This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Parent | Norfolk County Council |
---|---|
Founded | 1990s |
Locale | Norwich |
Service type | Park & ride |
Routes | 6 |
Destinations | Hethersett, Norwich, Norwich Airport, University of East Anglia |
Hubs | Norwich bus station |
Fleet | Alexander Dennis Enviro400 |
Operator | Norse Group Project Search First Eastern Counties network Norwich |
Website | Norfolk County Council |
Norwich Park and Ride is a park & ride bus service in the English city of Norwich, East Anglia. The first of the park and rides was opened in the early 1990s at Norwich Airport in Hellesdon, [1] while the sixth (and currently final) site was opened in Thickthorn in 2005. [2] With the addition of the final site, the Norwich Park & Ride became the largest park and ride services in the United Kingdom, [3] and provided the scheme with over 5,000 permanent parking spaces – at the time the highest number for a park and ride scheme in the country. [2] The scheme was awarded the British Parking Association Park and Ride award in 2004, [3] and in the 2006/2007 financial year, 3.3 million people used the service, keeping 940,000 cars out of the city centre. [4]
Thickthorn Park & Ride is located near Thickthorn services in Hethersett (NR9 3AU), on the junction of the A47 with the A11. The site first opened in 2005, making it the newest Park & Ride site in Norwich.
It has 726 car parking spaces and is the only site to open 7 days a week. [5] [6]
Harford Park & Ride is located on Ipswich Road, Norwich (NR4 6DY), and is accessed via an exit off the Harford Interchange where the A140 meets the A47.
The site has 1088 car parking spaces, including electric vehicle charging points, cycle parking and recycle facilities. A car boot sale is held at the site on a Sunday, when no services are in operation. [7]
In 2015, First Eastern Counties began to operate service 600 which travelled between the site and Norfolk County Hall on weekday mornings and evenings. This service was taken over by Konectbus when the new park and ride contract began in September 2015.
Airport Park & Ride is located on Buck Courtney Crescent, next to the entrance to Norwich Airport. The site has 620 spaces and is open Monday to Saturday. The site also has facilities for recycling and electric vehicle charging.
Costessey Park & Ride is located next to the Royal Norfolk Showground in Costessey, Norwich. It has 1,100 spaces and is open Monday to Friday. From September 2015, it became the only site which has no service to the City Centre at all. Services instead run from the site to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and The University of East Anglia only.
Postwick Park & Ride is located on Yarmouth Road at the eastern junction between the A47 and the A1270 (NR13 5NP). It is open Monday to Saturday. It has 552 car parking spaces.
Sprowston Park & Ride is located north-east of the city at Wroxham Road. It opens Monday-Saturday and has 792 spaces. A boot sale takes place there on Sundays.
Between 2005-2010 the sites were managed and operated by three companies: [8]
From 2010 until September 2015, the Harford, Thickthorn and Costessey sites are operated by Konectbus, and Sprowston, Postwick and Airport by Norse.
Konectbus purchased a fleet of Alexander Dennis Enviro400 double deckers painted in a blue livery to operate the Harford contract. [9] Pink livery Wright Eclipse Gemini double deckers operate the Thickthorn service, while ex London General articulated Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses run between the Costessey site, the University of East Anglia and the city centre.
Norse operated a fleet of Plaxton President bodied double deckers to operate all their services, with Airport having a light blue livery and Postwick and Sprowston sites being merged, operating via the city centre and Norfolk County Hall.
On 7 September 2015, Konectbus commenced a contract to operate all six park & ride service for a five-year period. [10] [11] [12] A fleet of 18 Alexander Dennis Enviro400s painted in a new green livery were purchased. [13]
In 2020 Konectbus kept the contract to run all routes on the park and ride with in 2023 Konectbus re opening Poswick park and ride and in 2023 first eastern counties took over the contract costessey park and ride with them buying a fleet of Alexander Dennis enviro 400 MMC buses which as of 2024 are no longer on the fleet
The contract has been given to two company’s (first eastern counties and central connect) to run the 5 routes
first eastern counties to run: thickthorn p&r-airport p&r (501) costessey P&r -NNUH Hospital (510) costessey p&r-UEA (511)
central connect to run: postwick p&r-city centre (503) harford p&r-sprowston p&r (502)
It is proposed to add 500 places to the Postwick site as part of the Postwick Hub development which is associated with the Norwich Northern Distributor Road development. [15]
In May 2011, a Norse double decker operating on the Postwick park and ride service, caught fire on the A47. The bus was completely destroyed by flames after suffering an engine failure. Passengers were evacuated by the driver after stopping the vehicle on a roundabout, before the Broadland Business Park. Nobody was injured. Bus operator Norse, found the rest of the fleet to be in good working order [16]
In January 2013, passengers on board an Airport Park and Ride bus operated by Norse were evacuated while at the Airport Park and Ride site after the double decker bus caught fire. According to witnesses, black smoke was seen billowing from a vent above the drivers seat. Fire crews had extinguished the blaze within ten minutes and the bus remained in a decent condition. [17]
Norwich Airport is an international airport in Hellesdon, Norfolk, England, 2.5 miles north of the city of Norwich. In 2023, Norwich Airport was the 25th busiest airport in the UK and busiest in East Anglia.
