Better express coach network

The Institute for Social Inventions proposed a network of express coaches in the UK going up and down motorways only, stopping briefly at motorway service stations en route, at an airport-style interchange, where passengers would change to local buses. (The coaches would ideally be designed for luggage to accompany the passenger inside the coach, to reduce time spent at stops.)

This led to a working party on the issue, and to a variant scheme proposed by Professor Pat Willmore of the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, who writes:

'The salient point is that the interchange stations should be developed at the motorway exits instead of the service stations, as the former provide the real points of connection between the motorways and other roads.'

Professor Willmore has suggested that the scheme could be tested by means of a pilot project on the M4 at Exit 11.

'Time lost to a coach in stopping and starting would be less than two minutes, as compared with some twenty minutes in getting in and out of a town centre'

The existing density of coaches on, for instance, the M4 motorway would provide about a 10 minute service in each direction and the target for time lost to a coach in stopping and starting would be less than two minutes, as compared with some twenty minutes in getting in and out of a town centre.

At the London end of the M4, Hammersmith underground station (saving another 20 minutes as compared with the journey through traffic to Victoria Coach Station) would be the natural London terminal, and an orbital coach service round the M25 would be the way of connecting the M4 service with those on other motorways. The M4/M25 intersection would become the coach station for Heathrow, with specialised shuttles serving the airport terminals.

Postscript

A similar scheme has been implemented by Milton Keynes Borough Council in its Coachway interchange to connecting buses. 'But it is rather dismal with few facilities,' writes Simon Norton. 'At least if interchanges were sited at existing service station, one could get something to eat.'

- Professor Willmore, 'Inverdene', Reading Road, Burghfield Common, Berks RG7 3BT. His full paper on buses is entitled 'A Unifying Strategy for Public Passenger Transport'.
- Simon Norton in his paper 'The Missing Link' proposes the extension of the scheme to provide a network of cross-country buses that would give rural areas direct access to the inter-city coach and rail networks. Simon Norton's address is 6 Hertford Street, Cambridge, CB4 3AG (tel 0223 312654).

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