 | |
 | |
| Parent | Ascendal Group |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1919 |
| Headquarters | Swavesey |
| Service area | Cambridgeshire |
| Service type | Bus services and Flixbus |
| Routes | X2, X3, 18, 18A, 66, Universal |
| Destinations | Cambridge Huntingdon St Neots Cambourne |
| Fleet | 40 |
| Website | www.whippetbus.co.uk |
Whippet is a bus and coach operator based in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, England. [1] It is part of the Ascendal Group. [2]
Whippet Coaches was founded in Huntingdonshire by bicycle salesman Henry Lee in 1919. The first Whippet coach was converted from an American ambulance. [3]
Originally based in the village of Hilton, they moved into a depot at Fenstanton in 1977. In 2009 the company moved to a depot at Swavesey, where they remain today.
In November 2014, the business was sold to Transit Systems, the parent company of London bus company Tower Transit. [4] [5] In October 2018, Go Whippet was sold to the Ascendal Group, owned by Tower Transit's former CEO Adam Leishman. [6] [7]
Whippet used to operate some summer-only services to the coast. These ran in various forms from 1957 up to 2013, and ultimately served Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Clacton-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea.
As of October 2024, Whippet has a fleet of 40 vehicles. [8] Buses connect towns and villages in Cambridgeshire, including Huntingdon, St Neots, and Cambourne. The company also operates school and college contracts.
Whippet runs the X2, X3, 18, 18A and 66 services in Cambridgeshire. [9]
Whippet launched a new bus service U (for Universal) in Cambridge in July 2016, running originally from Madingley Road Park & Ride (now: Eddington) via West Cambridge to Addenbrooke's Hospital. It is subsidised by the University of Cambridge and replaced the Uni4 service, formerly operated by Stagecoach in Cambridge. [10]
In 2023 Whippet was granted a new eight year contract to continue running the service. All of the service's nine Mellor Sigma 12 buses are fully electric. [11]
Whippet was awarded a contract with intercity coach company FlixBus in 2021 to run long-distance coach services. Currently Whippet operate 14 coaches for FlixBus, running to Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Cambridge and London in the UK and Amsterdam and Paris on international routes. [12]
In 2024 Whippet launched the first 100% electric long-distance coach in partnership with FlixBus and Zenobē. [13] The Yutong GTe14 runs on the route between Cambridge and London. [14]
From 7 August 2011 until 9 November 2018, Whippet operated service C on Cambridgeshire Guided Busway from Somersham to Cambridge city centre on the section between St Ives and the Cambridge Science Park. This was being run in conjunction with Stagecoach in the Fens (who ran routes A and B) who jointly with Whippet had exclusive use of the route for a period of five years in exchange for providing a minimum service frequency between 07:00 and 19:00 each weekday. [15] Whippet spent a total of £420,000 on three Plaxton Centro bodied Volvo B7RLE buses [16] that have been sold since and replaced by four Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs. Service C was withdrawn on 9 November 2018, leaving all bus operations on the northern section of the guided busway to Stagecoach East and ending Whippet's services in the St. Ives area. [17] [18]
In addition to services C and U, in February 2019, Whippet launched a service P (for Pedigree), using the B7RLEs which previously operated on the C, between Cambridge City Centre and Addenbrooke's via the Guided Busway, thus duplicating Stagecoach's A and D services on this section. Service P lasted six months before being withdrawn in August 2019. [19]
Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses and express coaches in the United Kingdom.
The City of Oxford Motor Services Limited, trading as Oxford Bus Company, is a bus operator serving the city and surrounding area of Oxford, England. It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group.
Guided buses are buses capable of being steered by external means, usually on a dedicated track or roll way that excludes other traffic, permitting the maintenance of schedules even during rush hours. Unlike railbuses, trolleybuses or rubber-tyred trams, for part of their routes guided buses are able to share road space with general traffic along conventional roads, or with conventional buses on standard bus lanes.
Stagecoach North East operates both local and regional bus services in County Durham, Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear, England. It is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, which operates bus, coach, rail and tram services across the United Kingdom.
Stagecoach West is a bus operator providing services in Gloucestershire, Bristol, Swindon, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, North Somerset and Herefordshire, in the West of England. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group.
