Strange Prototype (of what?) in East Anglia

[chrisf]

To see will be to believe ...

 

Chris

[LNERGE]

Today's plan for me is to head out there and have a ride. We'll see what happens.. I'll take the last train staff along for a ride also.

[jamie92208]

There was a long piece on it on radio 4's You and Yours on Friday. Worth listening to. I;ve put ina link to bbc 1 player. Go to 16 minutes in to listen to the piece. There is also a piece about HS2 at the beginiing.

 

Jamie

[Richard E]

Yes, worth listening to, but very interesting to hear how opinion about the possible success of the 'thing' is now felt to be in the balance since the A14 is not going to be upgraded and Northstowe is on hold.

 

I'm afraid I am still a sceptic in respect of this scheme.

 

And I still do not believe they will get an average of 400 trips an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - that is what they are predicting.

 

They are running 17 hours a day, 70 bus journeys in each direction for 6 days a week and 8 bus journeys in each direction on a Sunday. Ignoring, for a minute, Sundays, that means an average of 80 passenger per journey if I've got my sums right. Am I alone in thinking that is not realistic.

[PLD]

And I still do not believe they will get an average of 400 trips an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - that is what they are predicting.

 

They are running 17 hours a day, 70 bus journeys in each direction for 6 days a week and 8 bus journeys in each direction on a Sunday. Ignoring, for a minute, Sundays, that means an average of 80 passenger per journey if I've got my sums right. Am I alone in thinking that is not realistic.

I actually make it an average 68 passengers per journey, but even that is totally unrealistic. Given that a typical double decker is 72-78 seats (and not all the guide fitted buses are D/Ds), to achieve that average either means crush loading and lots of standing passengers at peak hours or very high utilisation at all times from 5am - midnight!

[chrisf]

The opening was on Look East tonight. Let us see what happens in tomorrow's rush hour.

 

Chris

[stewartingram]

The opening was on Look East tonight. Let us see what happens in tomorrow's rush hour.

 

Chris

 

You mean when the 3 commuters they've actually persuaded NOT to use their cars all turn up at once?

 

Stewart

[Dagworth]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14405734 Video report from the route

 

Andi

[ess1uk]

it is on BBC Breakfast now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-14401265

[Edwin_m]

And a video too:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14405734

[lmsforever]

Did I hear right when the chap said about another busway between Manchester and Leeds ,surely the rail links are good andthere is the motorway ,another of these things is a no no.

[Edwin_m]

I don't think there is any prospect of a Manchester-Leeds busway. Leeds already has several busways and Manchester is considering one.

[DerekEm8]

Did I hear right when the chap said about another busway between Manchester and Leeds ,surely the rail links are good andthere is the motorway ,another of these things is a no no.

 

The proposed busway is Manchester to Leigh

[jamie92208]

think the confusion arose because they mentioned busways in Leeds and Bradford and then the proposed one between Manchester and Leigh. The Leeds one is hardly used and several of the operators that use York Road, the longest stretch, haven't fitted their buses with the equipment.

 

Jamie

[ess1uk]

i can confirm it made no difference to my journey east on the A14 this morning, still the same amount of traffic and stood still at Godmanchester.

i turned off and went cross country through St Ives instead and never saw a bus there either!

[chrisf]

How many buses run, or used to run, along the A14? Many fewer than the numbers of cars and lorries, that's for certain. I admire the optimist who installed speed cameras on that road!

 

It is worth remembering that the busway, for all that I and others have reviled it, was proposed by a multi-modal study called CHUMMS as only one part of a solution to the A14 problem. It was to be in place before any road improvement was taken forward so that's one box to be ticked. The proposed road improvement would have involved a new alignment south of Godmanchester on a line similar to that proposed by the late Sir David, later Lord, Renton, predecessor MP to John Major, as far back as 1971. The present alignment between Huntingdon and Godmanchester would be relegated to a local road. This is one of the road schemes that got the chop when the present Government took office. I believe they call this joined-up Government.

