Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel Service Changes

8th Jan 2023 onwards

Due to significant delays to many services currently being experienced in East Oxford, particularly in the Plain Roundabout area, timetable changes will be made to services 3, 3A, 5, 5A, 8, 11, 15, 400, X3 and X32 to improve punctuality and reliability for customers.

Similar changes will also be made to services X39 and X40, with these routes being transferred back from Oxford Bus Company to Thames Travel as part of this change.

As a result of the spike in traffic congestion and resulting significant increases in bus journey times that have been observed in East Oxford in recent months, additional vehicle resources will be invested into services X3 and 400 to further improve reliability for customers and to support improved service resilience.

Therefore, we will be making the following changes to our services:

city3 & 3A Oxford City Centre- Iffley Road - Rose Hill - Littlemore - Greater Leys - Templars Square

We will be making some amendments to the timetable of these services to improve the reliability and provide better coordination with the River Rapids X39 and X40 services. Some early morning city3 journeys will now run as River Rapids X40 services from Rose Hill Parade to Oxford City Centre. The Sunday service will be revised to provide a combined service of up to 5 buses per hour along the Iffley Road.

city3B Rose Hill - Iffley Road - Matthew Arnold School

No changes, current timetable, and current route

city4A Oxford City Centre - Botley Road - Elms Rise

Changes to the timetable and route - this service will be retimed to make some minor improvements to punctuality, and will be extended to/from Oxford City Centre, Queens Lane.

city5 Oxford Rail Station - Oxford City Centre - Cowley Road - Templars Square - Blackbird Leys

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we need to make some amendments to the city5 timetable during weekday peak times to offer a more reliable service to our customers. As the time taken for buses to complete their trip is now longer, the frequency of the service will be slightly reduced in these periods. We will continue to offer a coordinated service along this corridor with Stagecoach, with their service 1 timetable also revised from this date. There will be no change to the Saturday and Sunday timetables.

city5A Oxford City Centre - Cowley Road - Templars Square - Minchery Farm

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we need to make some amendments to the city5A timetable on weekday afternoons to offer a more reliable service to our customers. As the time taken for buses to complete their trip is now longer, the frequency of the service will be reduced to up to every 40 minutes in this period. There will be no change to the Saturday and Sunday timetables.

city8 Oxford City Centre - Brookes University - Headington - Barton

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we need to make some amendments to the city8 timetable during weekday peak times to offer a more reliable service to our customers. As the time taken for buses to complete their trip is now longer, the frequency of the service will be slightly reduced in these periods. We will continue to offer a coordinated service along this corridor with Stagecoach, with their service 8 timetable also revised from this date. There will be no change to the Saturday and Sunday timetables.

city9 Oxford City Centre - Brookes University - Headington - Risinghurst

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, the timetable that we are operating can no longer be achieved without considerable extra resources being invested.

Oxfordshire County Council have conducted a tender process to secure a replacement service for Risinghurst and we are pleased to advise that this will be operated by Stagecoach from 8 January 2023, as service 14. The revised service will operate from Risinghurst up to every 60 minutes, 7 days per week. Full details are available on the Stagecoach website.

city11 Oxford - Garsington - Stadhampton - Chalgrove - Watlington

Due to the delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we will need to make minor amendments to the city11 timetable during the weekday peak periods to offer a more reliable service to our customers. As a result, there are minor changes to the timetable to reflect this.

city13 Abingdon - Radley - Kennington - Oxford - Marston Road - Northway

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, the timetable that we are operating can no longer be achieved without considerable extra resources being invested.

Oxfordshire County Council have conducted a tender process to secure a replacement service for Northway and we are pleased to advise that this will be operated by Stagecoach from 8 January 2023, as service 14. The revised service will operate from Northway up to every 30 minutes, 7 days per week. Full details are available on the Stagecoach website.

The section of city13 between Oxford City Centre and Abingdon will continue to operate at similar times to now but will be renamed as the city35, with the direct Monday to Saturday daytime connection to the Westgate restored. The evening and Sunday service will continue to operate to the current route and times, but will also be renumbered to city35.

