Great Britain interurban bus map

[darloscott]

Service 18 in North Yorkshire only runs between Stokesley & Guisborough, no longer to Saltburn. Sadly we had to give that up and NYC would only fund their half of the route. Thanks to BSIP it now runs on a Saturday though!
Also the service between Hartlepool & Durham is now the 59.

 

[Parebunks]

Loving the Scottish additions! A couple of very minor points, to the south of Ayr are the towns of Ballantrae and Stranraer.

And, I guess more down to space limitations, the 901/906 from Glasgow follows the M8 to the west (roughly parallel to the 9/38), while the 1 series uses the Clydeside Expressway to the north west, and the Citylink services use Great Western Road, which is parallel but a few miles further north (except the occasional journeys that use the M8, but let's gloss over that!)

If you are adding islands, can I suggest Cumbrae, off the coast of Largs. Millport Motors run service 320 to the ferry slip every 15 minutes during the summer season, and 30 mins during the winter. Amazing job, and forward to see what happens next!

Yes, the Glasgow stuff is down to space limitations - similar things have happened in other urban areas, but will try and correct in the future.

Just a heads up. Barmouth to Porthmadog is now the G23.
Barmouth to Dolgellau should be a thicker hourly line.
In South West Wales, the 322 and 381 are now operated by First Cymru.
Chester to Whitchurch 41 should now show as operated by Centrebus Group.

This map is becoming increasingly useful (especially as busatlas still hasn’t made it to Scotland. A small correction though - Stranraer has a typo (Stranrear).

In Cornwall I would include Fowey (space to do so I think) - relatively frequent services by First and Go Ahead from St. Austell.

Service 18 in North Yorkshire only runs between Stokesley & Guisborough, no longer to Saltburn. Sadly we had to give that up and NYC would only fund their half of the route. Thanks to BSIP it now runs on a Saturday though!
Also the service between Hartlepool & Durham is now the 59.

Thanks for all of those, should be fixed. It is quite difficult to keep track of the whole country, so these are much appreciated!

 

[Buzby]

Sorry - I should have noticed this earlier - Inverary is another typo it is spelt Inveraray.

 

[WestAnglian]

That one was fixed a while ago, maybe check you're looking at the most recent version in the post just above yours?

OK, thank you. I did refresh the page from the original link but was unaware other links were provided.

 

[Stan Drews]

Thanks - Glasgow was certainly one of the tighter areas. 6/18 shown as one line in the same way as similar situations elsewhere on the map, just not enough room to show them separately. Could try to add Johnstone, is it distinct enough from Paisley to need separating out? May redo Glasgow entirely eventually to get closer to a Manchester level of detail inc. stuff like the 757, it is a bit squashed at the moment.

Yes, Johnstone is distinct from Paisley. I’d recommend swapping the 9 & 38 lines and then extend the 38 parallel with the 904 and add Johnstone a little before the X36 line joins the 904 (which happens a little south of Johnstone anyway). A great effort though.

 

[stevieinselby]

Amazing work!
A few other minor corrections:

• Skipton to Settle is 580, Settle to Kirkby Lonsdale is 581 (you've got the numbers the wrong way round)
• 64 between Skipton and Ilkley now runs hourly
• Both X46 and X47 run between Beverley and Hull
• Between York and Market Weighton is now every 20 minutes with the addition of X45
• Market Weighton to Driffield (on route 41 between Beverley and Bridlington) has a new hourly service 145 by Go-ahead
• 51 between Doncaster and Norton (and Whitley) is now run by Arriva, not First
• Burnley to Colne is every 10 minutes on Mainline services (M3, 2×M4, 2×M5, M6)
• Middlesbrough to Redcar is every 15 minutes between X2, X3 and X4 (plus the more circuitous 63, also every 15 minutes)

... and a suggestion:

• X26/X27 from Darlington to Richmond could be extended to Catterick Garrison – it's the end of the route, and a town of 13,000 people in its own right (and so bigger than Richmond!)
• and planning ahead, from next week 476 between Selby and Pontefract increases to hourly
• and 25/26 between Leeds, Otley and Ilkley is set to revert to X84 in February 2025

 

[Parebunks]

Yes, Johnstone is distinct from Paisley. I’d recommend swapping the 9 & 38 lines and then extend the 38 parallel with the 904 and add Johnstone a little before the X36 line joins the 904 (which happens a little south of Johnstone anyway). A great effort though.

