Guided Busways

[MerlinRail 804]

Why aren’t there more guided busways such as the one in Cambridge? They’re certainly a good idea and there’s plenty of abandoned rail lines which could be rebuilt as a busway. Busways are flexible and fast and more accessible than a train or tram.

 

[greenline712]

Why aren’t there more guided busways such as the one in Cambridge? They’re certainly a good idea and there’s plenty of abandoned rail lines which could be rebuilt as a busway. Busways are flexible and fast and more accessible than a train or tram.

The opposition from the rail lobby was extreme .... even now, there is still a group campaigning to re-convert the busway to a rail line, in spite of up to 20 BPH (buses per hour) using the route prior to Covid in the peak hour, with c1200 seats available (compared with around 150 seats on a 2-car diesel train!!!).

Unfortunately the Cambridge busway was beset with construction problems, and hugely over budget, with all and sundry blaming each other, so nobody was keen to repeat it.

It is also worth noting that a Busway needs a footprint of at least 20 feet width (2 buses passing needs 17 feet plus mirrors). A 2-track rail line needs around 16 feet ( two tracks plus 6 feet between them). This defeated the 1980s proposal to close Marylebone Station and run a busway through the approach tunnels .... not enough room.

Personally, I think they're great ... high speeds, flexibility of routing at each end, cheap as chips to build compared with trains or trams .... but buses aren't "sexy" enough.

And thereby hangs the rub .....

 

[johncrossley]

Busways don't necessarily need to be guided. Most BRT schemes outside the UK are on normal roads. Guidance is only really needed if space is tight. However, developed countries generally can afford to build tramways and/or full metros instead. Major BRT systems tend to be in middle income countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia.

 

[Magdalia]

Why aren’t there more guided busways such as the one in Cambridge?

There are other examples, such as Luton/Dunstable, Leigh/Tydesley and Crawley.

They’re certainly a good idea

No they are a bad idea, which is why few other places have copied Cambridge, and why Cambridge won't be building any more. The proposed Cambridge South East and Cambridge-Cambourne busways are unguided.

Busways are flexible and fast and more accessible than a train or tram.

The guideway is expensive to install, difficult to maintain, inflexible, and with significant safety issues, including 3 fatalities on the Cambridge Busway.

in spite of up to 20 BPH (buses per hour) using the route prior to Covid in the peak hour, with c1200 seats available

The busiest peak hour in the 2019 timetable had 17 buses (6 of them single decker) but it was the exception, between 0700 and 0800 from St Ives, when work and school flows coincided. Most of the peak service was about 12 buses per hour. All of the buses using the southern section between Cambridge and Trumpington have to be single deckers so do not convey 60 passengers per vehicle. The busway was sold on much higher levels of usage than this. Actual provision is only about half of the c1200 seats suggested here.

Since Covid the service has not gone back to the same level, and there are further cuts coming next month because of congestion on central Cambridge where the guided routes have to use the normal roads.

 

[J-2739]

The opposition from the rail lobby was extreme .... even now, there is still a group campaigning to re-convert the busway to a rail line, in spite of up to 20 BPH (buses per hour) using the route prior to Covid in the peak hour, with c1200 seats available (compared with around 150 seats on a 2-car diesel train!!!).

But who says that it's got to be a 2-car diesel? Keep in mind that this is usually the worst case scenario for a railway in the UK, and the frequencies you get on the Cambridge Guided Busway is probably exemplar for the country outside of London.

Using these hypothetical 2-car units, you'd only need to run 8 trains per hour to match that of the Guided Busway, and long before then you'd have probably already started to extend the trains!

 

[edwin_m]

They can work, particularly where a service can use uncongested roads for much of its journey, where a bus needs no more than a few priority measures but a tram would need expensive street track. Also where a trunk route feeds out into several branch routes, which would all need their own track if a tram was used.

Interestingly the Cambridgeshire busway doesn't qualify on either count, but would have been cheaper than a rail or tram solution. It went over budget, but that's not intrinsic to busways and plenty of tramways have bust their budgets too.

