Stagecoach East (Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon and Peterborough)

Teds said:

Stagecoach helped to kill the route themselves when they took out Milton and Landbeach which should have improved the journey times had it not been for the never ending roadworks. The off-peak frequency was reduced to 2 hourly at the same time. The Ely outstation closed as well which significantly increased the dead mileage.

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They don't seem to have known what to do about the route for some time - Ely still has a number of 'cloud 9' posters around trumpeting their previous attempt to send the occasional journey on the 9 as a sort-of Ely circular, which seemed a bit cynical given they discontinued the actual Ely circular some years back.

I do understand the issues around both routing and timing, especially given the woeful state of the A10, which seems destined to be complained about forever but still have nothing whatever actually done to it, despite the thousands of houses they're planning to build in Waterbeach. I still think they could have made a much better go of it however.

The change in the route gave Milton and Waterbeach a much improved service including a Sunday service so the changes were not all bad.

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Indeed so, though given the past form of Stagecoach in oscillating wildly as to how much, if any, service it gives Milton, I wonder how long the current service will last.

The politics of it is a mess. The local Tory district council are using it to score points. They just want to blame the Labour Mayor who has no control over a commercial service. They have no interest in buses for any other reason - at least at the moment although that was not always the case.

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I agree, though the timing of the announcement of the cuts couldn't have been worse, coming on the same week as we got our council tax bills through the door with *tripled* mayoral bus precept.

It is unfortunate that the whole thing is now associated with the mayor, which is an invention that almost nobody around here wanted and seems to have worked exactly as I expected (first we had a Tory mayor based near Ely/Cambridge that didn't seem to care about the west side of the county, and now we have a Labour mayor based near Peterborough that doesn't seem to care about the east side of the county - which is hardly surprising, as Peterborough and Cambridge have almost nothing in common except that they are both in Cambridgeshire. London/Greater Manchester/Liverpool/etc. this isn't).

I would in general like to see more local authority control over buses, but I don't think doing it via the mayor is the right way, mainly because I don't think having a mayor makes sense in the first place, at least not in its current form. I'm not really sure what *is* the right way given the messy levels of government run by different parties, however.

MikeWM said:

It is unfortunate that the whole thing is now associated with the mayor, which is an invention that almost nobody around here wanted and seems to have worked exactly as I expected (first we had a Tory mayor based near Ely/Cambridge that didn't seem to care about the west side of the county, and now we have a Labour mayor based near Peterborough that doesn't seem to care about the east side of the county - which is hardly surprising, as Peterborough and Cambridge have almost nothing in common except that they are both in Cambridgeshire. London/Greater Manchester/Liverpool/etc. this isn't).

I would in general like to see more local authority control over buses, but I don't think doing it via the mayor is the right way, mainly because I don't think having a mayor makes sense in the first place, at least not in its current form. I'm not really sure what *is* the right way given the messy levels of government run by different parties, however.

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A point I very much agree with. The whole Cambridgeshire LA system is pretty bust. TBH these days Cambridge and Fenland have so little in common it makes very little sense to combine them in one authority; let alone both the county council and the mayor. The below picture illustrates some of the silliness, particularly w.r.t. transport where all the different authorities have roles, but differing ones.



There's the start of a movement at https://www.cambsunitaries.org.uk/ to move to unitary councils for Cambridgeshire, which would make a lot of sense and simplify things. Sadly, I don't think it would involve the mayor thorugh because that's a stupid central government idea which they insist should cover a large area, even if that area as you say makes no sense.

Edit:
I see that compaign has produced a why description which explians things better at https://www.cambsunitaries.org.uk/how-will-it-work/

Different parts of Cambridgeshire have very different problems to solve

The economies and cultures of the north and south of Cambridgeshire are very different, with different electorates. A single Combined Authority mayor with a single set of policies cannot provide coherent leadership to such a diverse area.

The different areas covered by each authority have frequently produced authorities with very different political leadership covering the same areas, with toxic clashes of approach, and decision makers divided. Cambridge has a history of decisions being made by a County Council controlled by more rural interests – and now with a County Council controlled by Councillors mostly from the south of the County, this situation has been reversed.

A set of Unitary Authorities would allow each area to have consistent and coherent leadership, and would allow politicians to develop distinct policies consistent with their political views, and tailored to be appropriate to their Unitary Authority area.

More Efficient Local Government

Unitary authorities provide opportunities for more efficient local government. With a smaller number of authorities in total, there could be savings on senior leadership and premises.

Services are already being merged and shared within authorities, such as shared planning services. With unitary authorities, existing partnerships could be preserved or enhanced, but without the democratic deficit of a shared service across two Councils with potentially different political leadership.

Decision making could become significantly more efficient, as currently some decisions in areas such as transport that currently need to be considered by multiple committees across authorities, could in future be considered by a single committee within a new unitary authority.