 

Chris

[trisonic]

Anyone on here actually used this service? What is it like?

 

Best, Pete.

[edcayton]

Yes, went for a ride on it yesterday. All I can say is that if this state-of-the-art system is the best public transport can offer then we had better make more provision for cars!

 

Good points: well: it's clean, the carpark at St Ives is free and it does take you to the middle of Cambridge which is not the easiest of places to drive to, and parking is dear. End of good points!

 

Minimum return fare is £5.40, although this gets you unlimited rides on Stagecoach buses around the city.

 

We were last on so we sat downstairs at the front. Cramped and uncomfortable seats. I really wanted a seat belt as we were a few inches from a glass screen.

 

The ride was fairly smooth in terms of up and down movement, but was alarming in its side-to-side hunting. To be fair this was no worse than a train on the Newquay line. Particularly bad was when there were small gaps in the guide"rails" to allow bridleways etc to cross. There was a loud crash and a jerk as the bus was pulled back in line. No wonder the drivers are told NOT to hold the wheel when on the guideway, they would break thumbs or something.

 

We pulled up at a stop on the outskirts of Cambridge and a guy in a wheelchair was waiting. The driver (pleasant eastern European with limited English) told him there was no room and to wait for the next bus. My travelling companion heard him say that he had already been waiting an hour!

 

We got off in the centre of town as we wanted to get a drink and have a look around. We then found it extremely hard to find the guided (but by now not guided) bus to the rail station. We decided to walk there (it seems to be further than it used to be!) because I wanted to see the new island platform being built.

 

Then came the most frustrating part. We had hoped to take the guided bus out to the other side of town to Addenbrookes hospital and Trumpington park and ride. There was no mention at all of the guideway on the bus stops outside the station! We waited for half an hour without seeing a guided bus, There were loads going to Cherry Hinton and a few going back to the city centre. Decide to abandon the plan to see the southern part of the guideway and went back in to the center.

 

Waked back to where we had got off the guided bus earlier and waited about 10 minutes until one arrived. We were first in the queue for this, so hoped we could get upstairs at the front. when all the pasengers had got off we went to gt on. The driver told us to get on another one which had parked in the next bay, as his was "broken". By the time we got to it it was nearly full.

 

The ride back to St Ives was OK, although this bus did seem as though it was going up hill all the way.

 

My biggest concern is that one of the little guide rollers, or its stub axle, will break when the bus crashes across the gaps in the guide rail. The bus goes at a steady 90 km/hr, which I'm sure is more than it could do on the A 14, but I STILL can't see the advantage of the guideway over a dedicated bus road (once in Cambridge there ar some stretches of this, followed by some "buses only" road with raising bollards).

 

If you arrive at Cambridge by train and want to get to St Ives on the busway you will struggle to find it. They have produced a LUL style map for the system whuch would be a lot more useful if A) it was displayed on the interior of the bus and B) the one at the bus station was the same way up as the one in the brochure-this puts Cambridge at the top and St Ives etc at the bottom ie "South"!!!!

 

The only other thing to say was that it was very busy yesterday with lots of locals riding for the novelty value, but it took quite a long time to board as the driver answered questions. My friend suggested that it would be good if the buses got priority at traffic lights, as we seemed to spend a lot of time waiting at red lights.

 

Ed

[lmsforever]

The proposed busway is Manchester to Leigh

T.

Thanks I obvoiusly misheard him.

 

The proposed busway is Manchester to Leigh

T.

Thanks I obvoiusly misheard him.

[pete_mcfarlane]

We got off in the centre of town as we wanted to get a drink and have a look around. We then found it extremely hard to find the guided (but by now not guided) bus to the rail station. We decided to walk there (it seems to be further than it used to be!) because I wanted to see the new island platform being built.

Cambridge railway station seems to get further from the city every time you walk there. Presumably this is a result of the usual problems with Victorian worthies not wanting the new fangled railway in their city, so the station had to be built in a field outside the city limits.

