Jonathan Welch reports from the Young Bus Professionals conference in Cambridge
Cambridge has maybe been in the news for the some of the wrong reasons recently when it comes to buses, especially guided ones, but there was a spirit of positivity in the air as over young people from across the industry gathered at a location to the north of the city for the latest Young Bus Professionals conference, held over two days on 12 and 13 September.
With a stream of Busway and regular buses arriving and departing outside, the venue for the conference this time around was the Novotel hotel adjacent to Cambridge North railway station.
Day one
Hosted as always by Patrons Alex Hornby, Martijn Gilbert and Roger French, a host of industry names gave up their time to help teach and inspire the up and coming managers of the future. The event kicked off on the Thursday afternoon with a visit to Stagecoach’s Cambridge depot courtesy of Stagecoach East Managing Director Darren Roe as well as a trip to St Ives on the Busway, which has been in operation since 2011, and was extended to Cambridge North railway station in 2017. Many services on the busy Busway corridor are in the hands of relatively unusual two-door, tri-axle Enviro400s on Volvo chassis, with a much-needed capacity of 130.
The depot is home to 30 ZEBRA-funded double-deck electric buses introduced in May last year on the city’s park & ride routes and Citi 2 services. That project was part funded by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) as well as the Greater Cambridge Partnership and DfT. CPCA Mayor Nik Johnson is aiming to have all buses and taxis in the county zero-emission by 2030.
Also on display at the depot was the first of three autonomous buses for a trial linking one of its park & ride sites with the city’s biomedical campus next year.
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