[Trivia] Shortest Bus Routes In The UK

Slower Travel · 31 Jan 2019

I've seen quite a bit of stuff about longest bus routes and the furthest you can get on a single ticket, but does anyone here know what the shortest bus route in the UK is?

I've done a bit of swotting up around Greater Manchester, and it looks like the 440 Rochdale to Syke bus is the winner around here, with its regular route taking 10 minutes from start to finish. It's essentially a circular, as it turns around and goes straight back, but is timetabled as an end-to-end.

https://bustimes.org/services/440-rochdale-syke

I've found plenty of other sub-20 minute buses, but I'm pretty sure we can shave a couple of minutes off the record!

The only caveat I'd mention is to exclude the free shopper buses.

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90sWereBetter · 31 Jan 2019

The W7 is a contender, it's timetabled to take around 15 minutes end to end. It's one of the busiest routes in London to boot, a bus every 3 to 6 minutes to the tubeless wonders of Crouch End and Muswell Hill. :lol:

MrTurbostar170 · 31 Jan 2019

Until very recently Shaws Coaches ran the 101 from Maxey to Market Deeping in Lincolnshire, taking 5 minutes.

Konectbus 510 from Costessey P&R to Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital takes 10 minutes.

Typhoon · 31 Jan 2019

Stagecoach East Kent 25 - Canterbury Bus Sta - Kent & Canterbury Hosp - Bus Sta there and back 16 mins (journey to outpatients 7 mins).

I suppose some hospital services will be candidates because some passengers will not be in the best of health!

43055 · 31 Jan 2019

Notts and Derby operate D1 'park and ride' in Derby taking 15 minuets to complete the full route.

In Burton Midland Classic have a small circular service 11 which takes 14 minutes for the full loop and the last journey in the afternoon doesn't do the full loop so is only 9 minuets long.

higthomas · 31 Jan 2019

In London, the 379 takes 10-12 minutes to run end to end.
The 327 takes 20 minutes to do a full loop.

OwlMan · 31 Jan 2019

Bus B1 Bedworth to Ambleside Way and bus B2 Bedworth to Coalpit Fields are both timed at 6 minutes.

Andyh82 · 31 Jan 2019

Slower Travel said:
I've seen quite a bit of stuff about longest bus routes and the furthest you can get on a single ticket, but does anyone here know what the shortest bus route in the UK is?

I've done a bit of swotting up around Greater Manchester, and it looks like the 440 Rochdale to Syke bus is the winner around here, with its regular route taking 10 minutes from start to finish. It's essentially a circular, as it turns around and goes straight back, but is timetabled as an end-to-end.

https://bustimes.org/services/440-rochdale-syke

I've found plenty of other sub-20 minute buses, but I'm pretty sure we can shave a couple of minutes off the record!

The only caveat I'd mention is to exclude the free shopper buses.

The 441 in Rochdale is even shorter

The C68 in Halifax takes 4 minutes
https://www.wymetro.com/buses/timetables/C68

swt class 450 · 31 Jan 2019

Perhaps the Park & Ride routes in Guildford:

• 100 - 8 mins - Guildford to Spectrum P&R

• 200 - 8 mins - Guildford to Artington P&R

• 300 - 12 mins - Guildfird to Merrow P&R

• 400 - 10 mins - Guildford to Onslow P&R

All four routes are operated by Stagecoach.

Darklord8899 · 31 Jan 2019

The shortest route in Edinburgh is the 6
(Hanover Street - Holyrood in 12 minutes)

Many moons ago (c.1985/6) there was a route (think possibly numbered 28) from Longstone to South Gyle which took 8 minutes

MedwayValiant · 31 Jan 2019

That Halifax service is bizarre, since the Sainsbury's store that it serves is basically across the road from the bus station. Is it a free service, though? If it is, then the OP excludes it.

The shortest fare paying route that comes immediately to my mind is the Stagecoach 1 in Aberdare. It goes 1.0 miles from Aberdare Bus Station to Abernant. In common, probably, with a lot of very short routes, it goes up a hill that is steeper than some would care to climb on foot.

Jordan Adam · 31 Jan 2019

In Winter 2015 First Aberdeen ran the Service 123 which operated every 10 minutes with 1 vehicle (Round trip being under 10 minutes). The round trip journey length was roughly 0.5 miles.

iantherev · 31 Jan 2019

I suspect that some of the Brecon town services are under a mile in length - Dorlangoch springs to mind.

alangla · 31 Jan 2019

Glasgow Citybus 398? Runs from Buchanan bus station to Central Station and back. Free if you have a through rail ticket but I believe fares are available. Bus is in SpotRail livery

Ianno87 · 31 Jan 2019

user1234 said:
Perhaps the Park & Ride routes in Guildford:

• 100 - 8 mins - Guildford to Spectrum P&R

• 200 - 8 mins - Guildford to Artington P&R

• 300 - 12 mins - Guildfird to Merrow P&R

• 400 - 10 mins - Guildford to Onslow P&R

All four routes are operated by Stagecoach.

Don't have the times, but the Southport Park and Rides are pretty short too.

