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Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
Legend Street running through St Ives and Huntingdon St Ives (park and ride) Nature reserve Swavesey Longstanton (park and ride) Northstowe Oakington Histon and Impington Cambridge Regional College Arbury Park Cambridge Science Park Street running through Cambridge Cambridge railway station Addenbrooke's Hospital Trumpington (park and ride)

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is a guided bus system under construction in Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, England. At 25 kilometres (16 mi) long, the scheme will be the longest in the world.^[1] Construction started in March 2007 and is expected to be completed by Spring 2009.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Route 3 History 3.1 Background 3.2 CHUMMS Report 3.3 Approval and funding 3.4 Public enquiry 3.5 Construction 3.6 Progress 4 Criticism 4.1 Image of buses 4.2 Rail vs buses 4.3 Environment 4.4 Histon Station 5 Histon Station 6 See also 7 External links 8 References

[edit] Overview

The 23km busway will run 19km from the northern fringe of Cambridge to St Ives, and 4km from Cambridge railway station to Trumpington. The scheme will follow the route of a disused railway line - the Cambridge and Huntingdon railway - which will be concreted over to enable adapted buses to operate on a mainly twin-track system, with a maintenance track running alongside. The scheme features two park and ride sites (at at Longstanton and St Ives) and 14 bus stops with platforms; bus priority signalling and real time travel information displays will be available at guideway 'stations'. The entire project is budgeted to cost £116.2 million.^[1]

Projected journey times between Huntingdon and Cambridge town centre are around 45 minutes during peak hours, as compared with current journey times by road of between 54 and 90 minutes. By 2016, the following services should be offered by the busway: a 15-minute interval service between Huntingdon and St Ives; a 3 to 4-minute interval service from Longstanton Park & Ride to Drummer Street; and a 10-minute interval service from Drummer Street to Addenbrooke's Hospital.^[2]

It has been estimated that around 11,500 journeys a day will be made on the guided busway^[3], and that the service will take traffic off the busy A14 trunk road between Huntingdon and Cambridge by collecting passengers from outlying villages who will use the busway as a means of bypassing the A14.^[2] This, it is predicted, will generate a direct reduction in traffic on A14 of 5.6%, which will rise to 11.1% with the new Park & Ride sites.^[4])

, although as other traffic re-routes to the freed up road space from other parts of the local road network, the actual net reduction on the A14 is predicted to be 2.3%.^[4] The overall scheme is "not intended to solve the congestion problems on the A14"^[4] by itself, but will rather have an overall effect across the local road network^[4], and be complementary to the planned road improvements on the A14^[4].

[edit] Route

The main guideway section of the route is to the north of Cambridge, with 10 stops in all (four in Cambridge).^[5] Starting from two locations in the city centre it then merges on the outskirts, and follows the path of the former Cambridge and Huntingdon railway line to a new park and ride site south of St Ives. From there the scheme continues unguided through St. Ives town centre and on to Huntingdon, where it will stop at the town centre, the railway station and Hinchingbrooke Hospital, the northern terminus.

The short southern section of the scheme is formed entirely by the second length of guideway. This three stop section starts from Cambridge railway station terminating at Trumpington park and ride to the south, near junction 11 of the M11 motorway. A spur links to Addenbrooke's Hospital in the middle of the section. The northern and southern sections are connected by on street running through Cambridge city centre, with two alternate routes connecting with the two start points of the northern guideway.

The scheme comprises two sections of guided operation, together with sections of on street running in bus lanes, and a bus only road. Guidance is achieved through the guidewheel on concrete kerb method, with the guideway being constructed from pre-cast concrete sections that are 15 metres (49 ft) long and 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) wide.^[6].