 

[Magdalia]

Also where a trunk route feeds out into several branch routes

This was one of the selling points of the Cambridge guided busway, and, before Covid, it served off busway places such as Huntingdon, Alconbury, Warboys, Ramsey, Chatteris, Royston and Peterborough.

But now only Huntingdon survives.

It is a benefit only in theory, not in practice.

 

[PTR 444]

Think of a busway as like a railway, it has its own segregated and mostly grade separated infrastructure. The big difference is that the capacity of a bus is much less than a train. This is particularly relevant for densely populated areas since in most cases, you’d need more bus drivers than train drivers to match the same capacity, driving costs up. My conclusion is that for medium and high density areas, building a railway or metro makes more economic sense, but for an area of low density urban sprawl it makes more sense to build a busway, particularly as the potential revenue from a railway is unlikely to outweigh the cost of constructing one.

 

[Magdalia]

The big difference is that the capacity of a bus is much less than a train. This is particularly relevant for densely populated areas since in most cases, you’d need more bus drivers than train drivers to match the same capacity, driving costs up.

This is particularly significant in an era of labour shortages driven by demographic and economic factors. Shortage of drivers is already a significant constraint on bus operators in Cambridge, at current service levels. Nobody has explained where the drivers will come from for expanding services on the existing busway, or for the proposed Cambridge South East and Cambridge-Cambourne busways.

 

[156421]

Does the Cambridge guided Busway still have the fundamentally flawed and invidious "car traps" which are a fatality waiting to happen for the visually impaired?

 

[J-2739]

This was one of the selling points of the Cambridge guided busway, and, before Covid, it served off busway places such as Huntingdon, Alconbury, Warboys, Ramsey, Chatteris, Royston and Peterborough.

But now only Huntingdon survives.

It is a benefit only in theory, not in practice.

Such is the ficklety of a bus.

 

[randyrippley]

Does the Cambridge guided Busway still have the fundamentally flawed and invidious "car traps" which are a fatality waiting to happen for the visually impaired?

The visually impaired shouldn't be driving............

Going in a slightly different direction, does anything now use the guided bus lanes in Leeds? It's been a few years since I was there, but on the occasions when I was I never saw them in use.

 

[Simon75]

Runcorn bus way I think was the the earliest in the UK, which uses dedicated roads

 

[gingerheid]

I was very much against the CGB, and in construction it was a disaster that has blighted the name of busways badly.

However it also suffers unfairly from being compared against a hypothetical perfect railway rather than any realistic alternative to a busway. In operation it has generally been very successful (and IMHO should have been more so if operated sensibly), and I think in comparison with realistic alternatives it wins. It certainly wins if you compare the Busway what has happened to buses on the non-busway corridors around Cambridge, and if you compare it's value to public transport compared to other former railways around Cambridge. I am totally converted, and would love to see the Mildenhall and Haverhill lines converted to busways, and I would love to see Waterbeach / Ely and Cambourne busways. The success almost annoys me slightly because it it illogical (surely the main bus service to Huntingdon should be along the new A14, or even via the A428 that is still quicker?), but this is where we are and humans are like that.

A busway is not better than a perfect hypothetical railway. If a double track line with services through to Cambridge had been opened, and if it had a metro style frequency to Cambridge, and had a station at St Ives that was part of an integrated transport network had been built, then that would have been better. But none of that was or is at all realistic in the UK because that it not what we do (nor is it even what Cast Iron proposed). If that was realistic why is Newmarket saddled with a dreadful service? Why is Soham stuck with an even more dreadful service (despite a better service being a 2018 franchise committment) heading two wrong directions? What would we have done with a St Ives railway in the UK? We'd have opened a route with short platforms and insufficient double track with something like an hourly service with two carriage diesel trains, that may or may not have terminated somewhere in the North of Cambridge. It would have had poorly thought out bus connections that would have been abandoned within 6m of the station opening (like indeed the N service that the Busway briefly hosted when Cambridge North opened!!!), it would have had greatly insufficient capacity and rather than increasing it we'd have talked about doing something until passengers resolved the overcrowding by giving up and stopping trying. That is the very best of how we might have run a railway in the UK, for of course the reality is that the Haverhill and Mildenhall lines continue to be neither busways nor railway lines, and East West Rail continues to have only vague prospects of reaching Cambridge.

