Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
Busway system in the United Kingdom / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is a guided busway that connects Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives in Cambridgeshire, England. It is the longest guided busway in the world,[1][2] surpassing the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia.[3][4][5]
Cambridgeshire Guided Busway | |
---|---|
Overview | |
Owner | Cambridgeshire County Council |
Locale | Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom |
Transit type | Guided busway |
Website | www |
Operation | |
Began operation | 7 August 2011; 12 years ago (2011-08-07) |
Operator(s) | Stagecoach in Huntingdonshire, Whippet |
Technical | |
System length | 16 miles (25 km) |
Two guided sections make up 16 miles (25 km) of the route. The northern section, which uses the course of the former Cambridge and Huntingdon railway, runs through the former stations of Oakington, Long Stanton and Histon. The southern section, which uses part of the former Varsity Line to Oxford, links Cambridge railway station, Addenbrooke's Hospital and the park-and-ride site at Trumpington via housing on the Clay Farm site.
Services are operated by Stagecoach in Huntingdonshire and Whippet, which have exclusive use of the route for five years in exchange for providing a minimum service frequency between 07:00 and 19:00 each weekday.[6] Specially adapted buses are used: the driver does not need to hold the steering wheel on the guided sections of the busway. A total of 2,500,000 trips were made in the first year of operation.
The busway was proposed in the 2001 Cambridge-Huntingdon Multi-Modal Study, which recommended widening of the A14 road and construction of a guided busway along the old railway lines. Construction began in March 2007 and it was opened on 7 August 2011 after a succession of delays and cost overruns.[2]
The original cost estimate of £116 million rose to £181 million by December 2010.[7] An independent review of the project was announced on 21 September 2010,[8][9] in which the Cambridge MP, Julian Huppert, described the busway as a "white elephant".[10] A court case with BAM Nuttall, the main contractor, was settled by Cambridgeshire County Council in August 2013.[11]