Oxford Bus Company announced raft of service improvements

COMPANY ANNOUNCES RAFT OF SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS

• Timetable changes designed to improve journey times and punctuality in the city 
• More buses to serve Littlemore and Sandford communities
• New 500 service to provide enhanced services on Cowley Road and connectivity to key employment hubs
• Expanded 400 service will provide more buses for Wheatley and Thame

Oxford Bus Company has announced wide-ranging improvements to key city routes to help deliver continued improvements for customers. 

The bus service improvements are being introduced to help make routes quicker and more punctual in response to changing traffic congestion levels around the city.

With support from Oxfordshire County Council, the operator is adjusting its 3 and 3A services along Iffley Road to provide an improved frequency of service along the key corridor, between the two services.

From February 23rd, Service 3A will operate every 15 minutes, rather than every half an hour on weekdays between Oxford and Kassam Stadium. Service 3 will continue to operate every 15 minutes. Combined, this will provide an every 7-8 minutes frequency along Iffley Road on weekdays.

On Saturdays, services 3 and 3A will each run every 20 minutes, providing a coordinated every 10 minutes frequency along the Iffley Road, and on Sundays, services 3 and 3A will both run every 30 minutes, providing a combined frequency of every 15 minutes. 

Service X40 will continue to operate along Iffley Road, and the 3A will continue to extend beyond the Kassam Stadium to serve Greater Leys and Cowley Centre, every 30 minutes on Mondays to Saturdays and hourly on Sundays.

The frequency of service 5A between Minchery Farm and Oxford City will be sped up, with buses no longer scheduled to serve Herschel Crescent due to the ongoing weight restrictions in the area, and using the Crowell Road bus gate instead of Bartholomew Road.

A new, limited stop 500 service is launching on February 23rd which will operate from the BMW plant in Cowley to the city centre, calling at ARC Oxford, the Original Swan, Manzil Way and the Plain, in addition to stops in the city centre. 

This new route, which replaces the 11X service, has been designed to help Oxford Bus Company further manage the variability of traffic levels on Abingdon Road, following the Botley Road closure, and to provide customers with faster and more direct journeys into the city from the Cowley area.

Bus services between Oxford, Thornhill, Wheatley and Thame will also be improved via the introduction of a more comprehensive 400 service, which will incorporate the current 280 service. This will simplify the route for customers and provide buses up to every ten minutes between Oxford rail station and Wheatley services, continuing every 30 minutes to Thame on weekdays.

Luke Marion, Oxford Bus Company Managing Director, said: “This is excellent news for bus users and for communities in and around the city. It will help improve the speed and punctuality of buses and help people travel sustainably for work, education and leisure on these key routes.

“It is well documented Oxford has suffered increased congestion due to multiple issues around the city, and so we’ve further adjusted some of our services to help overcome this and provide a reliable network.

“This means adding more buses to key routes to maintain and improve frequencies and we hope that with improved public transport policies, congestion will ease in the future and we can deliver further improvements to timetables.”