Amazing work!
A few other minor corrections:

• Skipton to Settle is 580, Settle to Kirkby Lonsdale is 581 (you've got the numbers the wrong way round)
• 64 between Skipton and Ilkley now runs hourly
• Both X46 and X47 run between Beverley and Hull
• Between York and Market Weighton is now every 20 minutes with the addition of X45
• Market Weighton to Driffield (on route 41 between Beverley and Bridlington) has a new hourly service 145 by Go-ahead
• 51 between Doncaster and Norton (and Whitley) is now run by Arriva, not First
• Burnley to Colne is every 10 minutes on Mainline services (M3, 2×M4, 2×M5, M6)
• Middlesbrough to Redcar is every 15 minutes between X2, X3 and X4 (plus the more circuitous 63, also every 15 minutes)

... and a suggestion:

• X26/X27 from Darlington to Richmond could be extended to Catterick Garrison – it's the end of the route, and a town of 13,000 people in its own right (and so bigger than Richmond!)
• and planning ahead, from next week 476 between Selby and Pontefract increases to hourly
• and 25/26 between Leeds, Otley and Ilkley is set to revert to X84 in February 2025

Thank you both, much appreciated! All of those bar the 25/26 on there now, think I'll wait for First to confirm that it will be X84 rather than a new number to fit in with the Headingley scheme as could see both.

 

[gingerheid]

I missed this before! This is amazing! Thank you so much!

 

[duncombec]

Couple of items from the south-east corner:

- Stagecoach 701 (Brighton - Eastbourne) withdrawn
- B&H 28 runs between Brighton and Eastbourne via a route somewhere in between the Uckfield and the coast road. Gets complicated to add an extra point (if you made it Hailsham, you'd have to divert the 54 as well), so possibly just replace the 701 with 28? (But ideally north of the 12, as that's where it goes, much as the 701 did!).
- Redroute 308 (Gravesend - Sevenoaks) now only extends beyond Vigo towards Sevenoaks on Mondays to Fridays.
- Arriva 477 (Dartford to Orpington) has largely been reextended back to Bluewater.

Also, query your use of "daily but infrequent" in the legend for the dashed line, which seems to suggest more days than the Monday to Saturday options E.g. the Go-Coach 3 (Sevenoaks to Orpington) only operates Mondays to Fridays, but is shown with the dotted line.

Hope that helps!

 

[ACBest]

Some notes from my area…

The 24 between Newark and Grantham recently had a bit of an upgrade, and has gone from being infrequent to being every hour for much of Monday to Friday, and every two hours on Saturday.

The 23 between Bottesford and Melton Mowbray ceases to exist after next week, largely replaced by DRT, but Vectare/Central Connect will take over a token peak hours service numbered LC2.

The 8 between Loughborough and Melton Mowbray will become the LC8 after the end of next week.

There’s also a second route between Grantham and Stamford now, the 28, which has three round trips Monday to Friday, and is every two hours on Saturday.

Honestly, fab work, it’s very impressive!

 

[Parebunks]

Couple of items from the south-east corner:

- Stagecoach 701 (Brighton - Eastbourne) withdrawn
- B&H 28 runs between Brighton and Eastbourne via a route somewhere in between the Uckfield and the coast road. Gets complicated to add an extra point (if you made it Hailsham, you'd have to divert the 54 as well), so possibly just replace the 701 with 28? (But ideally north of the 12, as that's where it goes, much as the 701 did!).
- Redroute 308 (Gravesend - Sevenoaks) now only extends beyond Vigo towards Sevenoaks on Mondays to Fridays.
- Arriva 477 (Dartford to Orpington) has largely been reextended back to Bluewater.

Also, query your use of "daily but infrequent" in the legend for the dashed line, which seems to suggest more days than the Monday to Saturday options E.g. the Go-Coach 3 (Sevenoaks to Orpington) only operates Mondays to Fridays, but is shown with the dotted line.

Hope that helps!

Some notes from my area…

The 24 between Newark and Grantham recently had a bit of an upgrade, and has gone from being infrequent to being every hour for much of Monday to Friday, and every two hours on Saturday.

The 23 between Bottesford and Melton Mowbray ceases to exist after next week, largely replaced by DRT, but Vectare/Central Connect will take over a token peak hours service numbered LC2.

The 8 between Loughborough and Melton Mowbray will become the LC8 after the end of next week.

There’s also a second route between Grantham and Stamford now, the 28, which has three round trips Monday to Friday, and is every two hours on Saturday.

Honestly, fab work, it’s very impressive!

