page_title: Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Cambridgeshire Guided Busway / History / Construction
caption_attribution_description: Construction works for the en:Cambridgeshire Guided Busway near Histon, Cambridgeshire
context_page_description: The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, known locally as The Busway, connects Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It is the longest guided busway in the world, overtaking the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia.
  Two guided sections make up 16 miles of the route. The northern section, which uses the course of the former Cambridge and Huntingdon railway, runs through the former stations of Oakington, Long Stanton and Histon. The southern section, which uses part of the former Varsity Line to Oxford, links Cambridge railway station, Addenbrooke's Hospital and the park and ride site at Trumpington, via housing on the Clay Farm site.
  Services are operated by Stagecoach in Huntingdonshire and Whippet, which have exclusive use of the route for five years in exchange for providing a minimum service frequency between 07:00 and 19:00 each week day. Specially adapted buses are used: the bus driver does not need to hold the steering wheel on the guided sections of the busway. A total of 2,500,000 trips were made in the first year of operation.
context_section_description: In March 2007, the then Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander officially opened a manufacturing plant at Longstanton that would produce the 6,000–7,000 concrete beams for the busway. Each beam was 350 millimetres thick with a further 180-millimetre lip for the glide wheels to press against. A total of 50,000 tonnes of concrete was cast to a precision of plus or minus one millimetre. Supports below the beams were under-pinned by 2,150 piles along a 2.5 miles (4 km) length of the busway.
  In the same year a viaduct of maintenance-free steel was built over the River Great Ouse as a replacement for the 200-tonne wrought-iron railway viaduct removed in 2007. There would later be a dispute between the Conservative-controlled County Council and opposition Liberal Democrat councillors as to whether the structure was structurally sound, with a claim that water draining off the track over the viaduct could lead to crumbling.
  In March 2008 existing guided vehicles were trialled along a section near Oakington. The vehicles tested included a Wrightbus-bodied single decker owned by FirstGroup, a Plaxton President-bodied Dennis Trident 2 double decker from Lothian Buses, and a white Alexander Dennis Enviro500 triple-axled double decker. The test vehicles were fitted with sensors to assess vibration levels and ride quality.
  Hot weather testing of the track took place during May/June 2010.
  In addition to the bus fleet, Cambridgeshire County Council trialled and purchased a specially adapted "guided gritter" lorry for use during periods of cold weather, which will spray salt water rather than rock salt. In November 2011 this was augmented with a customised "Multihog" gritter/snowplough vehicle from Ireland designed for clearing the accompanying maintenance track and cycleway. The Multihog is powered by 90-horsepower engine allowing it to travel at up to 25 mph (40 km/h) and features a brine tank, rather than solid grit.
  By August 2008 approximately 6 miles (10 km) of the busway had been constructed, between Longstanton and Milton Road (Science Park).  On 30 November 2009, road signs directing traffic from the A14 towards the future busway park and ride sites started to be installed. Other signage related to the busway had required subsequent height adjustments, and spelling corrections. Trees had also blown over, blocking the busway route near Swavesey. The twelve junctions on the route fitted with bus priority traffic signals were tested on 16 December 2010 and worked as expected.
caption: Construction work under way near Histon, Cambridgeshire in 2008.
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