More realistically, the busway service is better than what was there before and, by comparison, every other bus route around Cambridge. The bus service to St Ives expanded massively (even while Northstowe was being late), whereas services to Ely have been decimated, services to Royston have been more than cut in half, Stagecoach entirely gave up on Newmarket, Cambourne has more or less tred water despite massive expansion, and Haverhill is much as it always was.

Naturally, the busway could have been better in conception. If cost cutting hadn't reduced the southern section to single deck only then it would likely be the main route for two park and ride services and services to Haverhill, and in doing so provide the real benefit of bypassing slow urban traffic rather than what the northern section does; bypassing countryside and dumping buses in town. It could also have been better in building, but then so could many railway lines and the Edinburgh tram!

And of course the busway could have been better in operation. Covid didn't help, and it's a shame we never saw the exciting April 2020 timetable that would have really tried out the benefits of the busway with regular services to Alconbury, Brampton, Somersham and Chatteris. It would have been nice to have found out whether they'd have worked.

The reaction to the fatalities on the southern section is something that baffles me. They happened because people left a pavement and fell onto a road in front of vehicles. I do not understand why the busway is being held to a higher standard than every road in the UK. On every road in the UK if you leave the safety of the pavement and land in front of the path of a bus it is likely, unfortunately, to at best hurt a lot. In most cases cyclists are even already on that road where they could come to that harm if they fall. I do not understand the decision that buses could not be alongside the pavement like they are in every other road and pavement situation in the UK. And I most certainly do not understand the decision that if the buses that gave the busway it's purpose and the pavement could not co-exist, it should be the buses that were banished. I guess that if pedestrians and cyclists had been banished to the alternative roads that statistics show are much more dangerous to them the "problem" would have been resolved much sooner. It seems to me that in life the busway has been cursed with the same comparision with railways as blighted it in birth.

 

[156421]

The visually impaired shouldn't be driving............

Going in a slightly different direction, does anything now use the guided bus lanes in Leeds? It's been a few years since I was there, but on the occasions when I was I never saw them in use.

I wasn't referring to them driving. It is perfectly possible for a, potentially confused, pedestrian to fall foul of these obstacles.

Also let us say a car is trapped as per the design intent... what next? A backlog of buses as the car can't be moved?

 

[Magdalia]

services to Ely have been decimated, services to Royston have been more than cut in half

Large numbers of people travel in and out of Cambridge from Ely and Royston. They use the train. Each route has 4 or more trains per hour, with lots more seats than buses.

why is Newmarket saddled with a dreadful service?

Warren Hill Tunnel and the level crossings on the route between Newmarket and Cambridge.

Haverhill is much as it always was

The Haverhill corridor has a huge number of buses, comparable with the guided busway, once the Babraham Road Park and Ride and private bus service to Granta Park are included. That's all done without a busway.

(surely the main bus service to Huntingdon should be along the new A14, or even via the A428 that is still quicker?)

The same argument could be applied to St Ives.

The reaction to the fatalities on the southern section is something that baffles me. They happened because people left a pavement and fell onto a road in front of vehicles.

Two main reasons: speed and lack of steering on the bus.

I most certainly do not understand the decision that if the buses that gave the busway it's purpose and the pavement could not co-exist, it should be the buses that were banished.

As a transport corridor, it is more valuable as a cycleway and walkway than it is as a busway. The cycleway/walkway is currently closed while the fence is installed and the cycle traffic in Hills Road at peak times has been horrendous, with a significant impact on congestion.

For me this is the key evidence that demonstrates that the busway has been a poor investment. If the busway had been a good investment then the buses would have carried on running and the cycleway/walkway would have been closed.

What Cambridge needs is more heavy rail and more cycling and walking, not more busways. There is no justification for more busways when the existing example still doesn't do what it said on the tin when it was first constructed.

