - Monday

My intention was to catch the 0737 service A from St Ives to Cambridge this morning. The 0730 B left the new Station Road bus stop on time, but the 0737 did not show. I boarded the 0745 B, which left more or less on time and reached Cambridge 7 minutes late. Live bus times were not showing for the A at the intermediate stops, so I have no idea whether the bus was cancelled or just running late.  Under the previous timetable, the service A towards Cambridge could usually be relied on for keeping good time. It remains to be seen whether the new timetable will offer this level of reliability. Still no sign of new timetable information at St Ives bus station.

My letter in this week's Hunts Post

The Hunts Post (21 September, page 6) has published a letter from me about the guided busway. They've entitled it Time for a rethink. Unfortunately there is a paragraph in the letter which doesn't make sense.

In fact, it is Service A which has been achieving a punctuality level of 32%, and Service B only 17% - so I have been avoiding the service B where possible.

The average punctuality level  for my first 40 or so journeys was 27%, well below the 94% that Andy Campbell of Stagecoach claims his buses are achieving.

Busway in this week's local papers

The Hunts Post (14 September, page 7) has a letter about refunds of money lost in ticket machines, and how difficult it is to understand the complicated range of fares if you are new to the busway. Bob Menzies of Cambridgeshire County Council says he is reviewing the way information is presented on the machines to ease these problems. This information notices, which is posted at busway stops, explains about how the fares system works.

On page 14 of the same issue is an article Busway journey times are extended. It is claimed by the bus operators that although the timetable is now slower than it was before the busway, the actual times for journeys are quicker. Stagecoach says that its punctuality has increased from 78% to 94% as a result of the timetable changes on 2 September. This does not tally with my experience. I have used the busway almost 40 times since it started running, yet  only 27% of my journeys got me to my destination on time.  Most of my trips are in the morning and evening travel-to-work peak times. But I've also travelled midday, evenings and Sundays. And the evening journeys I've used so far have reached the remarkably bad punctuality rate of 0%.

Good news. The Norris Museum in St Ives has doubled its number of visitors as a result of the busway.

The Huntingdon & St Ives News & Crier (15 september, page 6) carries a letter about traffic jams on Harrison Way, the A1096 road between the A14 and St Ives. The writer says the busway is adding 20 minutes to her car commute time. She also notes that the Saturday service now takes longer than the 20 minutes it used to take. Well, yes. The busway is definitely slower at off peak times than the old 55 route.

Punctuality and unpunctuality

Today was the first day of the new school term, so the buses were a bit busier than last week. We also have a new timetable.

I decide to catch the 07.40 service A from St Ives Bus Station, the new service starting from Hill Rise presumably to relieve the overcroweded service B.

The 07.35 B left on time - I saw it leave as I walked to the Bus Station.

Last week the B was always late and the A on time, but today, the A was late. It didn't leave until 07.50, dropping me at New Square at 08.25, or 9 minutes late.

Monday 8th August - travel to work

I decided to walk from the house to the Park & Ride ( about 4 minutes walk) because I wanted to experience the Route A which goes into Cambridge via Milton Road.

Free copies of the Cambridge News  were being given out at the P&R.

But there were only 6 passengers on board  when we left promptly at 07.38. I thought our speed was higher than yesterday, and we reached Milton Road at 08.00 pretty much on time. The bus called at Swavesey, Longstanton, Oakington and Histon only. No passengers for Fen Drayton Reserve or CRC.

The 0728 service, which has come in from Huntingdon, was running almost 10 minutes late, and we followed it in as far as Orchard Park where it diverged onto the Histon Road route.

I alighted at New Square at 08.09, 2 minutes early, and the bus set off immediately for Addenbrooke's not waiting for a passenger who was quite clearly running to catch it.

So, a punctual journey for me - but what if there had been heavy traffic on Milton Road?

Returning home in the late afternoon, I aimed for the 17.01 Service A which stops at  Parkside. This is very close to where I work. I saw the bus turn the corner as I crossed the end of East Road. But I was just too late. I walked briskly down to Emmanuel Road, and seeing the Service A still sitting at New Square sprinted along the road. It pulled out just as I got to the stop.

Next bus due was the 17.11 Service B. This consisted of 2 double deckers, both almost full to capacity. I boarded the second one which left at 17.15.  The Bridge Street bottleneck slowed us down, and Orchard Park wasn't reached until 17.33 by which time we had lost another 5 minutes. At Longstanton we overtook the other bus, then it caught up with us at St Ives Park & Ride - arrival time 17.51. There we sat for 4 minutes while passengers disembarked and bus officials chatted, I hope about official business. Arrival in St Ives Bus Station was at 17.57. Journey time 42 minutes, plus 4 minutes late start. Total 46 minutes. We had been due in at 17.43.

In the bus station I bumped into a friend waiting for the Needingworth bus. I asked him if the Whippet 1A had passed through. He said, yes, about 5 minutes before. It had passed the New Square stop as I waited.

So the Whippet - via Bar Hill, the A14 and Fenstanton  - took the same time as the new guided bus.

Not good.