Busaholic · 31 Jan 2019

London Transport red bus (Central area) routes:-
1950s 249 Upminster Station to Corbets Tey journey time 6 or 7 minutes (the route later became the 248A)
1950s 262 Cheam to Cuddington journey time 10 minutes
1960s 263 Coulsdon North Station to Clockhouse Farm Estate 8 minutes

All the above were, unsurprisingly, one bus routes, often worked off other routes. The 262 and 263 lasted little time.

rg177 · 1 Feb 2019

Go North East, when they took over Jayline, ran a 251 in Peterlee. It didn't seem to go very far and a circuit was a maximum of 5 minutes.

Volvodart · 1 Feb 2019

Northern Scottish did an 80 I think from the Ferry Terminal to the Joint Station in Aberdeen for a time. It must only have taken a couple of minutes.

PeterC · 1 Feb 2019

Busaholic said:
London Transport red bus (Central area) routes:-
1950s 249 Upminster Station to Corbets Tey journey time 6 or 7 minutes (the route later became the 248A)
1950s 262 Cheam to Cuddington journey time 10 minutes
1960s 263 Coulsdon North Station to Clockhouse Farm Estate 8 minutes

All the above were, unsurprisingly, one bus routes, often worked off other routes. The 262 and 263 lasted little time.

I remember reading about an even shorter route in the country area, possibly in Orpington. LT never ran buses "not in service" so a positioning move from one side of the town centre to the other formed a route in its own right. It was certainly the shortest LT route, I don't know about nationally.

itsonlyme · 1 Feb 2019

In Crewe "Tesco Free Bus" operated by D & G. timed for 5 minutes, but this morning 2mins 47 secs by my watch. Just the luck of the route the driver picked and the traffic lights green.

LAIRA · 1 Feb 2019

The PR3 is the shortest route in Plymouth. It runs from Derriford Hospital to The George P&R every 20 mins so that's 10 minutes each way but it sits at each end for about 5 minutes unless the traffic is busy.

Slower Travel · 1 Feb 2019

So far then, the current leader is the #1 from Aberdare to Abernant and it's lightning fast 6 minute run:

https://bustimes.org/services/1-aberdare-abernant

Again, it is in effect a circular, but not timetabled as such. Bustimes has the Bedworth B1 & B2 down as circulars, taking their running times into double figures and knocking them out of contention. This does for the peculiar Sainsbury's bus in Halifax, too, as it clocks in at 8 minutes to do a full circuit.

Gotta disqualify the Tesco bus in Crewe on account of it being a free shopper bus, but some great shouts coming in!

W-on-Sea · 1 Feb 2019

Hmm, the shortest TfL route now is the 389 in Barnet. It's scheduled to take 7 minutes in one direction, but 5 minutes in the other. Averaging that out at 6 minutes, and it ties with the Aberdare route.

There's a 7 minute local service (97) run by Thames Travel in Didcot/.

TheGrandWazoo · 1 Feb 2019

rg177 said:
Go North East, when they took over Jayline, ran a 251 in Peterlee. It didn't seem to go very far and a circuit was a maximum of 5 minutes.

A couple of older ones from the North East....

c.1984 to 1986, there was a United service 244 from Peterlee town centre to Mill Hill (aka the United depot) that took 6 minutes

Sometime in the mid 1970s, United also operated a shuttle service from the rail halt to the terminal building at Teesside Airport - that could only have been about 2/3 mins

Busaholic · 1 Feb 2019

PeterC said:
I remember reading about an even shorter route in the country area, possibly in Orpington. LT never ran buses "not in service" so a positioning move from one side of the town centre to the other formed a route in its own right. It was certainly the shortest LT route, I don't know about nationally.

Very likely to have been Orpington. I'd wager that Kelvin Parade, at one end of the High Street, was one of the termini, the other being one of the War Memorial (possibly), the Station or Ramsden Estate, the latter being reached almost non-stop via the By-Pass (I know there was such a journey.) It would almost certainly have been worked by Dunton Green garage (code DG) which for a time in the 1950s and 1960s must have operated almost as many routes as it had buses allocated! The 431 in particular had many suffixed offshoots, and one of those would be my guess for its number.

Smethwickian · 2 Feb 2019

43055 said:
Notts and Derby operate D1 'park and ride' in Derby taking 15 minuets to complete the full route.

In Burton Midland Classic have a small circular service 11 and the last journey in the afternoon doesn't do the full loop so is only 9 minuets long.

Are they dfferent minuets or is the same piece played over and over again, as that would get boring. And is the music on disc or is there a live string quartet on board?

Slower Travel · 2 Feb 2019

Might well have trimmed another minute off it here:

https://bustimes.org/services/hs-mountain-ash-ysbyty-cwm-cynon

It's the hospital shuttle service between Mountain Ash railways station and the local hospital. 4 mins in total, however, with it being a shuttle service I assume that it's a freebie and is therefore disqualified. Eeeeh, I do love these arbitrary rules :lol:

swt class 450 · 2 Feb 2019

There is nothing online to say that the Hospital Shuttle is free. If it was free i thought that they would have publicised it. So this makes me think it may be an ordinary service which you have to pay for. But who knows.

Typhoon · 2 Feb 2019

user1234 said:
There is nothing online to say that the Hospital Shuttle is free. If it was free i thought that they would have publicised it. So this makes me think it may be an ordinary service which you have to pay for. But who knows.

Also the OP specified

The only caveat I'd mention is to exclude the free shopper buses.

It is unlikely to be used by shoppers!

Slower Travel · 2 Feb 2019

Hoisted on my own petard!

Addendum: all free buses are barred

[Trivia] Shortest Bus Routes In The UK

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