The Luton-Dunstable Busway is a guided busway system in

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, England, which connects the towns of

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the ...

Houghton Regis Houghton Regis is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, East of England. The parish is located in Central Bedfordshire, which includes the hamlets of Bidwell, Bedfordshire, Bidwell, Thorn, Bedfordshire, Th ...

and

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

with

Luton Airport London Luton Airport is an international airport located in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, situated east of the town centre, and north of Central London. The airport is owned by London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), a company wholly owned by L ...

. It was built on the route of a disused railway track and opened in September 2013. The busway runs parallel to the

A505 The A505 is an A-class road in England. It follows part of the route of the Icknield Way and the corresponding Icknield Way Path and runs from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire to the A11 Abington Interchange North in Cambridgeshire. Route ...

(Dunstable Road) and A5065 (Hatters Way) for , of which is guided track with a maximum speed of 50 mph. It is claimed to be the second longest busway in the world.

History

Various studies had been carried out since 1989 which examined options for solving transit problems in the

Luton/Dunstable Urban Area The Luton/Dunstable Urban Area, according to the Office for National Statistics, is the conurbation (continuous built up area) including the settlements of Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, in Bedfordshire, East of England. Despite straddli ...

, including

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the netwo ...

Plan published in May 1989.

Bedfordshire County Council Bedfordshire County Council was the county council of the non-metropolitan county of Bedfordshire in England. It was established on 24 January 1889 and was abolished on 1 April 2009. The county council was based in Bedford. In 1997 Luton Borough ...

considered a number of possible schemes, including a single-track extension of

Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying m ...

heavy rail Various terms are used for passenger railway lines and equipment; the usage of these terms differs substantially between areas: Rapid transit A rapid transit system is an electric railway characterized by high speed (~) and rapid accelerati ...

services from Luton to Dunstable; a single-track diesel-powered rail shuttle service; a twin-track light rail system, with a possible extension to Luton Airport; and a segregated guided busway system. The guided bus scheme was selected in 1996 as the most cost-effective option. In April 1997, the newly created

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

Luton Borough Council Luton Borough Council (also known as LBC, or Luton Council) is the local authority of Luton, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It is a member of the East of England ...

took over the lead role in the project. A process of ongoing consultations, grant applications and a public enquiry delayed the project by several years. Luton Borough Council's early announcements for the Busway indicated that it would be designed as a

bus rapid transit Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

system named ''Translink Expressway'', operated with a fleet of

articulated bus An articulated bus, also referred to as a banana bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, wiggle wagon, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, (either a motor bus or trolleybus) is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usua ...

es of the Phileas type. The route was built on the old railway

trackbed The track bed or trackbed is the groundwork onto which a railway track is laid. Trackbeds of disused railways are sometimes used for recreational paths or new light rail links. According to Network Rail, the trackbed is the layers of ballast a ...

of the former

Dunstable Branch Lines The Dunstable Branch Lines were railway branch lines that joined the English town of Dunstable to the main lines at Leighton Buzzard and Welwyn. The two lines were under separate ownership and joined just east of the Dunstable North station. Th ...

, which closed to passenger traffic in 1967 under the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised British Rail, railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Develop ...

. After 20 years of planning, the Busway took three years to construct, at a cost of £91 million. It was originally budgeted at £51 million, but costs increased due to underground utilities,

soil contamination Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity ...

and the removal of

Japanese knotweed ''Reynoutria japonica'', synonyms ''Fallopia japonica'' and ''Polygonum cuspidatum'', is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the knotweed and buckwheat family Polygonaceae. Common names include Japanese knotweed and Asian knotweed. It is ...

. Design and construction was carried out by Arup and

Parsons Brinckerhoff WSP USA, formerly WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Brinckerhoff, is a multinational engineering and design firm with approximately 14,000 employees. WSP stands for Williams Sale Partnership. The firm operates in the fields of strategic con ...

