Derby Bus Station in April 2010

Derby’s first bus station belonged to the Trent Motor Traction Company and was situated in Albert Street. It was a small building with a glass roof and open to the weather on two sides. It was used for Trent buses only from 1923 until 1933 when services transferred to the new municipal bus station round the corner on the Morledge.

The then new bus station was designed by Mr Charles Aslin, the Borough architect from 1929 to 1945. It opened on the 2nd October 1933. The bus station was highly praised and was acknowledged to be the initial design for a drive in/out bus station that operated in the style of a railway station. Built of concrete using cantilever construction, this became the style that others were to follow. In addition to departure stands and bus parking spaces the bus station had a cafe, newsagents and offices in the art deco style then prevalent. Sadly in recent years it had been allowed to become run down and shabby and was closed on 22nd October 2005 and was demolished the following year. Construction of a new bus station and commercial premises, known as Riverlights, on the same Morledge site commenced in 2008. Derby’s third bus station finally opened for business on 28th March 2010.

1. Exterior view of bus station.

The new bus station is completely different from either of its predecessors with a sawtooth design and buses reversing off the stands. The architecture is quite striking with an angular design but as yet the shops, offices and bars above the bus station are unoccupied. There are 24 departure bays with automatic doors leading to a covered concourse and 5 in the open air which are intended for long distance coaches where luggage is carried in side lockers. The main users are Arriva who operate most of the city services and trentbarton who operate both city and longer distance services. Felix, Kinchbus, Notts & Derby, Littles, Doyles and TM Travel also use the bus station. Some services of both major operators do not use the bus station and to add to the confusion the bus station is closed at night when the few buses that run terminate in the street outside. National Express and Skills coaches use the open air stands.

2. Main concourse looking from entrance before the shop opened.

3. Main concourse looking towards the entrance.

4 (above) & 5 (below). The rather Spartan stands for coaches.

6. Walkway from the city to the bus station entrance.

The main concourse is light airy with a high ceiling but is generally regarded as rather cold. At present there is one entrance which is leads to the Moreledge which is a busy dual carriageway but there is pedestrian crossing which leads to the main shopping and commercial areas of the city. The pavement is cluttered by construction work and redundant bus shelters but no doubt this will improve. However car drivers still benefit from a covered access to expensive car parks whereas bus passengers have to brave the elements.

There are no shops or cafes inside the bus station although we are promised a convenience store soon and there is a newspaper seller at the entrance. Turnstiles guard the toilets which are expensive at 20p and the change machine never seems to be working. There are comprehensive maps and bus service guides on the walls and illuminated departure signs overhead but these are not real time so that if a bus is cancelled or delayed there is no information for passengers. Each departure bay has its own printed and electronic list of departures, again these are not real time. When queues build up they can obstruct access to stands further down the concourse. When the bus arrives and the automatic doors open, alighting and boarding passengers get in each other’s way in the doorway and finally boarding passengers queue up in the open air to pay their fares.

7. The bus station entrance.

8. Immediately inside the entrance.

9. Examples of the bus and coach service maps.

10. Real passengers using the city map.

11 (above) & 12 (below). Examples of the electronic displays above the departure bays. Some of them alternate between a simple list of departures and colour coded brands used by trentbarton.

13. A queue. It can be seen how easily a queue at one stand blocks the gangway.

14. Boarding and alighting passengers get in each other’s way.

15. Passengers queue in the open air to board the bus.

It is quite a busy bus station with several of Arriva’s city services running every 10 minutes and two of trentbarton’s every 7/8 minutes. Other stands are used by several less frequent services. The result is that on the hour and half hour lots of buses start reversing together and incoming buses are instructed to give way to them. It looks a bit chaotic but seems to work although to me it is a backward step in this safety conscious world. Another problem is late running buses blocking stands and incoming buses either using an adjacent stand or having to circle round wasting fuel in the process.

16. These two buses should have been on the same stand.

17 (above) & 18 - 20 (below). Reversing time. The incoming Black Cat gives way to reversing Arriva buses.

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The bus station is managed by the city council who also staff an information office which stocks timetable leaflets provided by the operating companies and also sells the excellent Derbyshire bus timetable booklets. The Nottingham based coach operator Skills maintains an adjoining smaller office which also sells National Express tickets. Neither Arriva nor trentbarton have any visible supervisory presence other than the odd bod in a high vis jacket from time to time.

21. Information office.

22. Skills office.

Newspaper and other comments have been generally favourable with the major concern being the lack of easy access to taxis for coach passengers with luggage. Lack of car parking for meeting people was also mentioned but there is now a large notice advising the nearest short term parking which is near the entrance. There is still quite a lot of outstanding construction work on the rest of the project so perhaps one day we will see a taxi rank where the site huts are now.

Derby Bus Station update (July 2010)

The new bus station has now been in use for three months but continues to attract both favourable and unfavourable press comments. The convenience store has opened which makes the bus station look brighter and it includes a small cafe with tables and a few seats and pictures of the second bus station.

23. The main concourse after the convenience store and cafe opened.

24 (above) & 25 (below). Pictures on the wall including a Barton PD1 rebuild setting out for Nottingham.

The major complaints have been from coach passengers who have to walk a long way with their luggage to find a taxi. This has resulted in several coach firms specialising in holidays for mature citizens reverting to street loading some distance from the bus station. One company went to the extent of writing to all its customers to tell them of the change. Skills and National Express continued to use the bus station. On 8th July there was a climb down when the city council announced that redundant bus shelters will be removed from the Morledge and replaced by a taxi rank and blue badge parking just outside the bus station entrance. They also state that help with baggage will be available from bus station staff.

26. The Moreledge is still blighted by road works for the new taxi rank.

27. Bus station customers will still have quite a walk to the shops even when the road works are completed.

28. My favourite design flaw is the lack of a canopy where the buses draw up resulting in a rainy gap between the bus door and the stand door.

I was always concerned that the new bus station would not be big enough and that at busy times it would be jammed by buses trying to get in and out. This hasn’t quite proved to be the case but there are delays of up to two minutes and the removal of the old stops in the Morledge where incoming buses could unload and wait for a few minutes will make things worse. For example the Nottingham services run every 10 minutes from the same stand but they have an 11 minute layover in Derby. Trentbarton are concerned that timekeeping on the high frequency city services to Allestree and Mickleover has been adversely affected by bus station delays and they are considering reverting to street loading. (HERE: scroll down to 15 July 2010) I don’t think Arriva have the same problems as most of their services run to the south and east of the city. Indeed there are no Arriva buses serving stops near the Market Place which used to be one of the hubs of the trolleybus network.

I’m told that the coffee in the cafe is quite good and reasonably priced. So why not have a look at the new Derby bus station and tell us what you think. I am not a professional driver and would welcome the views of drivers who use the new bus station. And, by the way, there are lots of buses to photograph.

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29. The P&R service passes the bus station but doesn’t stop (except for traffic).

30. The Mickleover service might revert to street loading.

31. All the Villager buses have different animals on the side.

32. One of the few remaining red Darts.

33. This is a route branded Notts & Derby bus. These often turn up on the Trans Peak service to Manchester.

34. Notts & Derby on a Derby City tendered service to Allestree.

35. It is not unusual to see deckers on service 73 to Weston on Trent.

36 (above) & 37 - 38 (below). Three of the main types of Arriva buses operating in Derby. The Ashbourne Road services operated by Optare Versas don’t use the bus station.

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