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Hopefully such a structure could do a better job of buses, as they'd be responsible for both buses and roads so would see the benefits of things like bus lanes to reducing costs. What we have now isn't exactly a paragon of wise spending sadly as per https://busandtrainuser.com/2023/12/28/britains-most-subsidised-bus-route-250-per-passenger/

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority Mayor Nik Johnson has aspirations to take control of the region’s bus network through franchising but if a recent meeting of the Authority’s Transport & Infrastructure Committee is anything to go by, he’s going to have his work cut out to make the finances work.

The Committee meeting on 15th November received a report highlighting 19 supported bus routes costing frighteningly high levels of public money for pitifully low numbers of passengers travelling. The report was further considered at the Authority’s full Board meeting a couple of weeks later as reported in the local media…

Two of the most glaring examples highlighted in the list of struggling routes are the 7A and 29.

The former provides four off-peak journeys between Duxford, Whiitlesford and Hinxton with Sawston where connections are made with commercial journeys on Stagecoach’s route 7 to Cambridge and Saffron Walden.

According to the Combined Authority’s report, A2B Travel operates the service for a tender price of £96,000. In 2022/23 the route saw just 771 passenger journeys (that’s 2.5 journeys a day) at a staggering subsidy cost of ….. wait for it …. £124.83 per journey. So if one passenger a day makes two journeys (out and back) it’s costing the taxpayer almost £250 for that person to travel with a further £125 for the passenger making the third journey.

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Teds said:

There is a tender out from the Mayor to provide an additional 3 round trips on the route.

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This has been awarded to A2B see here:

A new operator will pick up some gaps left in a Cambridgeshire bus route's timetable after another firm decided to cut back its services.
Stagecoach said it would reduce its 10 daily services in each direction on the number 9 route, between Littleport and Cambridge, down to three from 14 April.
A2B will pick up three services in each direction, which will be subsidised.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) said it had "acted quickly" to reduce the impact.

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MikeWM said:

the timing of the announcement of the cuts couldn't have been worse, coming on the same week as we got our council tax bills through the door with *tripled* mayoral bus precept.

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CPCA are funding the three additional services.

Magdalia said:

CPCA are funding the three additional services.

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Which is good. And I assume that are also still funding the Ely-Newmarket service and the Ely circular, so we do get results from it.

I'm sure there are all sorts of precendents, but it does seem a bit odd to have a 6-times-a-day service with 3 run by one operator and 3 run by another. But it is certainly better than just 3. Shame there isn't a later bus back from Cambridge after 1735 though - when there were later buses, it was a good backup to get home after work if the train service fell to pieces.

That article says Stagecoach tickets will be accepted on the A2B services, but is the converse true?

MikeWM said:

I'm sure there are all sorts of precendents, but it does seem a bit odd to have a 6-times-a-day service with 3 run by one operator and 3 run by another.

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It is not that unusual, particularly in a scenario like this, where an operator cuts reduces the service and the local authority tenders for replacements for the withdrawn journeys. Whoever wins the tender operates those journeys leading to two different operators.

MikeWM said:

The article says Stagecoach tickets will be accepted on the A2B services, but is the converse true?

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Hopefully tickets will be inter-available between both operators.

The timetable changes start from this Sunday but its not very well publicised. Looking at the 9 and the 13/13A/X13:

Nothing on BusTimes, just the old times.

The Stagecoach website tells us about the changes but nothing about the A2B additional service 9. The few remaining journeys seems to have been slowed down considerably. From Cambridge to Littleport Co-op now takes 1hr 10 mins, after the changes between 1hr 27mins and 1hr 42 mins.

The Stagecoach website also gives times for the 13/13A/X13 but its incredibly difficult to follow. Journeys looping round Haverhill are out of order, some in the outbound and some in the inbound section. Much of the day will have one 13A and one X13 per hour. From Cambridge to Haverhill the X13 will be 14 minutes quicker than the 13A (1hr v 1hr 14min). But into Cambridge both services will take 1hr 19mins normally. Why? The X13 takes a much quicker route but will take 30 minutes from Addenbrooks to Drummer Street. The 13A, following the exact same route, will take 15 minutes except in the evening peak when it too is allowed up to 30 minutes. Outbound it will be 15 minutes for this section all day except after 19.30 when the 13 (but not the X13 at 20.00) will only take 7 minutes! At the moment all routes take 30 minutes from Addenbrooks to Drummer Street in the morning peak, in the new timetable the 13A - but not X13 - is reduced to 15 minutes. Demonstrative of the horrendous traffic but there seems to be some artificial stupidity in there!