The Cambridge and St Ives branch was a railway built by the Wisbech, St Ives & Cambridge Junction Railway in the late 1840s. The railway ran from Cambridge in the south, through Fenland countryside to the market town of St Ives; more specifically, the line ran from Chesterton Junction, where it met the present-day Fen line north of the River Cam.
Fastrack is the name given to two bus rapid transit schemes in Kent. The original network began in 2006 in Dartford and Gravesend, part of the Thames Gateway regeneration area, and in 2024 a separate network was launched in Dover.
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is a guided busway that connects Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives in Cambridgeshire, England. It is the longest guided busway in the world, surpassing the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia.
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.
Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about 50 miles (80 km) north of London. Its main transport links are the M11 road to London, the A14 east–west road and the West Anglia Main Line railway to London.
McGill's Bus Services is a bus operator based in Greenock, Scotland. The company has grown to operate a network of routes covering much of the council areas of Inverclyde, East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, Glasgow City, North Ayrshire, West Lothian, Falkirk and Dundee City. McGill's have several depots based in Greenock, Inchinnan, Johnstone, Edinburgh, Bannockburn, Balfron, Larbert, Livingston and Dundee. McGill's also formerly had depots in Dumbarton, Barrhead and Coatbridge.
Stagecoach Merseyside and South Lancashire is a major operator of bus services in North West England. It is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered in Liverpool.
FlixBus is a German brand that offers low-cost intercity bus service in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. It is owned by Flix SE, which also operates FlixTrain, FlixCar, Kâmil Koç, and Greyhound Lines. FlixBus operates buses or, in many cases, just handles marketing, pricing, and customer service for a commission, on behalf of bus operators. In 2023, FlixBus had revenues of €2 billion and carried 81 million passengers of which 55 million were in Europe, 14 million were in Turkey, and 12 million were in North America.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC is a low-floor double-decker bus produced by the British bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis since 2014, replacing the Alexander Dennis Enviro400. The Enviro400 MMC is produced at Alexander Dennis' Falkirk and Scarborough factories in the United Kingdom.
The MCV Evora is a single-decker bus bodywork produced by Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles (MCV) since 2018, as the successor to the MCV Evolution. The Evora is currently available on Volvo B8RLE and Volvo B5LH chassis.
The Volvo BZL is a full-size zero tailpipe emissions battery electric bus chassis for both single-deck buses and double-deck buses, manufactured by Volvo AB since 2021.
Ascendal Group is a British public transport company that operates Whippet in Cambridgeshire, the Ascendal Punta Arenas in southern Chile, and has a small shareholding in Hong Kong bus companies of Citybus through Bravo Transport. It was founded in 2018 by former Tower Transit CEO Adam Leishman until he and Go Whippet split away from Transit Systems to form Ascendal. Leishman is the son of Transit Systems co-founder Graham Leishman and was previously the Business Development Director at Transit Systems.
The Mellor Sigma is a battery electric single-deck bus range manufactured by Wisdom Motor in China and sold in Europe by Mellor Coachcraft between 2021 and 2024. It was available in various lengths, from 6.99 – 13.50 metres, with the shortest being marketed as the Mellor Sigma 7, and the longest as the Mellor Sigma 13.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro400EV is a battery electric double-decker bus produced by the British bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis in partnership with Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD Auto since 2018. Based on its Alexander Dennis Enviro400 City body, which was launched in 2015 to compete with the hybrid electric New Routemaster, the Enviro400EV is produced at Alexander Dennis' Falkirk and Scarborough factories in the United Kingdom, with production of the type at the company's Larbert headquarters set to also commence in mid-2023. The Enviro400EV is available both as a complete integral battery electric bus and as a battery electric bus body on a BYD K series chassis, as well the integral Enviro400FCEV fuel cell bus.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro100EV is a battery electric integral midibus built by British bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis. It is the first midibus produced by the company equipped with Alexander Dennis' own in-house electric drivetrain, complementing the BYD-powered Enviro200EV in the Alexander Dennis product range. The body of the bus is to be assembled in Zhuhai in China, while the chassis of the bus is to be assembled with the body at the Alexander Dennis factory in Scarborough in England.
Media related to Go Whippet at Wikimedia CommonsBus operators in the East of England | ||
|---|---|---|
| Bedfordshire |  | |
| Cambridgeshire | ||
| Essex | ||
| Hertfordshire | ||
| Norfolk | ||
| Suffolk | ||
| National | ||