, including seven new bridges, and reconstruction of three bridges, bus stops and a new transport interchange at

Luton Railway Station Luton railway station is located in the town centre of Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The station is about three minutes' walk from The Mall Shopping Centre. It is situated on the Midland Main Line and is operated by Thameslink. History Luton ...

. The bulk of funding for the scheme came from the

central government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or dele ...

, with additional funds from

and

Central Bedfordshire Council Central Bedfordshire Council is the local authority for the Central Bedfordshire unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire District Councils ...

, with additional section 106 contributions from developers. The Busway was opened 24 September 2013, five months later than scheduled, by

Norman Baker Norman John Baker (born 26 July 1957) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewes in East Sussex from the 1997 general election until his defeat in 2015. In May 2010 he was appointed ...

MP, a Minister for Transport. Two new bus stops were added to the system in early 2016 to serve the Chaul End area of Luton and Townsend Farm Road, near Houghton Regis.

Features

The guided section is a rollway built from concrete beams. Standard buses that have been fitted with two small guide wheels can join the track and travel along it at speeds of up to . Because it is a segregated route, other vehicles are prohibited from using the Busway. " Car traps" have been installed near junctions with the public highways to prevent motorists from using the route.

Services

Luton & Dunstable Busway (geograph 3716893)

Northern Dunstable from the air (geograph 4547146)

In accordance with the requirements of

bus deregulation Bus deregulation in Great Britain was the abolition of Road Service Licensing outside of Greater London for bus services. This began in 1980 with the abolition of Road Service Licensing for long-distance bus services and was extended into local ...

, bus services on the Luton to Dunstable Busway are operated by private bus companies:

Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.Centrebus and Grant Palmer. Initially at peak times upon opening (services A, B, C, E), buses ran up to every seven minutes. on a typical week day there are 332 buses towards Dunstable. The services are: A from

running 24 hours a day, B to Downside in Dunstable, C to Beecroft in Dunstable, CX to the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

warehouse on Boscombe Road, E to

Toddington Toddington could be *Toddington, Bedfordshire **Toddington services, M1 motorway *Toddington, Gloucestershire **Toddington railway station Toddington railway station serves the village of Toddington in Gloucestershire, England. Since 1984 it h ...

, F70 and F77 via Leighton Buzzard to

Central Milton Keynes shopping centre The Central Milton Keynes shopping area is a regional shopping centre located in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England which is about north-west of London. It comprises two adjacent shopping centres, the grade II listed building thecentre: ...

, G to the Langdale area of Dunstable, Hi to

Thorn Thorn(s) or The Thorn(s) may refer to: Botany * Thorns, spines, and prickles, sharp structures on plants * ''Crataegus monogyna'', or common hawthorn, a plant species Comics and literature * Rose and Thorn, the two personalities of two DC Com ...

, and Z via

. There is a similar service pattern towards Luton.

Incidents

There have been incidents involving buses on the Busway, including a bus becoming accidentally " derailed" from the concrete rollway, and buses moving at speed colliding with stationary buses. A number of fatal accidents involving pedestrians have occurred on the Busway. In February 2019, a pedestrian was struck by a bus and later died of his injuries around 4:00a.m. near Hatters Way, and in January 2020, a 69-year-old man was hit by a bus travelling towards Dunstable at the Jeans Way bus stop, being pronounced dead at the scene. Following an inquest into this accident by the chief coroner in January 2021, Luton Borough Council were condemned for the lack of safety fencing and signage that allowed the man to freely access the busway.

Future expansion

A councillor in Central Bedfordshire Council has indicated that the council has aspirations to extend the Busway to Leighton Buzzard, west of Houghton Regis. This extension would create a direct rapid transit link from

Leighton Buzzard railway station Leighton Buzzard railway station serves the towns of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade in the county of Bedfordshire and nearby areas of Buckinghamshire. Actually situated in Linslade, the station is north west of London Euston and is served by L ...

on the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

to Luton Airport.

References

External links

Luton to Dunstable Busway official website
* {{Luton Bus transport in England Guided busways and BRT systems in the United Kingdom 2013 establishments in England Transport in Luton/Dunstable Urban Area Luton Airport