Thank you both, again much appreciated!

 

[Vexed]

Got a couple changes near me.

Uno's limited stop X10 in Herts runs Hatfield - St Albans (ish, not really sure if a couple stops in the NE corner count!) - Luton, but it's uni term time only so not sure if you want to include it.

Arriva's X1 is a new limited stop Luton - Milton Keynes service.

 

[Parebunks]

Got a couple changes near me.

Uno's limited stop X10 in Herts runs Hatfield - St Albans (ish, not really sure if a couple stops in the NE corner count!) - Luton, but it's uni term time only so not sure if you want to include it.

Arriva's X1 is a new limited stop Luton - Milton Keynes service.

X10 was a mostly-conscious skip (in part to save on space), not sure how I forgot the X1! Thanks for pointing out.

 

[Spaceflower]

Definitely a labour of love that.

With the introduction of the BSIP subsidy post Covid, I was quite surprised how difficult it was to plan a 'busathon' across the country. A map like this would have made the task so much quicker and easier.

Great idea and well executed.

The hard part now, ofcourse, will be keeping it accurate and up to date. I suspect that task might become a bit less loveable

 

[Parebunks]

Definitely a labour of love that.

With the introduction of the BSIP subsidy post Covid, I was quite surprised how difficult it was to plan a 'busathon' across the country. A map like this would have made the task so much quicker and easier.

Great idea and well executed.

The hard part now, ofcourse, will be keeping it accurate and up to date. I suspect that task might become a bit less loveable

More a labour of lockdown in fact, if you look at how long the thread's been open I did quite a lot of the work when I didn't have much else to do! Keeping it updated is a bit of work but between keeping half an eye on this board most of the time and direct feedback when I put up new versions it doesn't seem to be proving onerously difficult.

 

[Spaceflower]

More a labour of lockdown in fact, if you look at how long the thread's been open I did quite a lot of the work when I didn't have much else to do! Keeping it updated is a bit of work but between keeping half an eye on this board most of the time and direct feedback when I put up new versions it doesn't seem to be proving onerously difficult.

It's really good either way. With respect to the duration of the thread, the other thing your project highlights is the constant change.

 

[stevieinselby]

It's really good either way. With respect to the duration of the thread, the other thing your project highlights is the constant change.

What might be good for the OP would be to upload the file to a web space (even if it's just a Google drive or something like that) and then you can give a permanent link to it, meaning you don't need to keep re-posting it here and people would automatically get the most up-to-date version of it.

 

[Parebunks]

What might be good for the OP would be to upload the file to a web space (even if it's just a Google drive or something like that) and then you can give a permanent link to it, meaning you don't need to keep re-posting it here and people would automatically get the most up-to-date version of it.

Now there's an idea! I'm not great with google drive but will give that a go, link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eqWOsCWPDWsJp4VEyyYu6rp6IQ8IwFPc/view?usp=sharing

 

[Snex]

Not sure I agree with some of the routes on this map mind if we're talking about interurban routes.

Surely all the contract stuff around Hexham and Northallerton, just to pick 2 areas out are rural routes instead.

An interurban route to me is one which connects between 2 or more cities, or at least 2 or more large settlements.

A map of all the rural routes would be really interesting though as there's tonnes of routes that no-one knows about as they're all hidden in the backwater pages of the council sites usually, if there's timetables online - at all.

 

[cav1975]

An excellent project, thank you. Have you considered the Nu-Venture 130 which runs from Twydall/Rainham to Maidstone? Roughly every other hour on weekdays with four Saturday services. Twydall & Rainham are on the easten edge of the Medway towns so the route runs from the 3 of the 326 on your map to Maidstone.

https://nu-venture.online/onewebmedia/130_130A_270124.pdf

 

[Parebunks]

Not sure I agree with some of the routes on this map mind if we're talking about interurban routes.

Surely all the contract stuff around Hexham and Northallerton, just to pick 2 areas out are rural routes instead.

An interurban route to me is one which connects between 2 or more cities, or at least 2 or more large settlements.

A map of all the rural routes would be really interesting though as there's tonnes of routes that no-one knows about as they're all hidden in the backwater pages of the council sites usually, if there's timetables online - at all.