RTC Transit is the name of the public bus system in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Clark County, Nevada. It is a subsidiary of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. While it services most of Clark County with regularly scheduled routes, most of the service is in the immediate Las Vegas Valley; outlying places such as Mesquite and Laughlin provide transit services to their residents via the Southern Nevada Transit Coalition, which uses several vehicles acquired from RTC Transit. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 52,734,200, or about 164,500 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2024.
Postwick with Witton is a civil parish on the Broads in the English county of Norfolk, comprising the two adjacent villages of Postwick and Witton. Postwick is some 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east of the city of Norwich, just south of the eastern end of the A47 Norwich southern bypass on the north bank of the River Yare. Witton lies 1.75 miles (2.8 km) to the north-east, north of the A47.
First York operates local bus services, with a network centring around the cathedral city of York, North Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup, which operates bus, rail and tram services across the United Kingdom and Ireland.
First Cymru is an operator of bus services in South West Wales. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup. With its headquarters previously in Swansea, it is now part of the First Wales and West region which also covers Bristol, Bath and Worcester, with its headquarters in Bristol. With 220 vehicles, it is the second largest bus operator in Wales after Stagecoach South Wales.
First Eastern Counties is a bus operator providing services in Norfolk and Suffolk in eastern England. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup and has five depots in operating areas spread out across East Anglia. These areas are Norwich, Ipswich, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and King's Lynn.
The East Kent Road Car Company Ltd is a bus company formed in 1916 and based in Canterbury, Kent. The company operated bus and coach services in Kent. In 1993 it was one of the first companies to be acquired by the Stagecoach Group, which eventually rebranded the operation as Stagecoach in East Kent, and made it part of the Stagecoach South East bus division.
Norwich Bus Station is situated off Surrey Street and Queen's Road, Norwich, Norfolk, England. It is served by a number of bus operators, such as Konectbus, Norse, First Eastern Counties, National Express, Megabus and City Sightseeing Norwich.
Bowthorpe is a suburban village to the west of Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, England.
Stagecoach East is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East of England, operating in the counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered and registered in Cambridge.
The York park and ride is a park and ride network in the cathedral city of York, England, with sites operated by the City of York Council and bus services operated by First York. It is the largest park and ride network in the United Kingdom, with 4,970 car spaces across six sites: Askham Bar, Grimston Bar, Monks Cross, Poppleton Bar, Rawcliffe Bar and York Designer Outlet.
Stagecoach in Norfolk was a bus operator based in King's Lynn in Norfolk, England. It operated public bus services in the counties of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire as well as numerous school and college services. It was a subsidiary of Stagecoach.
Konectbus is a bus operator based in Dereham in Norfolk, England. It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group and forms part of Go East Anglia.
Park and ride bus services in the United Kingdom are bus services designed to provide intermodal passenger journeys between a private mode of transport and a shared mode bus. The common model of bus based park and ride model is transfer from a private car to a public transport bus, although schemes may also be used by pedestrians and cyclists.
The Norwich Northern Distributor Road, now officially named the Broadland Northway is a 12.4 miles (20.0 km) dual-carriageway linking the A47 to the south east of the city to the proposed Rackheath Eco-town and Norwich International Airport to the north of Norwich before finishing at the A1067 Fakenham Road to the north west of the city. The road is designated the A1270, and in Spring 2018 was named the Broadland Northway.
Western Greyhound was a bus operator based in Summercourt, near Newquay, which operated services in Cornwall and Devon from January 1998 until March 2015.
Excel is the brand name given to a number of bus services operated by First Norfolk & Suffolk, covering 80 miles (130 km) between Norwich bus station in Norfolk and Peterborough railway station in Cambridgeshire, England. Prior to February 2018, the route also extended from Norwich to Lowestoft in Suffolk via Great Yarmouth; this section of the route has since been replaced by Coastlink branded services X1 and X2. As of June 2021, the Excel route itself operates between Peterborough, King's Lynn and Norwich, with variations A, B, C and D providing different levels of service to intermediate villages.
Lynx, is a bus company based in King's Lynn and operating services across west and north Norfolk and eastern Cambridgeshire.
Network Norwich is the brand name given to First Norfolk & Suffolk bus services in and around the city of Norwich. First launched in September 2012, the network now consists of nine colour-coded lines extending across Norwich city centre, outer suburbs, and surrounding towns and villages across Norfolk and into Suffolk.
Go East Anglia is a bus operator in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, owned by the Go-Ahead Group. The group consists of Konectbus and Hedingham & Chambers.