Tiger Bus to Newmarket

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority have recently introduced some Tiger bus services.

Many locals do not know about them, as the advertising for these services is abysmal. (If you look at the CPCA site, the Tiger buses really are well hidden.)

But a couple of them have the advantage of calling at the stop right near my house, so as soon as I could find a gap in my hectic schedule I decided to try out the T4 from Cambridge to Newmarket.

Going out, it was a little late. Having looked at the real-time tracking over a few days this isn't uncommon. The next question was what ticket to buy - the range of available tickets is, um, complex, and while it was easy enough to find a long list of tickets I could possibly buy, which one you should get really isn't covered. But a single each way is far and away the best (assuming you're not going to change or break your journey).

I was the only passenger on the bus for a while. Someone else got on in Great Wilbraham, heading for Burwell - a young lad who given his attire and equipment was off for a game of cricket. Once we got into Burwell we started to pick up quite a few more - the usage is heavily skewed to the Newmarket end of the route, something that was also true on the return journey.

We went out through Fulbourn, and the kept on going (most buses, like the 1, go to Fulbourn centre and turn around).

Then to Great Wilbraham, a village with many attractive Thatched cottages. And a pub, the Carpenters Arms.

Next up is Little Wilbraham, with another good pub, The Hole In The Wall. It's slightly odd here, the bus goes further into the village and just turns round again.

We went past Bottisham Airfield Museum, which we've had to drive to in the past, where a new hut appears to be under construction by a group of willing volunteers.

Into Bottisham village, another possible pub - The Bell. On the way into the village we encountered a pair of number 12 buses, run by Stephensons, which operate a more direct service to Newmarket. The snag with those for me is that I would have to get the bus into Cambridge to get them, so it takes much longer overall and costs twice as much. We were flagged down by someone in the centre of the village, but were rejected when they saw the 12 coming along behind us.

To Swaffham Bulbeck, another country pub The Black Horse Inn. Then Swaffham Prior, which has two churches right next to each other, and another pub - the Red Lion.

In Reach the bus takes a big loop around the Fair Green. The Dyke's End pub is just off the green, but not immediately visible although there was a board advertising it.

Burwell is a decent sized village with a few points of interest. There's a castle (or mound, anyway), a local museum, coffee shops/bakeries, and at least 3 pubs passed by the bus (Five Bells, Anchor, The Fox). We worked our way through the village, but did pick up quite a few passengers. There's also a significant chunk of new housing being built on the eastern edge of the village.

Last village was Exning, which has more new houses being built on the western edge of the village (no obvious bus stop for them, though). Passed The White Horse and The White Swan (not sure if the latter is open, though).

And then straight into Newmarket, to a little (read cramped) bus station at the Guineas shopping centre.

While Newmarket has a decent range of shops, cafes, pubs, and restaurants, there really aren't many attractions. There's the Jockey Club and National Horse Racing Museum, but as a town it's really a one-trick pony (pun intended). The racecourses aren't well served by public transport either, certainly the T4 isn't much use although, to be fair, it's no worse than using the train.

I had a little surprise when I arrived, there seemed to be a royal theme in many shop windows, lots of people carrying union jacks, and the High Street was closed. Unbeknownst to me, I had chosen the same day to visit as the King and Queen, and there was quite a crowd waiting, who seemed to be enjoying themselves. The local brass band was playing YMCA as I walked up, and you could see all the flags doing the actions.

I had a little wander round all the shops. (Must be a bit upmarket, given the high prices in the charity shops.) Then had a proper lunch at Wildwood, taking advantage of the OAP special. (I'm not old enough for a bus pass, so any other discounts are very welcome!)

The return journey isn't quite the reverse of the outward trip. We basically went the same way round Burwell as we had earlier. And there was another odd excursion into Lode just to do a 3-point turn.

Generally, the service is much more heavily used on the Burwell-Newmarket stretch, it's pretty quiet at the Cambridge end. Yet there's so much opportunity here - there are attractive villages with interesting pubs and restaurants placed within reach. Both the bus company and the businesses along the route are missing a trick, getting the word out about what you can get to easily would drive more customers for both the bus and the businesses.

The hierarchy of sustainable travel

Part of transport policy in the UK is the sustainable transport hierarchy. There are lots of versions of this, as it turns out - see for example here and here.

But generally put, the hierarchy has a number of tiers:

• Walking and wheeling
• Cycling
• Public transport
• Taxis and shared vehicles
• Private cars
• Air travel

Generally, modes are more sustainable as you go up the list - lower pollution, lower carbon emissions. The more active travel modes at the top of the list are also much healthier. They're also more efficient as you go up the list - cars in particular are incredibly inefficient users of the precious space in urban environments. And the costs of providing the infrastructure vary quite widely - there are massive external costs associated with motor transport, which are much higher than the direct income from taxation.

