Simon

Fewer Cambridgeshire busway passengers after speed limit reduced The limit on the network, where three people have died, is reduced while fencing is installed.

I wonder if it’s the speed limit

Or the increase up to the £3 bus fare cap?

Or a bit of both?

Voi rival Beryl? beryl.cc/scheme/bourn... (worth noting the "park inside a Beryl bay" £ pricing...)

Yet no, it seems the option our local Combined Authority would rather default to (if that's the way the vote goes - not too sure it will) is that they'll just give up, just like the commercial operators do, scrap the most expensive routes, leaving public hanging, without a bus service.

Unimpressed.

...drive up passenger numbers? The 8A (as one of the examples) has 19500 population in 400m of route, 1118 of those have no car. 15 has 15000pop, 899 without a car. Clearly there are people that could use a bus, if 1: CPCA told them about it 2: CPCA made the service(s) more usable (improved them) ..

...does the bus service not make a connection which could allow it to be a (more) useful route, or go too early or too late for people to travel to where they want. Has the CA directly communicated with any of the thousands of people claimed in each 400m catchment area about the bus, to try and...

What I'd rather see is why have those service(s) not met the original expectations when they were tendered and the contract(s) awarded - were the assumptions wrong, the data duff, has the contracted operator had unreliable buses, or has the timetable changed, have passengers moved (or died) ...

...after months and months of service(s) running, now they've seen the "cost per passenger" and don't want to fund the service(s). But they'd already agreed the money to be spent, and awarded contracts (which seem lately as 2yr + 1yr extension)

But first sign of "too expensive" and they walk away?

I find CPCA's approach to this frustrating and wrong.

The constituent councils agreed the annual budget. The funding to buses. Officers have clearly found the bids by operator(s) as acceptable cost, otherwise they'd not have awarded the contract(s). They've agreed £ spend up front.

Now however...

Chair Cllr Boden saying CPCA have promoted Tiger Bus Pass widely and listing various ways they've done so.

Strangely I've not seen posters for it at any bus stops, or on any of the buses I've been on...

Follow up from questioner asking that very point - didn't see it on the bus to meeting today

Live stream of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority 17th November 2025 Transport committee meeting is starting now cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.public-i.tv/core/portal/...

10 Public Q's
Tiger Bus Pass (might be in closed session)
Contracted Bus Services Review
E-scooters
more... 🧵?

Screenshot of Question 6 from the Public Questions of the 17th November 2025 Transport Committee meeting agenda documents at https://democracy.cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=138&MId=623

10 public questions (a few on Castor, Ailsworth, Wansford and Wittering service) inc’ this one @honeybadger200.bsky.social may be interested about: Peterborough bus services & Queensgate bus station

17 Nov 2025 Transport meeting docs:
democracy.cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/ieListDocume...

I'm not at all against new rail stations (more the better please) but does AW really need one? A very good quick bus route could be built to Huntingdon station (via Hinchingbrooke Hospital?)

Of course the developer of AW is very keen on a station - they'll sell more houses for (even) higher £££s...

Two years exactly since Bus Stops came to the Transport meeting. Two years exactly that Bus Stops have fallen more and more in to disrepair. Two years exactly that "it's difficult - some is county, some district, some town/parish, some we don't know" excuse has been used as why nothing gets done...

Completely unfounded prediction based on purely personal opinion and guesswork:

we'll end up with some "innovative" bus franchsing scheme.

"Franchising+", or maybe "enhanced franchising" - some "hybrid" between Enhanced Partnership and Franchising, a neither one nor the other bodge. "Cambs-style".

I wonder if it'll ever happen

CPCA seem obsessed with the "cost per passenger", which is a great metric to have for a "blimey, that's expensive, we need to do something about that!" but it shouldn't be what defines funding a route or not. Make the route(s) good, get people on the buses, it's committed contract cost that matters.

... and make sure those core routes are faster/express not going around all the villages - have feeder buses taking people to Hubs/Interchanges, be that DRT or scheduled 'slow' along the bumpy roads local around the villages buses that really are just "local buses" shuttling people to/from Hubs.

