Lincoln Bus Network Idea

This, ladies and gentleman, is a rough plan of what I'd probably do if someone tasked me with revising the network of Stagecoach bus routes in Lincoln. The only city I've ever known well enough to be able to do anything like this would have been Nottingham, but NCT have already nailed their network so I wouldn't have been able to come up with anything better besides bringing back maroon line and making Townlink a real thing (and if you follow my Robertson Buses model fleet you might know routes 202 and 205 are precisely that). Lincoln is about as good as I'm going to get for familiarity, but I'm not knowledgeable about all the places so I've pretty much used the existing bus network as a guide... and why it's a "rough" plan.

 

I initially planned to do a complete rework of all the routes by rerouting & renumbering everything, but the more I looked into the Stagecoach Lincoln network the more the routes seemed to make sense. What it has turned into is something more akin to if Robertson Buses took over the Lincoln city services and the changes I'd make, while bearing in mind passengers don't want changes to be too drastic and that changes don't have immediate effects, so frequencies are based off what they are in real life or what I think would work. Even though I couldn't find a way to crowbar a full-on 'Go2' style system into Lincoln, I've still managed to group services together in a way that kind of makes sense. They are as follows...

 

Canwick Road & South East:

 

2 - Branston via Heighington.

The 2 as it is currently appears to be a strange circular affair where buses go opposite ways around the loop, with the only guarantee being that you'll get to Branston at some point. I decided to ditch all that and instead send buses out to Heighington and then on to Branston, where they'd turn around and go back the way they came. It would be as simple as a bus leaving the city every 30 minutes and taking the exact same route each time.

 

3 - Heighington via Washingborough.

The revised 2 did cut out Washingborough, which on reflection I could have probably included instead of sending the bus through the middle of nowhere, but I thought the journey time from Branston might be a bit too long if I did that. I ended up giving Washingborough its own route, that then went on the Heighington and turned around, meaning that people heading for Washingborough knew a bus with a 3 on the front would always be heading where they needed it. I stole the number 3 from the current 3 so the new 3 was clearly related to the 2 because they went a similar direction.

 

4 - Metheringham via Branston.

While the 4 goes past Branston on a more direct route, its main purpose is to go to Metheringham and stop at a couple of villages along the way. This is the first of several routes I sort of invented without there being an existing version, save for the occasional 31X to Sleaford, which still exists here as a route variation called the 4A and is shown by the dotted line beyond Metheringham.

 

Tritton Road & West:

 

6 - Birchwood via Tritton Road

The 6 and 9 are, like the 2, bloody awful circular routes, except they have a smaller loop within a the bigger loop and they split off to use different roads into the city before rejoining again. It looks really complicated, so I had a much better idea and split the 'big' loop in half, with the two routes mirroring each other the whole way on different roads, doing a lap of Birchwood and returning the way they came. The 6 now sticks on Tritton Road, then rejoins its old route for the run into the Birchwood estate, at which point it turns around and goes back on what previously would have been considered a 9, before it gets to Tritton Road again. It runs every 20 minutes so that combined with other routes there is a decent frequency around Birchwood and Tritton Road.

 

7 - Skellingthorpe via Tritton Road

The 7 is pretty much the 19 with a new number so it is better associated with the other Tritton Road routes, and runs every 20 minutes so that the 6/7/8 combine to make an average 6-7 minute frequency up and down Tritton Road.

 

8 - North Hykeham via Birchwood

The 8 is the third designated 'Tritton Road' route and is essentially a more direct 6 for the first leg of its route. The second leg turns it into the bus for Hykeham station, connecting both Birchwood and North Hykeham with their closest railway station. This appears to be another route I've invented rather than revised, because I can't see anything already that goes between Birchwood and N Hykeham via the station. Even if one route does, it probably isn't as frequent as every 20 minutes.

 

High Street & Birchwood:

 

9 - Birchwood via Swallow Beck

The 9 doesn't fit into any other group as while it overs the same area as the above group it uses High Street on its way out of the city and then goes all around the houses and through several different areas before winding up in Birchwood. I think splitting the circular parts of the 6 and 9 makes it clearer which bus you'd need to jump on to get to any place along the 6 or 9 routes without accidentally going the long way round. It also has a frequency of every 20 minutes so it's no worse off than the 6, the places only served by the 9 have a decent service and parts of Birchwood will have up to three buses passing through it every 20 minutes, which is better than what some places in Nottingham get.