More changes coming in June. Looks like mostly minor stuff, biggest change I see is the busway services. https://tiscon-maps-stagecoachbus.s...RVICE CHANGE NOTICES/2024/02JUN24_SCHANGE.pdf

Following the re-opening of the southern section of busway track between
Trumpington and Cambridge Rail Station, we will be adjusting our timetables
to account for the growing passenger demand in this area.
• We will be introducing two new services along the southern section of the
Busway to work with the A service and provide a combined 10-minute frequency
between Trumpington Park & Ride and Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Monday-Friday:
o The new H service will operate between Trumpington Park & Ride and
Addenbrooke’s Hospital during morning peak times.
o The new R service will operate between Trumpington Park & Ride and
Cambridge Rail Station.
• We will be adding additional resource during the morning peak to provide greater
capacity between St Ives and Cambridge. This means that routes A and B will
provide a combined 10-minute frequency along the main section of the guided
busway track from St Ives into Cambridge.
• Route B will extend to serve Long Road Sixth Form College Monday-Friday
at selected times. Please be aware that these journeys will replace the current
C service.

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It seems to me like it will deal with the issues between Addenbrokes and Trumpington, but reducing the Station-St Ives frequency again will bring more overcrowding on that section.

I think ideally rather than the R they'd have a 10 minutely frequency on the whole Longstanton - Trumpington section. But I'm bias because that's the part I use...
(Oh and a better evening and weekend service...)

higthomas said:

I think ideally rather than the R they'd have a 10 minutely frequency on the whole Longstanton - Trumpington section. But I'm bias because that's the part I use...
(Oh and a better evening and weekend service...)

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The case for the R, as opposed to more A buses, is that it only uses the Busway track (without needing to deal with the Cambridge traffic), therefore it is much more reliable than running extra A buses.
(But I do agree that there should be a better evening and weekend service across The Busway network)

I wonder if the Science Park will ever get back to a frequency better than one bus every 20 minutes. (Eg. in January 2018, it had 5 services each hour).

Even worse is that the 'C' currently provides a couple of extra 'relief' services at peak times, but if that is being chopped, that's very bad news for commuters at the north end of Cambridge. Does 'routes A and B will provide a combined 10-minute frequency (during the morning peak)' actually mean *both* the A and the B will run every 10 minutes, or that they will alternate as now? Because if not, then surely the service will be *worse* than it currently is?

higthomas said:

More changes coming in June.

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The busway changes are now happening on 19 May see here:

We’re making changes to Cambridgeshire's Busway network on Sunday 19th May 2024

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MikeWM said:

Even worse is that the 'C' currently provides a couple of extra 'relief' services at peak times, but if that is being chopped, that's very bad news for commuters at the north end of Cambridge. Does 'routes A and B will provide a combined 10-minute frequency (during the morning peak)' actually mean *both* the A and the B will run every 10 minutes, or that they will alternate as now? Because if not, then surely the service will be *worse* than it currently is?

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It means the latter, so yes it means the service is worse than presently.

This is particularly bad news for Orchard Park, as the A buses need to be single decks to get under the guided busway bridge past the railway station and are therefore very often full when they arrive in Orchard Park or at various points in the route out of Cambridge (which is why they were increased to 4 hourly only a few weeks ago). Orchard Park is therefore served by a true mess of services that all leave from different stops both in and around Orchard Park and in the city centre; in theory it has 6+1/3 buses an hour (A, A, A, 8A, 8A, 8 from nearby), but in practice it's 2!

gingerheid said:

It means the latter, so yes it means the service is worse than presently.

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I should have assumed so!

Hasn't stopped the useless local rag echoing this as some sort of 'improvement', of course.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/stagecoach-announce-busway-network-shake-29155205

Extra resources are to be added during the morning peak to provide greater capacity between St Ives and Cambridge. This means that routes A and B will provide a combined ten minute frequency along the main section of the guided busway track between the two areas.

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where by 'extra resources are to be added' they apparently mean, err, fewer buses than currently.

I'm not sure if I'm just more attuned to it these days, but Stagecoach's updates often present the information in a really dishonest way. I'm sick of service cuts being described as something positive that we should be grateful for!

Route one reports that Stagecoach Cambridge is to take part in an autonomous bus trial using 3x enviro100aev on biomedical campus services starting ~2025

hdennis13 said:

Route one reports that Stagecoach Cambridge is to take part in an autonomous bus trial using 3x enviro100aev on biomedical campus services starting ~2025

Enviro100AEV autonomous trio set for Cambridge Connector - routeone

Alexander Dennis will supply three Enviro100AEV battery-electric autonomous buses to the Cambridge Connector consortium.

www.route-one.net

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Already posted here (along with the required quote from the linked article )

Driving the no9 today for A2B and the first trip was busy nearly a standing load most of the way and definitely would be used more if it was more frequent. I feel the people would definitely appreciate and use a late night or evening service. Hopefully suggestions get back to the local authorities and they look in to this. As for running time, it’s pretty much bang on - maybe a bit too much in certain places, especially the end in littleMoor and in Ely where there is way too much sitting around time.
The route should serve the science park imo and maybe miss out some of Milton road and do some estates, but most importantly it needs a later bus after 6/7pm.