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Trivia: Major towns and cities with gaps in single-digit route numbers

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PTR 444

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It is a common practice for major towns and cities to have a series of routes starting with 1, and hence it is likely all single digit numbers will be used. Some places however do not follow the full sequence, either due to routes being withdrawn or companies reserving the number for elsewhere.

For a town or city to count, it must have a population of at least 50,000 and be missing one route number in the sequence of 1-9, excluding prefixed or suffixed routes. For example:

  • Portsmouth has no service numbered 4, 5, 6 or 9. These numbers were reserved by First for routes out of neighbouring Gosport.
  • Poole does not have a route 2 or 7. It does have an m2 and a 7A, 7B & 7C, but these do not count due to the prefix/suffix rule.
  • Bournemouth had practically no non-suffixed single digit routes until the network change of 2018, which saw many of the former b-suffixed routes drop the letter. Even so, a 7, 8 and 9 are still missing from the town.
  • Southampton was missing a route 5 until October when Mini Link started up their service to Ringwood. This now looks set to be reversed again as the company enters difficulties due to Covid.

How many other large towns and cities are there missing at least one route number from 1 to 9?
 
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Ianigsy

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By and large, the West Yorkshire PTE numbering system is still in place, so while Leeds has a full house from 1-9, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield don’t have anything near.
 

scotrail158713

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There is no 6 or 9 in Edinburgh as far as I can recall. Lothian Buses used to run a number 6 however I think due to it being so short, passenger numbers were low enough it wasn't financially viable.
 

Mike99

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Currently there is no Number 10 (no pun meant ) in London, or 48 and 82 plus other numbers further up the scale
 

Flange Squeal

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Guildford has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (as of yesterday!) and 8. No 7 or 9.

Basingstoke I think has 1-8 but no 9.
 

cnjb8

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Technically, Nottingham doesn’t have a 2. Yes, TrentBarton run a service called the two but it does not run as the number 2.
 

Hophead

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Crikey! There's going to be so many. However...

In Brighton, it's been quite a few years since there was a 3 or an 8. 4 ran for 3 months in 1988 and, since deregulation, there has never been a number 9.

Crawley is missing all of 6,7,8,9. Even the 3 is a fairly recent innovation.
 

liamf656

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Derby has no 3 or 7. Not sure if 6 counts too because it’s 6.1, 6.2 etc!

Before the simplification of bus routes in around 2015 the only single digit routes were 6 and 7 (trentbarton) although these were also decimal places so if that doesn’t count then it didn’t have any!
 

90019

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There is no 6 or 9 in Edinburgh as far as I can recall. Lothian Buses used to run a number 6 however I think due to it being so short, passenger numbers were low enough it wasn't financially viable.
The 6 came about when the 36 was rerouted away from Holyrood and up to Craiglockhart, and lasted more years than I expected it to since it was barely used.
Before that, it used to be a circular route running the opposite way to the 1, but that was before my time.

The 9 also had an older route which I don't know much about other than it ran between Torphin and Newhaven, and then a more recent one as a summer only service running between the Botanics and National Museum of Scotland in 2014 (I think?).
 

Ken H

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By and large, the West Yorkshire PTE numbering system is still in place, so while Leeds has a full house from 1-9, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield don’t have anything near.
Bradford has an A2, A3 and X6.
But the WYPTE numbers have been strangely resilient. Surely, for passengers, remembering a low number is easier than remembering one over 600??
 

duncombec

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The Arriva area in Kent largely retains NBC 'area' numbering, so the Medway Towns (the 1xx series, pop. ca. 250,000) have no numbers 3-9, and routes 1 and 2 in their present form (not the pre-NBC forms, which still exist as 101) are relatively recent inventions. The choice of numbering was quite unusual at the time...

... because Maidstone, which is in the <100 series (pop. ca. 115,000), has all of routes 3-9 (of varying vintages), but not a route 1 or 2. In fact, the first gap in Maidstone than I can think of after 3 is 14.
 