As with all other UK busway schemes per the privatised bus industry, Cambridgeshire County Council owns the infrastructure, and will allow private bus operators to use it on their registered services, subject to quality contracts specifying vehicle and service standards. Three operators will run services on the guideway: Stagecoach, Huntingdon and District and Whippet Coaches.^[7]

[edit] History

[edit] Background

In 1998, the Labour Government published their Integrated Transport White Paper which called for [...]. Amongst the first wave of multi-modal studies commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in January 2000 was the Cambridge to Huntingdon Multi-Modal Study (CHUMMS). The focus of the study was the transport corridor between the towns of Cambridge and Huntingdon which are linked by the east-west A14 trunk road. As well as being notorious for accidents and breakdowns, the congested road passes through an area targeted for future potential residential growth. The task of the study was therefore to come up with possible solutions and, in particular, to find ways to promote modal shift away from the car.^[8]

[edit] CHUMMS Report

After 18-months study, CHUMMS presented its report in August 2001, recommending a number of improvements to the road system, including the widening of the A14 to form a 3-lane carriageway with a southern bypass for Huntingdon. The road improvements should, it advised, be complemented by the introduction of a guided bus system over the disused railway line. The study had looked at a variety of transport modes, including heavy rail, light rail and guided bus systems.^[9] The guided bus option was chosen on the basis that it would be more financially sustainable and effective than either of the light or heavy rail alternatives.^[10] The evaluation of the respective transport modes was as follows:

Public Transport Systems, Ridership and Revenues, 2016

System	Daily Ridership	Annual Revenue (£m)	PV Revenue (£m)	PV Operating Costs (£m)	PV Capital Costs (£m)	PV Capital Costs (£m)	Net Impact
Guided Bus	43,000	17.4	107	36	22	49
Light Rail	21,000	9.5	77	39	34	4
Heavy Rail	11,000	5.0	46	14	40	-8

The study was criticised by the Rail Freight Group as only having made recommendations for road schemes and having done nothing for the cause of shifting freight from road to rail.^[11]

[edit] Approval and funding

The study was presented to the East of England Local Government Conference, the regional planning body, which passed a resolution on 2 October 2001 to support the recommendations as a whole and to put the scheme forward to the Secretary of State for Transport. On 13 December, John Spellar MP announced that the Government was accepting the recommendations.^[12]

In June and July 2003 we did a public consultation in the A14 corridor. 83.5% of the 2,219 respondents stated that they fully or partially supported the provision of a high quality public transport route between Huntingdon and Cambridge. Of these 2,219 responses there were only 395 respondents who added that they would prefer light rail, trams or heavy rail.

In December 2003, the Department for Transport awarded the busway project a £65 million grant.^[13]

In February 2004, Cambridgeshire County Council approved busway plans by 35 votes to 14, with 4 abstentions. The public was allowed until 2 April to comment on the proposals.^[14] The local authority directly affected by the busway, South Cambridgeshire District Council, consented to the plans in March.^[15]

[edit] Public enquiry

A nine-week public enquiry was held between 28 September and 2 December 2004, first at Slepe Hall in St Ives, before reconvening on 12 October at New Hall in Cambridge.

Giving evidence for Cambridgeshire County Council was Graham Hughes, the busway's project director, who stated that the busway was a "central element of the transport strategy for the Cambridge area" and would attract more than 20,000 trips per day by 2016.^[16]

On 26 July 2005, the Planning Inspector, Dr. Chris Gossop, presented his report on the scheme. A decision by Alistair Darling was given in December

The Inspector concluded that the scheme was be consistent with local and regional planning policies, in particular plans for new development in the Cambridgeshire sub-region.^[17]

Evidence for Cambridgeshire County Council

[edit] Construction

Six tenders were submitted for the £86 million contract to construct the busway: May Gurney, Carillon, Kerr, Balfour Beatty, Nuttall and Birse. Doubts over the future of the project led to [...] pulling out, but the contract was eventually awarded to Nuttall in May 2006.^[18] Nuttall, who had previously constructed the Crawley guided busway, was said to have been selected for "quality of their proposals for constructing the guideway", as well as the fact that it had "offered the lowest priced tender".^[19] Nuttall agreed a £88 million target cost for construction; the design work for the scheme will be carried out by Parsons Brinckerhoff, the designer of the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, Australia.^[20]