I think CPCA has got their DRT/On Demand wrong. You can travel any stop to any stop in the zones - even ones served by standard "scheduled" routes. I think it should be any DRT <-> DRT, any DRT <-> Hub, not any Hub <-> Hub. Get DRT buses to have set times they'll be at Hubs to link with core routes

That's a problem I see with a bookable service too - you don't know you'll definitely be able to book a service (others may have done so no booking slots available) and that as it's not fixed times it may not arrive in time for a (bus/train) connection elsewhere.

Seems to have faded in to a distant memory - personally feel routes that come from other places to/from Peterborough would be better use of that allocated money (inc Hamptons/Yaxely/Gt Haddon, but also further afield) with the idea of getting people to the city, for jobs, shopping, health, etc...

@arj2024.bsky.social That would give you 6 day a week access to St Neots, the railway station, and across to SW Cambridge (connections onwards from Trumpington)

Screenshot of section "3.4" from Item 8 "Contracted Bus Services Review" overview report, from 17 November 2025 Transport meeting at https://democracy.cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=138&MId=623

Proposal for 'south' South Cambs Tiger on Demand zone to expand considerably, covering St Neots and across to Trumpington and possibly Duxford

Presumably people could travel St Neots or Cambourne to Trumpington (P&R) change to 'Busway A' to Addenbrookes - will a minibus still be enough capacity?

Screenshot with highlights added showing some routes have a score and others have got "0" for "Cost per head of population" and "Cost per km per passenger"

How have some routes got a score and others got "0" for "Cost per head of population" and "Cost per km per passenger"?

And on that Cost per km per pax, how can one service have 2.66 = 99.7 score, and another have 0.002 = 98.96 score?

Any of this making sense?

Screenshot showing "Distance per trip"

T10 (South Cambs Tiger on Demand) has a "Distance per trip" of "279.6" (presumably KM, as used elsewhere on report), ~173 miles per trip... in South Cambs?

Admittedly they can't calculate how far each "on demand" vehicle will travel, maybe it's the avg full day (all trips) covered? not "per trip".

Screenshot showing "Contribution to local economy" line with highlights added for clarity

There's a "Contribution to local economy" near the bottom of the report - how have they calculated this? presumably it's £, but if so why does only 1 route have a "score" (100/100) yet the others all are 0 score?

Screenshot of Post 16 Education Served with highlighting added for clarity

Someone please make this make sense...

For example, look at "Post 16 Education Served" line, each route has "raw figures" of them served, and then has a "score", but how can 2 = 7.27, 1 = 8.69, and 1=0.71 ?

Similar throughout the report, where the "scores" just seem randomly assigned...?

In that report, the 8A is said to carry 0.54 "Passengers Per Journey", at a cost per passenger of £100.33

one tip to Milton, one to March, each day Mo-Sa.
approx 28600km annual driven distance!

Yet:
19500 population within 400m
1118 population "without access to a private motor vehicle"

0.54 ??

Screenshot of part of the first page of from 17 November 2025 Item 8 "Appendix A - Assessment of Bus Services 8A, 15, Tiger on Demand (South Cambs) and the 46" document, showing some "weighting" used for the calculating/scoring of routes.

In another report (Appendix A - Assessment of Bus Services ..) which appears to be from same consultants, there are what often makes me think "random numbers that made the sums work"...?

eg: "overall weighting" of "1.99%", "0.72%" - how have the numbers been set so as to be those levels...?

Screenshot from a 74 page report by a consultancy firm (think same one working on Tiger route design including unlaunched Peterborough orbital...?) called "Appendix B - Draft CPCA Contracted Bus Service Review Framework" in Item 8 of these agenda docs:

Screenshot of Page 31 of a 74 page report "Appendix B - Draft CPCA Contracted Bus Service Review Framework", which is in Item 8 of the 17th November 2025 Transport committee meeting at https://democracy.cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=138&MId=623 (Yellow highlighting added for clarity on the screenshot)

17 November 2025 transport meeting

Comparing regions, their max distance to stop, min frequency, and cost benchmarks.

Yet typical "Cambs style" 🤔 CPCA going for "dynamic" instead of actual numbers, and higher cost per pax??

@acarpen.bsky.social @honeybadger200.bsky.social @arj2024.bsky.social