Cambridgeshire’s Guided Busway opens to passengers

Listen to this article

Cambridgeshire’s Guided Busway opened to passengers yesterday, over 2 years later than first planned.

It was originally planned to open in Spring 2009, but has been plagued by delays and financial disputes between Cambridgeshire County Council and contractor BAM Nuttall Ltd.

The 13.3 mile link will offer a ‘reliable, fast and frequent’ service between Huntingdon, St Ives and Cambridge giving residents a high quality alternative to the long queues and uncertain journey times on the notoriously congested A14.

Stagecoach and Whippet Coaches, who will run the services on The Busway, have completed driver training and their fleet of luxury buses that have been fitted with small rubber guide wheels are ready to roll on Sunday morning.

Busway services will run seven days a week, and from Monday to Saturday 7am to 7pm there will be buses running between St Ives and Cambridge at least every 10 minutes.

Services to Huntingdon will be every 20 minutes with an hourly evening service running until midnight.

Cyclists, walkers and horse-riders will also be able to begin using the route between Swavesey and Cambridge from Sunday as the high quality, wide, safe and car-free path next to the guideway opens.

The Swavesey to St Ives section will begin to be raised and surfaced in August.

During the work this section will be fenced off and not open to the public.

Council bosses are reminding users to be aware that buses are now running on a frequent basis and traffic signals will give buses priority at road junctions.

It is anticipated around 3.5 million trips will be taken on The Busway each year.

The dedicated track for guided buses will mean passengers will be able to travel by public transport between St Ives Park & Ride and the Science Park in Cambridge in just 20 minutes.

Cambridge Gateway – a project to improve bus, cycle and pedestrian access into Cambridge railway station – was completed earlier this year, and the new link to Hills Road also opened on 7 August to tie in with the start of Busway services.

The Busway will be the longest track of its kind in the world and includes two new Park & Ride sites at St Ives and Longstanton with spaces for hundreds of cars, and covered cycle parking.

The shorter southern section connects Cambridge Railway Station, Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Trumpington Park & Ride with a completely traffic free link.

Ian Bates, Cambridgeshire County Council’s Cabinet Member Growth and Planning, said:

“The Busway will raise the bar for other public transport schemes in the future and is going to be an asset for Cambridgeshire communities to enjoy.

“Being able to get on a bus in Huntingdon or St Ives and bypass the congestion on the notorious A14 will be fantastic. This route is all about giving people a reliable and green alternative to using the car.”

The first passenger services ran on the guideway from just after 9am on Sunday.

To read about the Guided Busway in detail, see this article from the rail engineer.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Meanwhile in other news, Cambridgeshire County Council which as the article says is “giving passengers a green reliable alternative to car travel” has voted to remove ALL subsidies to ALL other bus routes in the county.

    Because of this the last bus on my route home from work near Ely towards Cambridge now leaves just after 17:00. This has left me with no option but to travel to work by car. Even if the guided bus is successful, the decision to build it is causing the public transportation provision in Cambridgeshire to be unbelievably lopsided.

  2. Total waste of money, over-hyped and completely useless and thats just the people who forced this doomed project through against massive opposition simply to have the bragging rights on the longest busway in the world.
     Its also the longest overdue and over budget busway in the world and fails miserably as a  rapid transport or integrated transport system. The whole project is a farce as has been proven on the first day of operation, empty busses running late, ticket machines breaking down, walkers and cyclists on the guideway, journey times that are no better and often worse than the old bus service, you couldn’t make this rubbish up. There should be a public enquiry into why £180m of taxpayers money was wasted on this huge ego trip. 

  3. Total waste of money, over-hyped and completely useless and thats just the people who forced this doomed project through against massive opposition simply to have the bragging rights on the longest busway in the world.
     Its also the longest overdue and over budget busway in the world and fails miserably as a  rapid transport or integrated transport system. The whole project is a farce as has been proven on the first day of operation, empty busses running late, ticket machines breaking down, walkers and cyclists on the guideway, journey times that are no better and often worse than the old bus service, you couldn’t make this rubbish up. There should be a public enquiry into why £180m of taxpayers money was wasted on this huge ego trip. 

  4. What is glaringly evident is how few other guided busways there are in the world.  This suggests that either:  i) Cambridge and St Ives have discovered a valuable hidden secret that few others know about, or ii) Cambridge and St Ives have ill-advisedly forged ahead with a scheme rejected by most others for a good reason.  I firmly believe the latter is true.
    It is instructive that in spite of 25 years of “successful” operation, the Adelaide guided busway has never been extended or replicated either in the locality or indeed anywhere else in Australia.  Meanwhile the Glenelg light rail line also in Adelaide has been expanded, as have conventional rail systems in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.  The guided busway does a job, but it rates poorly in terms of its ability to connect into Adelaide’s existing rail infrastructure.  And there lies the problem.  Guided busways are non-standard, poorly-compatible stand-alones considered by most authorities to achieve little that a rail-service could not do better.  They are a solution looking for a problem, and are built for reasons of politics rather than merit.  Meanwhile the possibility of Cambridge-St Ives connecting in with the rest of the UK’s rail system has now been lost. 
    Someone please wake up Luton and Dunstable before they make the same mistake.

  5. I cycled the Cambridge Gateway from the Park and Ride to the station, it is an amazing cycle path hindered by the lack of entrances/ exits. Great if you want to get to any of the places the bus stops at. But if you want to get to Cambridge University Press (CUP) which is on a massive site you have to go more than a mile out of your way as the cycle path is separated from the CUP car park by a massive fence with no exits. This is really stupid.

    Cycle hire should be at the park and ride and is not, and as  we all already know this should have either been a light rail or real rail line.

  6. ” completed driver training”
    “Cyclists, walkers and horse-riders will also be able to begin using the route between Swavesey and Cambridge from Sunday as the high quality, wide, safe and car-free path next to the guideway opens.”

    I haven’t laughed so much in ages. After witnessing a bus go past a pair of young children, (whom were very close to the lane) without slowing down at all, despite the fact that one may have come to harm; and a cyclist nearly being mowed-down at a crossing point, I can’t understand how these drivers are trained at all!

    This is a disgracful waist of money and ruins a beautiful nature reserve. I hope the council is ashamed of their actions.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Rail News

ORR review leads to 50% reduction in maximum fees for ticket refunds

New rules will mean that from 2 April the maximum fee that train operators and ticket retailers can charge...

More like this...