 

Then came the most frustrating part. We had hoped to take the guided bus out to the other side of town to Addenbrookes hospital and Trumpington park and ride. There was no mention at all of the guideway on the bus stops outside the station! We waited for half an hour without seeing a guided bus, There were loads going to Cherry Hinton and a few going back to the city centre.

Sounds like they haven't addressed the biggest problem with buses - they depart from hard to find bus stops which are seemingly located at random, and there's little help given to occasional passengers who aren't familiar with all this. On light rail systems you have clearly identified and signposted stops (you can't miss the raised platforms for starters), decent signage and information systems. All of this you could apply to a bus based system if you wanted to without massive investment.

[lmsforever]

Now the consultants have slapped a massive bill onto the cost,but the council have said that they will reduce this by fining them ,probably getting Perry Mason on the job or Fred Carno!

[LNERGE]

I finally ran out of excuses today and took a trip on the damn thing. I travelled just after lunch and was lucky to get a seat. What is it like during peak periods? If it becomes popular i wonder how they will increase capacity? Our journey was spent behind a Whippet bus probably around 440 yards ahead. No one was prepared to answer how they would maintain headway in fog/falling snow. Considerable interest was shown in the former train staff.

[Lord-Claud-Hamilton]

I finally got to have a trip on the ‘Busway’ on Saturday (20/08). I caught the train from Ely to Cambridge first, so got on the bus at the railway station.

 

Initially the ‘Busway’ Stop was difficult to find, but now I know where it is, it’s ideally placed. In the past, I would have had to walk/taxi/bus into the bus station and then catch a bus to St. Ives. So, in this situation, this is ideal for me.

 

The Guided Buses have been in use on the St Ives (via the A14) route for a few years and, despite complaints in local media since the route opened, I find them reasonably comfortable. My only complaint is that the seats are a tad slippery, so going around some bends and stopping had me slipping off the seat!

 

This was only an issue when ‘Street Running’ and not a problem once on the actual Guided Busway.

 

The return fare was £5.40, which I feel is a reasonable price in comparison to the cost of using other buses within Cambridgeshire.

 

I found travelling on the Guided Busway section reasonably quick, comfortable and quite interesting.

 

Although it took longer than the A14 service (which I’ve used a lot in the last 10 years) I actually enjoyed the journeys to and from St Ives. But that might just be the novelty I guess.

 

For some reason, I did find the different services/routes offered confusing. This doesn’t usually happen but maybe it’s just a case of ‘practice’.

 

I can see how some people will find this new service very useful, but I can’t for the life of me see how it’s ever going to help relieve congestion on the A14, which was the point of the investment in the first place! The targets for predicted usage are ridiculous and will never be achieved. The bus was less than half full on both of my journeys.....something that I don’t think would have happened with the old service.

 

The problem is the ‘Street Running’ sections. You can go as fast as you want between St. Ives and the Science Park, but as soon you get onto Milton Road, and other routes into the City Centre, you are still going to get held up.

 

 

I did hear a Council Bod say on the radio that he didn’t think people would notice the true benefits of the route until after the kids returned to school and the A14 got busier. He might be right I guess, but I’m not convinced. I don’t see anything about the service that will convince people to get out of their cars and onto the bus enough to make a difference.

 

Time will tell........November should be long enough in my opinion!

[Richard E]

They are complaining about lack of capacity according to this mornings news. Week 1 saw 8000 'trips' a day average (56,000 in a week) which is less than the anticipated average load for the system. They are looking into how to fit more buses onto the thing in order to cope.

 

A14 traffic unaffected, they say it will be evident when the schools go back that the A14 isn't as bad.

 

I'll now sign off as puzzled of Cambridgeshire on this one.

[trisonic]

I can't imagine why they would say that (easing congestion on A14)? It may make the buses more "on time" so I guess they are assuming that that will make more people use the bus, but still.......

 

Best, Pete.