 

Nettleham Road:

 

10 - Park and Ride

I've investigated the mysterious 'Waitrose Park and Ride' on Google maps and it is literally just a bus stop on a main road within the general vicinity of a Waitrose supermarket car park... basically the worst excuse for a park and ride I've ever seen, especially since you can drive a private car the whole way into the city centre uninhibited, down the same route the bus takes. The 10 sees no changes because it is meant to be the designated P&R route, but for it to become any better Lincoln City Council would need to A) build a dedicated Park and Ride site beside the A46 where people would see and use it and B) implement traffic restrictions, bus lanes/priority that would make using the P&R more beneficial than driving into the city centre. After those changes the bus service could be upgraded to match. (Having said that, Lincoln doesn't seem to have a crippling traffic problem like Nottingham does, so reducing congestion with a fancy P&R is probably not a high on the council's agenda).

 

12 - Welton via Nettleham

The 12 is unchanged from its current state, running every 30 minutes combining its frequency with the 10 to make a local bus every 15 minutes up Nettleham Road.

 

Bracebridge & South:

 

13 - Waddington via Bracebridge

This is another route where, on closer inspection, it makes sense and even has a number close to similar routes that I ended up grouping it with, so in the end I left it alone. If the 15/16 got branded buses the 13 would probably get its own, separate, branded vehicles because not only are single deckers typical on it but to make it clearer that it splits off from Newark Road first so it's related to the Hykeham routes but not what you'd say was very similar.

 

15 - North Hykeham via Bracebridge

I messed with the 15 and 16 though being petty, because the 15 went direct into North Hykeham and then turned around while the 16 wiggled around but then kept going. I swapped their routes through North Hykeham so the 15 now goes to different areas and the 16 straight though on the main roads. Additionally there's a 15A which extends to South Hykeham on select journeys, since South Hykeham looks like it needs a few buses per day, not one every 20 minutes.

 

16 - Bassingham via North Hykeham

The 16 is the same as before, except for the route change within North Hykeham mentioned above. I just think it makes more sense that way. It too runs every 20 minutes and would hopefully be timed so that its roughly ten minutes offset from each 15 working so they combine to make a 10 minute frequency between N Hykeham and Lincoln. (That's another reason why the 13 would be be kept separate from the branding, as it would fall in between the 15/16s at uneven times and look confusing on a timetable that combines them all.)

 

Inner City & North City:

 

17 - Ermine via West Lincoln

Someone planning the bus routes in Lincoln must've really, really liked pointlessly complicated circular routes, because the north of the city is full of them. I, for one, do not like them because if I board a bus going in one direction I reasonably expect to be able to get on another one with the same number going the opposite way and it take me back the way I came. Another pet hate of mine is the lack of frequent, local buses through the city centre and to the west of the city. I've fixed this here with the 17, which keeps the number from one of the circulars but makes it a normal route, climbing through the western side of the city to serve both sides of the Ermine estate, before returning back through the city.

 

18 - Ermine via Eastern Estates

The 18 is to Ermine what the 9 is to Birchwood, as it's half of what used to be a circular and goes all around the houses. It manages to encompass parts of the old 17/18 and 7/8 circulars, plus the 5. While the initial frequency is every 20 minutes, it may be the case that it would have to be increased simply due to the fact it pretty much replaces 3 routes. In keeping with the 17 it begins with a run through the city centre before embarking on its trek east to serve Monks Road, the hospital, St Giles, Glebe Park and the east side of Ermine. Thanks to the central one-way system the return journey has a bit of an extra 'dog leg' to complete, on which it meets up with the 17, but that's purely incidental since they would more likely be timed to run offset from each other in Ermine, not the city.

 

19 - Ermine via St Giles

Even though it falls in the same group as the 17 and 18, the only thing the 19 has in common with them is that it covers roughly the same area, just reaching bits the 18 doesn't and providing a much more direct connection to the hospital. Like the 18 it sort of makes up for the 5 but in different ways.

 

20 - Lincoln County Hospital

The 20 doesn't even get a different colour to the 19 because it is in essence a VERY short 19 that turns at the hospital - such a short 19 it seemed ridiculous to give it the same number. Like the 19 it runs every half an hour, but what would probably happen is a bus arrives having done a 19, does a 20 which would only take about ten minutes and then return to the bus station so it could leave with the next 19 departure. This would be in place of what the X6 does right now, but on a route already going past the hospital rather than from the other side of the city.

 

Monks Road & East:

 

23 - Fiskerton via Cherry Willingham

The 23 is simply a renumbered 3, although it is meant to be hourly so that the 23/24 con combine to make a half hourly service to Cherry Willingham. If the people of Fiskerton need a half hourly bus so badly it can go back up to half hourly and 24s can fit around it a different way.