The idea was routes that could conceivably be used as part of an interurban journey as the focus, then other stuff if there were any major gaps. So to take Northallerton and Hexham areas as examples, the Northallerton ones mostly went on earlier as potentially usable for something like York-Newcastle, then the Hexham ones got infilled later as it became clear how big some of the gaps up there were. There's also a degree of adding things people ask for if at all possible, so a degree of bias towards greater detail in some areas like the Peak District. Potentially not how I'd do it if I went about this from scratch as a planned project, but when I was doing it originally the intention did somewhat expand in scope - the original 'south-central England' iteration to help me plan day trips is still hidden on my drive somewhere.

An excellent project, thank you. Have you considered the Nu-Venture 130 which runs from Twydall/Rainham to Maidstone? Roughly every other hour on weekdays with four Saturday services. Twydall & Rainham are on the easten edge of the Medway towns so the route runs from the 3 of the 326 on your map to Maidstone.

Possibly didn't include that originally due to lack of space? Medway might be part of a London rework eventually though, it is very cramped at the moment.

 

[IanMac]

Congratulations on your hard work and excellent map, which I have only just become aware of.

I would suggest a couple of corrections:

Stagecoach MK1 between Luton and Milton Keynes uses the M1 and so does not serve Dunstable as the map implies.
Stagecoach 57 has been withdrawn south of Boston and so the only operator between there and Spalding is Brylaine.

 

[Buzby]

A quick typo correction is required in Scotland - Huntley is actually Huntly.

 

[Snex]

The idea was routes that could conceivably be used as part of an interurban journey as the focus, then other stuff if there were any major gaps. So to take Northallerton and Hexham areas as examples, the Northallerton ones mostly went on earlier as potentially usable for something like York-Newcastle, then the Hexham ones got infilled later as it became clear how big some of the gaps up there were. There's also a degree of adding things people ask for if at all possible, so a degree of bias towards greater detail in some areas like the Peak District. Potentially not how I'd do it if I went about this from scratch as a planned project, but when I was doing it originally the intention did somewhat expand in scope - the original 'south-central England' iteration to help me plan day trips is still hidden on my drive somewhere.

Possibly didn't include that originally due to lack of space? Medway might be part of a London rework eventually though, it is very cramped at the moment.

Yeah that's a fair play.

Btw there should be enough space to do it but personally I'd probably change the South East Northumberland network so it looked something like this:

It represents the network a bit better and makes it clearer the difference between the X10/X11 (not X7/X8/X9) and 308/309 in terms of via Cramlington or Whitley Bay.

Also gives you a little bit more space South of the Tyne to maybe add South Shields and the X34 and 24/E1/E2/E6 which probably should be on.

 

[ricoblade]

Great stuff. One minor point is that there is a 29 service as well as the 99 running from Doncaster to Retford.

 

[Parebunks]

Congratulations on your hard work and excellent map, which I have only just become aware of.

I would suggest a couple of corrections:

Stagecoach MK1 between Luton and Milton Keynes uses the M1 and so does not serve Dunstable as the map implies.
Stagecoach 57 has been withdrawn south of Boston and so the only operator between there and Spalding is Brylaine.

A quick typo correction is required in Scotland - Huntley is actually Huntly.

Yeah that's a fair play.

Btw there should be enough space to do it but personally I'd probably change the South East Northumberland network so it looked something like this:
View attachment 171858
It represents the network a bit better and makes it clearer the difference between the X10/X11 (not X7/X8/X9) and 308/309 in terms of via Cramlington or Whitley Bay.

Also gives you a little bit more space South of the Tyne to maybe add South Shields and the X34 and 24/E1/E2/E6 which probably should be on.

Great stuff. One minor point is that there is a 29 service as well as the 99 running from Doncaster to Retford.

Thank you all! That Tyneside suggestion in particular is much appreciated given the closest I've been to the area is through it on a Megabus, implemented a lot of it now and will try the rest in future. The latest version *should* now always be at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eqWOsCWPDWsJp4VEyyYu6rp6IQ8IwFPc/view?usp=sharing, do let me know if that doesn't seem to be working.

 

[Buzby]

It works - but the resolution of the image is awful - numbers are just blobs!

 

[Peterthegreat]

It works - but the resolution of the image is awful - numbers are just blobs!

Mine is absolutely fine.

 

[MotCO]

It works - but the resolution of the image is awful - numbers are just blobs!

Mine is fine - on a laptop, using Firefox.

One small anomaly. Between Crawley and East Grinstead you only list the 291, but the 400 also goes to East Grinstead.

 

[Buzby]

I’m using an M4 iPad Pro - no issue with the earlier maps but Google is somehow dropping the resolution for my browser - (I’ve included a screen grab).