 

[Ashfordian6]

I wasn't referring to them driving. It is perfectly possible for a, potentially confused, pedestrian to fall foul of these obstacles.

Also let us say a car is trapped as per the design intent... what next? A backlog of buses as the car can't be moved?

The car traps are on the road. Why are these any more of a risk than a normal road? And they have additional infrastructure to guide the buses so are even more easy to identify.

And for the drivers who fall foul to the car trap, they should immediately have their licence and car removed from them. If you are not local so do not know about them, you are just proving how un-observant as a driver you are if you drive into them. There is lots of signage, not to mention a huge great hole in the road...

 

[py_megapixel]

buses aren't "sexy" enough.

I think that's largely because this country simply doesn't know, and refuses to learn, how to do buses properly.

Go to a continental European city and you'll generally find long buses with several doors. Even at a busy stop, boarding/alighting can be completed in quite a short time and the bus can be on its way.

In contrast, every attempt at bus rapid transit in this country - I believe without exception, though I might be proven wrong on that - maintains the asinine practice that even on huge double-decker buses, every passenger has to board, and in some cases also alight, through a single door at the front. Furthermore, while other countries have looked to offer discounted period tickets to encourage people onto public transport, we've instead decided to subsidise single fares, and because almost nowhere has off-bus ticket machines, that means more passengers having to pay the driver as they board which holds the bus up even longer.

I can't count the number of times I've been on a bus in this country that has sped along an empty road or overtaken traffic jams in a dedicated lane, only to waste most of the time it's just saved by sitting at a stop for several minutes while the queue to board shuffles forward painfully slowly.

Also, the actual buses here simply seem to be low quality. The vast majority of them seem to be built by either Alexander Dennis or Wright, both of which seem to produce vehicles which, compared to their continental counterparts, are flimsy, rattly, noisy, uncomfortable and poorly ventilated. The operators don't help either, with their bargain basement specifications (e.g. still not having any sort of live information systems inside) and the fact that they often don't do the best job of cleaning them. To be fair, the situation has improved somewhat in recent years, but there are still a lot of vehicles running around that are, quite frankly, rubbish.

 

[JJmoogle]

I do like the novelty of a guided busway but, they require building and maintaining infrastructure like some kind of railway, but exclusively for buses, that generally involve feeding buses from congested roads back into congested roads. It's often simpler to just segregate and modify existing roads into unguided lanes, build a tram, or a full railway.
There's a reason the implementations have been so limited(globally, not just in Britain).

My interest is ever so slightly increased by the concept of guided busways that also have tram rails, I think that sort of thing could do with some more investigation and work done on it.

 

[AHBD]

I think that's largely because this country simply doesn't know, and refuses to learn, how to do buses properly.

Go to a continental European city and you'll generally find long buses with several doors. Even at a busy stop, boarding/alighting can be completed in quite a short time and the bus can be on its way.

In contrast, every attempt at bus rapid transit in this country - I believe without exception, though I might be proven wrong on that - maintains the asinine practice that even on huge double-decker buses, every passenger has to board, and in some cases also alight, through a single door at the front. Furthermore, while other countries have looked to offer discounted period tickets to encourage people onto public transport, we've instead decided to subsidise single fares, and because almost nowhere has off-bus ticket machines, that means more passengers having to pay the driver as they board which holds the bus up even longer.

I can't count the number of times I've been on a bus in this country that has sped along an empty road or overtaken traffic jams in a dedicated lane, only to waste most of the time it's just saved by sitting at a stop for several minutes while the queue to board shuffles forward painfully slowly.

Also, the actual buses here simply seem to be low quality. The vast majority of them seem to be built by either Alexander Dennis or Wright, both of which seem to produce vehicles which, compared to their continental counterparts, are flimsy, rattly, noisy, uncomfortable and poorly ventilated. The operators don't help either, with their bargain basement specifications (e.g. still not having any sort of live information systems inside) and the fact that they often don't do the best job of cleaning them. To be fair, the situation has improved somewhat in recent years, but there are still a lot of vehicles running around that are, quite frankly, rubbish.

