Issue - meetings

David Boden the Business Development Director from Stagecoach attended the meeting to speak about the Bus A route in Cambridge and made the following points:

i.               A lot of work had been done to try and build passenger numbers following the Covid pandemic. Passenger levels were at 89%.

ii.             The ‘A route’ bus had to be a single decker bus due to the low bridge south of the railway station.

iii.            There had been challenges due to driver availability, but these had been overcome.

iv.           It was not straight forward to simply add an additional bus into a route – costs needed to be covered.

v.             The 8A service meant Histon Road had a 15-minute bus service into town.  

vi.           Noted the A service sometimes was not able to stop on Histon Road as the buses were full coming off Orchard Park.

vii.          Noted that people on Histon Road wanted to travel into the city centre or to Addenbrookes.

viii.        The closure of the southern section of the busway had a profound impact on the viability of the busway. Two extra buses had been put into the cycle to operate the busway as buses now had to come down Hills Road.

ix.           Until the southern section of the busway was re-opened no further buses could be put into the cycle. Acknowledged the impact on residents having to walk to Akeman Street following Stagecoach’s decision to reduce the number of stops on Histon Road. 

 

Members of the public asked questions as set out below.

 

1.  Since the change of route for the A bus on 3 September 2023, the residents along Histon Road have been quite upset and unhappy with the situation especially by Brownlow Road and Carisbrooke Road Bus stops.   The residents are dependent on the A bus for their visits to Addenbrookes, daily or weekly as well as the outbound route for their jobs in St Ives. 

 

When GCP planned and constructed the Histon Road project for walking, cycling and bus priority, it became evident that the bus was given priority with a new bus lane and floating bus stops in the northern part which led to too narrow pavements of less than 1 meter and less than standard width for the cycle lanes.  Instead, residents were promised that the guided bus would stop at bus stops along Histon Road for residents to be able to reach the station and Addenbrookes in one go.  This happened and for some months residents were finally enjoying the long-awaited bus connection. 

 

Since then, residents have had a very unreliable service at the only Histon Road bus stop by Akeman Street.  The bus has been cancelled, or it has been full and not stopping.  Trying to travel from Jesus Lane outbound – the bus was already full and the next one cancelled. Often all 3 Stagecoach buses A, 8 and 8A arrive at the same time and then there is a very long wait until the next opportunity.  The time information at the bus stop for the A bus did not work on 7 October.

 

Residents along Histon Road request that Stagecoach immediately reviews the route for the A bus and reinstates the Brownlow Road and Carisbrooke Road bus stops for the A bus.

 

The Stagecoach representative responded:

        i.       Decisions to remove bus stops were not taken lightly.

      ii.        Noted there was a difference between punctuality and reliability. Reliability was within Stagecoach control. They provided the drivers and ran the service.  Services had to be cancelled due to an unprecedented amount of roadworks which affected services. Sometimes these were with very little notice. The consequences of these works have made buses extremely late and made cancellations necessary to regulate the service.

    iii.        Noted comments about buses arriving at the same time but unfortunately there was limited action which could be taken to help this.

    iv.       Electronic timetables were managed by the County Council so would liaise with them about the Brownlow Road timetable.

      v.       When the southern section of the busway was re-opened, bus arrangements could be reviewed.

 

2.  Is there any potential for an increase in frequency for the bus A route during peak times to mitigate against the bus being regularly full and not letting passengers on? 

 

An example from 9 November: Their son, a Long Road College student, waiting at the Akeman Street bus stop was not allowed to board the 9:30, 9:50 and 10:10 buses as they were full. 

 

The Stagecoach representative responded:

        i.       Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to add in an extra service without ensuring that that passenger numbers would cover the cost of running the service. When the southern section of the busway was re-opened, bus arrangements could be reviewed.

 

The Stagecoach representative made the following comments in response to questions from the Committee:

        i.       The B route bus didn’t traditionally stop on Milton Road, this only happened during the pandemic. Post pandemic there were other bus routes which took passengers from the city centre to Milton Road. The number 2 service did link up to Cambridge North train station. Stagecoach had to consider the needs of all users.

      ii.        Stu Right and Danny Smith were the Stagecoach contacts for bus services on Milton Road. 

    iii.        The ‘southern section of the busway’ referred to the closure between the railway station and Addenbrookes which had been in place since January 2021. The impact of this closure meant that a lot of buses had to divert down Hills Road and then got stuck in traffic.

    iv.       The Citi1 bus route was the busiest bus route in Cambridge and had over 150,000 passengers per month. Stagecoach had recently been forced to cut the frequency of this service due to congestion and unplanned roadworks.

      v.       Cam Bus Limited accounts and Stagecoach Group accounts were published online and publicly available via Companies House. Noted that Cam Bus Limited had reinvested 80% back into new buses.

    vi.       Noted that ‘request only’ stops still had to be factored into journey times.

  vii.        Would follow up discussions around the delays caused at Coldham’s Lane roundabout / Sainsburys with Councillor Bird outside of the meeting.