Along the Cambridge Busway
Where I was going was just a short walk from a stop on the new Cambridge Busway, but because I couldn’t find anybody who knew the rules about the busway, I decided to go to my meeting in a taxi. I did however take the busway back to Cambridge City centre on the way back to the station and took these pictures.
The bus was quite smart with leather seats and wi-fi.
But the busway has a lot of design faults.
- There is no information on the busway at the station.
- It would be logical if all buses went via the main bus station at Dummer Street and the rail station. I assumed this. When I found myself dumped in the centre, I decided to have lunch and then had to queue up for another bus for the station. I’d have preferred to go straight to the station.
- There is no timing on the bus maps, so you have no idea when you might want to ask someone to pick you up.
- The bus displays at the stops, don’t say whether they go to the rail station. They don’t list the intermediate stops too, as trains do.
- As they are new modern buses, why can’t they announce the stops like all London ones do?
- The bus map is poor and lacks detail. It does have a text system to find the next bus, but you have to type in 8 letters. How come London can handle all of the metropolis with just 5 digits! Perhaps people in Cambridge like to have their fingers tested, whereas those in London can only manage 5 digits!
It all smacks of a design that wasn’t put together by the best designer. It is attention to detail, that makes tranportation systems good. London and Sheffield have informastion systems that are so much better.
The Anonymous Widower 
i travel 0n the busway daily as i work in thetford. i agree that the bus should run to the station maybe they should rethink the timetables as it stands now i have to go from ramsey road to new square on the B then wait 15 mins to get the A for the train station.
my biggest bug bear is that most runs on these buses appear to include 5 minute waits at various stops. this generally leads to missing my train. can all local transports not work together and allow us workers to get our connections on time.
one other main concern is why customers are ripped off by the busways and council, if you by a smart card and then have time off due to illness they still have your money but you are left without a ticket. surely there is a ticket available that is SMART enough to know you are not using it thus saving us money and stopping busways and the council filling there pockets with our hard earned cash. and maybe work out a way to prevent direct debit customers of smart cards having the embbarrassment of their cards being rejected because the cards have not been activated in time even though the money has been paid from our accounts.
Comment by anon | January 26, 2012 |
I can sympathise. They only have to look at how London’s transport system works, with one pay-as-you-go covering everything. From June or July in London you’ll be able to use a normal credit card on the readers and it will assume you have an Oyster. The great advantage of Oyster is that they know exactly where everybody goes. So they can adjust routes and times to suit the traffic. Also London has two door buses which are much faster to load and unload the punters, as those getting off are out of the way of those getting on. It is also much easier for someone in a wheel-chair. I’ve read somewhere that 10 two-door buses carry the same number of passengers as 11 one-door ones.
Comment by AnonW | January 26, 2012 |