 

24 - Langworth via Cherry Willingham

The 24 is one of my 'brand new routes' that makes a half hourly connection to Cherry Willingham, but then provides a 'non-InterConnect' service to Langworth. If Langworth doesn't warrant such a service it could be extended to include Sudbrooke/Scothern/Stainton by Langworth and the combined passenger numbers from the villages could make an hourly bus service worthwile.

 

North West Villages:

 

26 - Scampton via Burton

Burton doesn't appear to have a bus connection to Lincoln despite being right next to it, so running a bus - albeit an infrequent one - through there seemed like a decent idea. It then goes off up to Scampton to turn around and pick up anyone who missed the most recent InterConnect 103. The 103 serves all the villages north of there, so there's no need to continue.

 

27 - Saxilby via North Carlton

Saxilby has a PC Coaches route but are otherwise left at the mercy of Gainsborough depot. It seems like too major of a place to not have a 'Lincoln local' route, but on the way it goes via North Carlton because as far as I can tell the PC Coaches 777 doesn't.

 

InterConnect:

 

If you know me you'll know how much I like to complain about how bad the branding is on the InterConnect routes. That's why to make it clear what route is part of InterConnect I'd have it numbered in the 100s. Even though IC routes from other depots aren't shown on the map, they would still run but I'd want to make them follow the pattern. The 100 and 103 would stay the same, the Grimsby 53 would become the 153 and the Skeg 56 would become the 156 (no relation the the class of DMU). The reason for the renumbering is so that it's easier to identify what is an InterConnect even if a standard livery vehicle is used.

 

111 - Lincoln to Wellingore or Grantham

The current 1 is unassuming and looks like any other local bus route, but it is supposedly part of the InterConnect network so I'd renumber it 111 and it would have branded vehicles. The current system as I understand it is a bus every half hour, but every other bus goes all the way to Grantham. I'd keep all that the same and clean up the routing in Grantham, since Bustimes shows it going all over the place, but I'd send it straight to the bus station and then straight back. Even if doing that leaves a gap in Grantham services, the Robertson Buses 211 goes there so I could probably alter that to cover!

 

112 - Lincoln to Newark

The current Lincoln to Newark bus is a PC Coaches thing, yet I never seem to see it that often - plus it's odd since Lincoln and Newark are both Stagecoach towns so I've always wondered why there isn't a Stagecoach bus between them (although this map isn't necessarily a Stagecoach thing, just based off current Stagecoach routes). It would run every hour, going down High Street at first like the 111 but then crossing over to Tritton Road, including a part unserved by other buses, and then onto the A46 to Newark.

 

150 - Lincoln to Mablethorpe

This is a renumbering of the 50, although I'm not certain as to whether it's part of InterConnect or not. On this plan it is with hourly buses to Louth, and every other journey continuing to Mablethorpe. The hospital part is cut out because if it's a direct town-to-town route there's no use in it dithering around going to a place already served by three other routes.

 

So that's it for all the routes I've come up with. It's a few more than what currently exist but that's mainly due to me adding new things like the 8 and 24 rather than splitting one route into several. The daily PVR would probably be higher than it currently is too, but then it would be if this is meant to be an improvement. The black areas around the bus station and Pelham Bridge/Tentercroft Street are there because otherwise there wasn't enough room to draw each route individually, so it points them all to the bus station. Of course the bus station itself isn't exactly amazing so perhaps another day I'll have to have a go at revising that too!

 

I think I've managed to cover everywhere that Lincoln depot already runs buses to, plus more. Things like school routes aren't included because I don't know them all, and one journey a day in each direction isn't going to make any difference to the main public bus network. As I said near the top, this would be as if Robertson Buses took over Lincoln depot and its routes, so everything would be rebranded differently to the standard Stagecoach East Midlands, with its own Lincoln bus website, timetable design etc. Seeing as Stagecoach is just the trading name for Lincolnshire Road Car I'd probably rename it to something like Robertson Road Car... IDK, SC would still be Road Car at their other depots but I like that name now!

 

I've had a couple of goes at coming up with a livery with route branding for some of the routes, but haven't got anything good yet. I haven't yet decided what the vehicles would be either, although if it was the entirety of Lincoln depot sold over it'd no doubt start off with all the Stagecoach stuff that's currently there. I'm not going to do it as a model fleet like RB because that would be wayyyyy too many buses to even comprehend doing, but if I settle on a good livery I might do one.

 

This took hours to put together, so any thoughts would be much appreciated! (I know for a fact I've managed to transpose 'East' and 'West' a few times - I've been editing them out but if you spot any, point them out).

Done