Belfast Gliders?

 

[johncrossley]

I haven't been on the Cambridgeshire busway for a while, but last time it still seemed to use mostly use driver payment. The website suggests they don't even use tap and cap which is barking mad on what is supposed to be a premium service.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Oooh... lots of stuff to get stuck into here

It looks like @Magdalia has the view of "the answer's heavy rail....now what's the question" The reality is that the situation is much more nuanced that.

The number of fatalities has been mentioned and that the lack of steering and speed was an issue. Well, in one instance, it was sadly that a cyclist clipped a kerb and was thrown into the path of a bus. The design of the path was regarded as overly narrow, and yes, that is a design issue. However, we do see non-suicide fatalities on the rail network each year and some of those are design related. Sadly, Foxton has seen a number of fatalities over several years and whilst each one is a tragedy and any lessons should be learnt, we're not suggesting that the line is fundamentally a bad idea.

Whilst you responded to @gingerheid in response to the Ely and Royston services, their point is that those parallel bus services have not weathered the post Covid world whereas the Busway has fared much better. And that whilst Haverhill corridor has a "huge number" of buses without a Busway, what's the chance that such a corridor would do better with segregation from road congestion?

However, the fact is that modern technology and cost now means that guided busways are less attractive and instead, other technology is now employed to control access to roads (see South Hampshire)

I think that's largely because this country simply doesn't know, and refuses to learn, how to do buses properly.

Go to a continental European city and you'll generally find long buses with several doors. Even at a busy stop, boarding/alighting can be completed in quite a short time and the bus can be on its way.

In contrast, every attempt at bus rapid transit in this country - I believe without exception, though I might be proven wrong on that - maintains the asinine practice that even on huge double-decker buses, every passenger has to board, and in some cases also alight, through a single door at the front. Furthermore, while other countries have looked to offer discounted period tickets to encourage people onto public transport, we've instead decided to subsidise single fares, and because almost nowhere has off-bus ticket machines, that means more passengers having to pay the driver as they board which holds the bus up even longer.

I can't count the number of times I've been on a bus in this country that has sped along an empty road or overtaken traffic jams in a dedicated lane, only to waste most of the time it's just saved by sitting at a stop for several minutes while the queue to board shuffles forward painfully slowly.

Also, the actual buses here simply seem to be low quality. The vast majority of them seem to be built by either Alexander Dennis or Wright, both of which seem to produce vehicles which, compared to their continental counterparts, are flimsy, rattly, noisy, uncomfortable and poorly ventilated. The operators don't help either, with their bargain basement specifications (e.g. still not having any sort of live information systems inside) and the fact that they often don't do the best job of cleaning them. To be fair, the situation has improved somewhat in recent years, but there are still a lot of vehicles running around that are, quite frankly, rubbish.

I do find it laughable that you think people like @greenline712 aren't aware of how things happen in some places.

And I can think of two exceptions - not just the Belfast Glider but also Bristol Metrobus. Dual door vehicles and only pre-paid fares. Cambridgeshire did invest in ticket machines for pre-payment but so many times, they were out of order.

 

[py_megapixel]

I do find it laughable that you think people like @greenline712 aren't aware of how things happen in some places.

I don't think that at all. I have absolutely no idea of what their pre-existing knowledge or experience is, nor who else who might end up reading the post and what knowledge or experience they have. So I cannot assume that everyone has the context that has lead me to my opinion, so it seemed sensible to provide that context. I certainly wasn't aiming to dispute the statement I quoted.

 

[overthewater]

No one seems to remember the Edinburgh Guided bus way, that didn't end well either? and then become part of the tram network.

 

[Cheshire Rover]

Runcorn bus way I think was the the earliest in the UK, which uses dedicated roads

Indeed, though since Halton Buses went under not many buses use the busways now. Back in the 70's with Crossville etc, they were very well used.

 

[ac6000cw]

I haven't been on the Cambridgeshire busway for a while, but last time it still seemed to use mostly use driver payment. The website suggests they don't even use tap and cap which is barking mad on what is supposed to be a premium service.

