The last blog post covered the news that
Stagecoach have registered a number of replacements for to-be-withdrawn Arriva services, from Saturday 18th December. While no timetables have yet been released, we do now know a little bit more about what the service offering will be.
- 34/35/134/135: Guildford to Camberley
The current 134/135 numbers, used to denote school day variants, will no longer be used, with all journeys numbered either 34 or 35. The current reduced Saturday frequency of hourly on each route will be be increased, presumably to match the weekday two 34 and one 35 per hour, offering three buses per hour over the common sections Guildford – Woking – St. John’s – Knaphill – Bisley – West End – Lightwater – Bagshot – Camberley.
- 53: Guildford to Ewhurst
Saturday service increased, presumably reintroducing the Cranleigh ‘shorts’ to offer three buses per hour over the Guildford – Shalford – Bramley – Wonersh – Shamley Green – Rowly – Cranleigh section, in conjunction with the existing hourly 53 journeys to Ewhurst and hourly route 63 to Horsham.
- 91: Woking to Knaphill
(Pirbright evenings, Guildford Sundays)
Weekend frequencies increased, presumably the Saturday service up from half-hourly to every 15 minutes (or at least the reintroduction of the subsidised evening Knaphill ‘shorts’ alongside the hourly Pirbright journeys to offer a half-hourly evening service Woking to Knaphill), and on Sundays the reintroduction of the subsidised Knaphill ‘shorts’ to offer a half- hourly service Woking – Goldsworth Park – Knaphill.
These frequency reductions were implemented by Arriva as a result of the pandemic and, unlike most local operators, these have remained at their reduced levels.
While Stagecoach’s replacements for Arriva routes 34, 35, 47, 53, 63 and 91 look to be largely like-for-like, more information of the registered route 6 to replace the 36/37 town circulars is also now available. Currently the 36 and 37 cover the same roads in a loop, with the 36 running clockwise and the 37 running anti-clockwise. Surrey County Council (SCC)’s website has given a little more information, which seems to indicate that the 6 will cover the northern half of the loop in both directions running Guildford – Burpham – Merrow Park, with the southern section of the loop being covered by an eastern extension of their current route 1 (Guildford – University of Surrey – Surrey Sports Park – Royal Surrey Council Hospital – Stoughton). This would offer a link across town linking the hospital and university with the Epsom Road and Merrow (Bushy Hill).
Stagecoach’s route 1 currently interworks with route 2, to form a loop running Guildford – University of Surrey – Royal Surrey County Hospital – Rydes Hill (route 1 becomes 2) – Stoughton – Guildford, and vice versa. Therefore assuming this arrangement continues, this would essentially create a Guildford – Stoughton (route 2 becomes 1) – Rydes Hill – Royal Surrey County Hospital – Surrey Sports Park – University of Surrey – Guildford – Epsom Road – Merrow (Bushy Hill) service.
New route 6 is listed as running Guildford – Burpham – Merrow Park. It is unclear at this stage if it will serve the small loop off the London Road around Weylea Avenue/Sutherland Drive, or complete the full loop to meet their extended 1 at Merrow (Bushy Hill). The fact the 6 has Merrow Park listed as its terminus, rather than Bushy Hill, makes me think the full loop might indeed not be linked (interworking would seem unlikely regardless for reliability). If the 6 terminates at Merrow Park’s Kingfisher Drive Shops bus stop and turns on the roundabout there, it would leave two stops unserved by former 36/37 loop buses – Partridge Way on Park Lane, and Merrow Church on Epsom Road. If buses continue beyond the shops to serve Park Lane and turn at Merrow roundabout, it would just leave Merrow Church unserved by the route 36/37 replacement 1/6 services. However that stop is also served by routes 25, 463, 478 and 479 into Guildford, and as yet we don’t know who will be taking on the 479 tender, so we may still see Stagecoach serve it Mondays to Saturdays (beyond just a daily school bus) yet.
We will obviously know more as timetables become available, but in the meantime below are some scribblings on Google Maps showing the existing Stagecoach 1/2 (solid red line) and Arriva 36/37 (solid green line), alongside the extended 1 (dashed red line) and new route 6 (dashed blue line). These are the presumed routings based on what we know so far, so may turn out to be not 100%. As more is known about the timetables of these and the futures of routes 18, 479, Sunday 3 and single morning 28 trip, this will of course be posted in future blog postings. We understand that invitations have now been sent out by the council to operators for routes 18 and 479, with submissions for those required next week. Hopefully though, this rough illustration gives an idea of the geography we are talking about for now.