A ceremony was held on 5 March 2007 to mark the commencement of works on the busway; the Secretary of State for Transport, Douglas Alexander was present. One of the first tasks was to test the strength of the bridge foundations of the old railway viaduct over the River Ouse near St Ives by putting a drilling machine on it.^[21] A 26-acre construction compound was set up off the B1050 near Longstanton.^[22]

[edit] Progress

As of March 2008, 4 miles (6.4 km) of the guideway had been constructed, and different types of buses were being tested on it, from which a preferred type would be selected.^[23][24] The vehicles tested included a Wrightbus-bodied single-decker owned by FirstGroup, a Plaxton President-bodied Dennis Trident 2 double-decker from Lothian Buses, and a white Enviro 500 triple-axled double-decker. The vehicles were fitted with sensors to assess vibration levels and the ride quality, with an expectation that passengers will be able to read, or use laptop computers, while being transported on the guideway.

In July 2005 a planning application was submitted for an 8,000-home new town five miles to the north-west of Cambridge; known as "Northstowe", the town would be linked in with the guided busway by a dedicated bus service.^[25]

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Image of buses

According to Cast.Iron, the Cambridge and St.Ives Railway Organisation, the campaign to restore train services to the Cambridge and St Ives railway line, "[p]eople don’t want to catch buses because, unlike trains, they are seen as cheap and demeaning. Outside London, you tend to see only women with children, pensioners and students catching buses."^[26]

[edit] Rail vs buses

Passenger services on the 12-mile Huntingdon to St Ives railway line ended in 1970, but freight trains continued to use ten miles of the line until 1992.

Cast.Iron has estimated the cost of reinstating the railway at £30 million, as compared with the £116 million needed to construct the busway. The busway would, however, be cheaper to operate as it needs far less maintenance and would, according to the Council, operate without any public subsidy.^[26]

Railfuture, [...], indicated that it was convinced that the railway, if reinstated, could offer a valuable rail service.^[27]

The Government has indicated that the cost of reinstating the railway would be expensive due to the fact that it could not be restored along its original alignment due to redevelopment in St Ives and Longstanton, together with missing bridges and sections of embankmant across the River Ouse floodplain.^[28]

[edit] Environment

[edit] Histon Station

A public inquiry was held in to the plans for the project, attracting more than 3,000 letters^[29], of which 2,735 were objections^[30]. Objectors included many of the local councils, public bodies, transport interests, local pressure groups and individuals. Objections covered the Environmental Impact Assessment, support for the rail alternative and objections to the scheme in principle.^[31]

The cost benefit ratio of the scheme has been variously assessed as 4.84,^[32] 2.28 (1998 prices)^[30] and 1.968,^[32] (a higher ratio is better), with the cost rising from an initial estimate of £54million^[32].

[edit] Histon Station

^[33]

[edit] See also

• List of guided busways and BRT systems in the United Kingdom

[edit] External links

• Cambridgeshire County Council: Busway information
• CAST.IRON: Pressure group again the project
• Campaign against the guided bus
• Huntington busway e-petition

[edit] References

v • d • e Guided busways and BRT systems in the United Kingdom Present Centrelink (Tyne & Wear) · Crawley Fastway · Edingburgh Fastlink · Fastrack (Thames Gateway) · FTR (Leeds & York) · Ipswich Rapid Transit · Runcorn Busway Planned Cambridgeshire Guided Busway · Clyde Fastlink (Glasgow) · East London Transit · Greenwich Waterfront Transit · Leeds Busway · Sprint (Coventry) · Swansea Metro · Translink Express · West London Transit

[[Category:Guided busways and BRT systems in the United Kingdom [[Category:Transport in Cambridgeshire