Click here to view the city35 timetable, valid from 8 January 2023 (PDF, 206KB).

city15 Oxford City Centre - Morrell Avenue - Churchill Hospital - Wood Farm

To better align the service that we are offering with the demand that we are experiencing, our city15 service will be revised to operate up to every 15 minutes during weekday daytimes. Additionally, due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we need to better reflect the time our buses now take to complete their journeys in order to provide a more reliable service to our customers. As the time taken for buses to complete their trip is now longer, the frequency of the service will be reduced in this period. There will be no change to the timetable on Saturdays and Sundays.

city46 Oxford - Florence Park - Templars Square - Horspath - Wheatley - Great Milton

Since we began operating the city46 to Great Milton since June 2022, we have gathered data on the traffic levels at different times of the day. We will therefore be making some minor amendments to the timetable to provide a more punctual service for our customers.

city34 Oxford - Abingdon - Harwell Campus - Wantage

cityX1 & NX1 Oxford - Abingdon - Grove - Wantage

We will be making some minor changes to the timetable to improve reliability, most notably at peak times. The late evening and night service will be revised to better reflect customer demand. In Oxford City Centre, cityX1 services will be extended to run along the High Street to and from Queens Lane.

cityX3 Abingdon - Oxford - Marston Road - JR Hospital - Barton Park - Barton

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we need to make some amendments to the cityX3 timetable during weekday peak times to offer a more reliable service to our customers. We will be investing additional resource into the service to maintain the same frequencies as now, but some journeys will be timetabled to provide additional time for buses to complete their trips. The evening and Sunday service will no longer run via Northway in order to provide a more punctual service, but Oxfordshire County Council have commenced a tender process to secure a replacement and will announce further details as soon as possible

River Rapids X39, X40 & NX40 Oxford - Iffley Road - Berinsfield - Wallingford - Reading

From 8th January, these services will once again be operated by our colleagues at Thames Travel, and we will be making minor amendments to the timetable in order to improve the reliability of these services for our customers.

Park&Ride400/BROOKESbusU1 & BROOKESbusNU1 Harcourt Hill - Seacourt - Oxford City Centre - Brookes Uni - Headington - Thornhill - Wheatley

Revised timetable which adds extra resource in to combat severe traffic delays in East Oxford. The service will continue to run across the city as a through service as it does now.

BROOKESbusU5/100 Blackbird Leys/Oxford - Hollow Way - Brookes Uni - JR Hospital - Marston

The BROOKESbusU5/100 timetable will also be revised from 8th January.

the airline Oxford - High Wycombe - Heathrow Airport - Gatwick Airport

The airline coach service will also be revised from 8th January.

Additionally, we also will be making changes to the following Thames Travel services from 8th January 2023:

connector 23 Didcot - Wallingford - Henley / connector 33 Oxford - Cumnor - Wootton - Abingdon - Sutton Courtenay - Didcot

Changes to route and timetable on Sundays. Connector 33 services will continue into Oxford City Centre as now.

The Sunday service on connector 23A will be replaced by a revised connector 33 service running between Oxford, Abingdon, Didcot and Wallingford, and a connector 23 service running between Wallingford and Henley.

Thames Travel 63 Oxford - Cumnor - Appleton - Southmoor - Longworth

No changes.

connector 90 Didcot Orchard Centre - Didcot Tesco

Unfortunately, due to low customer demand, the connector 90 service will be withdrawn. Customers wishing to travel from Didcot Parkway or Broadway to Tesco can use connector 23 and 33 services which run up to every 30 minutes Monday to Saturday daytime, and hourly on Sundays.

Thames Travel 92 Didcot Town Service

The 1445 service from Didcot Parkway will now operate 15 minutes later throughout. There will no other changes to the timetable of this service.

Science Transit Shuttle ST2 Wytham - Botley Road - Oxford - Headington - JR Hospital

Due to the significant delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we will need to run a revised route and timetable on our ST2 service.

For journeys towards Wytham, buses will run along the current route between the JR Hospital and University Science Area. After serving the Keble Road stop on St Giles, the ST2 will serve Magdalen Street in the City Centre, then run along the Woodstock Road until Wolvercote Roundabout, before running along Godstow Road into Wytham Village, where buses will continue to the JK Field Station as at present.

For journeys towards the JR Hospital, buses will serve Wytham Village before running along Godstow Road, Mere Road and First Turn in Wolvercote, before running along the Woodstock Road to Magdalen Street in the City Centre. Buses will then run to the Keble Road stop on St Giles before resuming the current ST2 route towards the JR.

To mitigate the late running currently being experienced in the afternoon and evening peak, we have added extra time into journeys between the JR Hospital and University Science Area during this period in our effort to offer a more reliable service to our customers.

connector X32 JR Hospital - Oxford - Didcot - Harwell Campus - Wantage
Due to the delays that we are currently seeing in East Oxford, we will need to make minor amendments to the connector X32 timetable on weekday afternoons to offer a more reliable service to our customers.

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