With that, policy should prioritise modes further up the hierarchy. You do see a fair amount of talk about this, although action is far less obvious.

One recent change to the Highway Code, for example, prioritises pedestrians and cylists over vehicles turning into side roads.

But generally, the reality is that the default is to prioritise the car, sometimes subtly. Consider Cambridge Railway station. Come by car or taxi, and you arrive close to the front door. Cyclists are a bit further away, and have to navigate steps. Bus users are down the end of the street. Pedestrians have all sorts of obstacles to navigate.

There are lots of other examples. Pedestrian crossings - if they exist at all - are routinely placed and timed for the convenience of motorists. Bus and cycle lanes are configured and only exist where it's convenient for motorists.

To improve matters, one might consider a range of interventions. These have to be done with care - simply concentrating on one level in the hierarchy runs the risk of causing harm at other levels. Although, generally, an intervention at a specific level is more likely to benefit the tiers below it, while running the risk of harming levels above it.

One example here is that ways to encourage cycling can harm pedestrian activity - shared paths are obviously bad, but taking pavement space for cycle parking also make the lives of pedestrians much worse.

One extreme consequence of the above is that if you want to improve the lot of motorists, you should work to improve the tiers above - as people shift to walking, cycling, or using public transport then you reduce congestion, and that's really the best way to benefit motorists.

Conversely, designing for cars makes the levels above less attractive, which pushes more people towards car use, increasing congestion and making life for motorists worse.

Properly connected bus services?

Dirk Gently was a great fan of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Those who are responsible for our public transport? Not so much.

At least where I am and for the journeys I tend to make, joined-up thinking really hasn't permeated into public transport.

It wasn't that much better in the past - consider how many railway stations are set distant from their notional destination. Blame the Victorian NIMBYs for that one.

Bus stops and bus stations tend to be at fairly random locations. At Cambridge Railway station, they're relegated to way down the road. In Cambridge, some go from a random point on the street on Parkside.

Here in Cambridge we have a number of bus services that are operated in some sort of isolation. There's the regular (Citi) buses; the park and ride services; the U; the guided busway; and recently the intriguing Tiger bus routes. There are several different companies involved.

Cross-ticketing really isn't a thing. If your route involves multiple suppliers, pay them separately. If the convoluted route map involves multiple routes, pay extra.

The new T4 and T5 are allegedly timed to interchange, so that you can swap from one to the other depending on your destination. That's good, but that it gets specially called out indicates that it's a rarity. There's even a Hopper ticket, but again that's part of the problem - you should be able to swap buses to complete your route without penalty.

I was at a event last night and asked about a transport survey that had been done. Had they asked where people needed to get to? Nope. Not at all. This sort of basic information is critical to working out what sort of transport provision is required - where to put the cycle ways, where the bus routes run - but we don't have it, it seems the powers that be aren't trying to get it, and we end up with public transport being provided completely at random. And they they wonder why people are unhappy and patronage is low.

Maybe a move to bus franchising will improve matters, as that does give uniformity of control and decisions about route planning. It's difficult to see how it can get any worse.

Cheap single bus tickets considered harmful

Here in the UK, the government placed a £2 cap on single bus fares. Cheaper bus fares is a good thing, surely?

The snag with this limit is that, at least in Cambridge, it makes 2 single tickets cheaper than a return (OK, there isn't a return, there's a day ticket). It's even cheaper that the advance flexi ticket (which is the day ticket on the smartphone app).

(One possibility is that the single prices have distorted the ticket pricing structure, and that Stagecoach have had to increase the prices of the other tickets - the ones that you would expect to be discounted - in order to avoid making a loss.)

What this means is that instead of buying a day ticket, or using the app, people - including myself - buy a separate single for every journey.

The time it takes for everyone to buy a ticket on the bus is significant - yesterday I timed it and it was typically 10s per passenger. You have to let the driver know your destination and what ticket you want, the ticket machine needs to be set for that, you have to tap your smartcard, the machine has to register it, and the ticket has to be printed and collected. That's when it works, as occasionally the ticket machine doesn't read the card first time (it seems even less reliable with payments by phone, perhaps the technology hasn't quite matured enough).

Some time ago I wrote about The effect of passenger boarding on bus services. For the last couple of years, largely due to the extensive use of the app which meant that people just marched onto the bus at full speed waving their phone at the driver, the fraction of time a bus sits waiting for passengers to board had actually declined sharply. The effect of the lower single fares is that now the time spent waiting for passengers to board is even worse than it was when I looked at it 5 to 6 years ago.

Yesterday, with a full bus at peak afternoon times, the impact on my supposedly 30 minute journey into time was an extra 10 minutes at least. There basically isn't any slop in the timetable, so add this to the roads being congested with too many cars and it's hardly surprising that buses become ridiculously late during rush hour.

Another example of unintended consequences.