The Busway buses support contactless payment, same as the other buses in the area (and Stagecoach DayRider and MegaRider tickets are valid on the Busway routes operated by them, which are the majority). If you want to buy a ticket in advance you can use the Stagecoach app on your phone.

However it also suffers unfairly from being compared against a hypothetical perfect railway rather than any realistic alternative to a busway. In operation it has generally been very successful (and IMHO should have been more so if operated sensibly), and I think in comparison with realistic alternatives it wins.

Exactly.

At the time it was built, AFAIK it was the only option that the government was willing to fund, so it was that or nothing (basically).

With the current timetables, route B (Huntingdon - St. Ives - Cambridge) provides train connections at Cambridge North every 20 minutes for most of the day, Mon-Sat (lower frequency on Sundays).

 

[61653 HTAFC]

No one seems to remember the Edinburgh Guided bus way, that didn't end well either? and then become part of the tram network.

Wasn't it always the plan to convert it to trams, with the busway being an interim?

 

[Magdalia]

It looks like @Magdalia has the view of "the answer's heavy rail....now what's the question"

The question is what works for Cambridge in the 2020s and the answer to that question is heavy rail.

Cambridge is a very different place now compared with 20 years ago when the busway was chosen. Since the busway was built the following have all happened.

• platforms 7 and 8 at Cambridge
• Cambridge North
• lengthened platforms/SDO at Meldreth, Shepreth, Foxton, Waterbeach, Littleport and Watlington, facilitating longer trains on the Royston and Ely routes
• businesses relocating from the old city to the station quarter
• the Biomedical Campus
• Granta Park
• Cambridge South under construction
• heavy traffic congestion on Cambridge's constricted road network

At the time it was built, AFAIK it was the only option that the government was willing to fund, so it was that or nothing (basically).

The busway may have seemed the right answer 20 years ago, but busways are definitely not the right answer for Cambridge now. Given the huge expansion in the Cambridge area population and economy over those 20 years, the busway should be exceeding its projected usage, not struggling to get back to pre covid levels.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The question is what works for Cambridge in the 2020s and the answer to that question is heavy rail.

Cambridge is a very different place now compared with 20 years ago when the busway was chosen. Since the busway was built the following have all happened.

• platforms 7 and 8 at Cambridge
• Cambridge North
• lengthened platforms/SDO at Meldreth, Shepreth, Foxton, Waterbeach, Littleport and Watlington, facilitating longer trains on the Royston and Ely routes
• businesses relocating from the old city to the station quarter
• the Biomedical Campus
• Granta Park
• Cambridge South under construction
• heavy traffic congestion on Cambridge's constricted road network

The busway may have seemed the right answer 20 years ago, but busways are definitely not the right answer for Cambridge now. Given the huge expansion in the Cambridge area population and economy over those 20 years, the busway should be exceeding its projected usage, not struggling to get back to pre covid levels.

Surely you could say the same about Cambridge station - that's still 15% down on usage compared to pre-Covid levels, is it not?

You originally mentioned the cost of putting in busways. The cost of heavy rail compared to busways is huge and, quite simply, restoring long lost lines isn't always cost effective. It's horses for courses and, in Cambridgeshire, it was either a busway or it would remain a feature in the countryside of a bygone age.

 

[Magdalia]

Surely you could say the same about Cambridge station - that's still 15% down on usage compared to pre-Covid levels, is it not?

I doubt that there is sufficient granularity in the data to separate inbound and outbound commuting. Anecdotal evidence, particularly from what's provided in the timetable, is that it is outbound commuting, particularly from Cambridge to London, that has not recovered.

It's horses for courses and, in Cambridgeshire, it was either a busway or it would remain a feature in the countryside of a bygone age.

In retrospect, 20 years of inactivity might have been a good thing. We are stuck with the guided busways to St Ives and Trumpington, but while they remain so glaringly underexploited, I'm totally against pouring more money into more new busways, especially when investment in heavy rail has so clearly and consistently delivered.