43055

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Derby has no 3 or 7. Not sure if 6 counts too because it’s 6.1, 6.2 etc!

Before the simplification of bus routes in around 2015 the only single digit routes were 6 and 7 (trentbarton) although these were also decimal places so if that doesn’t count then it didn’t have any!
Until the summer the unibus routes were numbered 4, 6 and 7 which the 6 has been around for at least 10 years.

Burton has no 3 (removed in the summer), 5 and 7.
 

RodS

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Technically, Nottingham doesn’t have a 2. Yes, TrentBarton run a service called the two but it does not run as the number 2.
Community Transport for Nottingham (CT4N) has a service 2, though it is currently suspended because of driver shortage.
 

Typhoon

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... because Maidstone, which is in the <100 series (pop. ca. 115,000), has all of routes 3-9 (of varying vintages), but not a route 1 or 2. In fact, the first gap in Maidstone than I can think of after 3 is 14.
I may be wrong but I thought the only '10' in Maidstone was Stagecoach's 10X (excluded as in #1).
 

duncombec

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I may be wrong but I thought the only '10' in Maidstone was Stagecoach's 10X (excluded as in #1).
Correct! I had forgotten the suffix, having been reading about the 10 in its historical form only last night.
 

TheSel

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Liverpool has no 2, 3 or 5 as far as I know.

Depends what you count as 'Liverpool'. HTL operate the 3 from Fazakerley (Longmoor Lane) to Halewood Shopping Centre.


Correct! I had forgotten the suffix, having been reading about the 10 in its historical form only last night.

But, of course, '10' isn't a single digit route number. Interestingly, if the route in question was actually numbered 'X', you could argue this was a single digit (roman numerals) for '10'.
 

Dai Corner

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Depends what you count as 'Liverpool'. HTL operate the 3 from Fazakerley (Longmoor Lane) to Halewood Shopping Centre.




But, of course, '10' isn't a single digit route number. Interestingly, if the route in question was actually numbered 'X', you could argue this was a single digit (roman numerals) for '10'.
If we're going down that route (pun intended) A,B,C,D,E and F are single character hexadecimal numbers
 

gka472l

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Depends what you count as 'Liverpool'. HTL operate the 3 from Fazakerley (Longmoor Lane) to Halewood Shopping Centre.
Counts for me, as they don't necessarily have to go into the centre. There was a route 2 into Liverpool until fairly recently, operated by both Arriva and Stagecoach, between Liverpool & Chester, but the last route 5 I'm aware of, was years back, in the days of MTL (possibly GTL too but unsure....).

HTH
 

SSmith2009

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Leicester only has a 2,5 and 6 of those numbers with 1,3,4,7,8,9 (and 10) all not being used.

Leicester has a 4 to Rushey Mead which replaced that side of the 22 route

Leicestershire has several single digit routes
Hinckley: 1, 2, 6/6A, 7/7A and 8
Loughborough: 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9
 
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First in Bristol no longer have a service 9, seemingly a casualty of C*v*d but the route had undergone some steep cuts prior to that. Also in Bristol, the 2, 3 & 4 are renumberings of previously double-digit numbered routes.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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So many towns on this list surprisingly fall short of the population requirement.
(Guildford, Weston, Basingstoke, Hinckley, Loughborough, Burton and Halifax so far mentioned with less). I would of counted Cleethorpes as major, which lacks a 1, 2, and 6, if not for the population limit. Major towns in Lincolnshire are somewhat smaller than in Lancashire.

Salford is a large city, and it lacks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 9!
 

GusB

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First Aberdeen has a few gaps:
  • 1 and 2 are still used on the Bridge of Don - Bridge of Dee route
  • 3 is still in use, but the route has changed
  • 4, 5, 6 and 7 are no longer used
  • 8 has been reintroduced but on a different route from the old 8
  • I don't ever remember there being a 9
I'm basing this on the time that I lived there, which was 1992 - 2004 (though not continuously).
 
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