With help from the internet
Getting information about transport to and from your walk is easier now than it has ever been, so we do not need to maintain exhaustive listings of potentially outdated details. The well-known big sites are
National Rail
All aspects of train travel, from journey planning to ticket purchase.
National Express
All aspects of coach travel, from journey planning to ticket purchase.
Citylink
Coach use within Scotland. We must, however, note that the company’s website is not easy to navigate, particularly on a mobile device.
Traveline
All-mode journey planning, and detailed timetable/operator information for each leg of the journey.
Translink
All aspects of public transport within Northern Ireland.
Regional authorities
Authorities such as Transport for London, Trefnidiaeth Cymru / Transport for Wales, and Transport for Greater Manchester (you may search for similar authorities elsewhere in the country) are good for multi-modal travel within their area, and have information about discounts, day ranger tickets, and the like.
Aggregators
Sites such as bustimes.org present timetable data drawn from multiple operators (other aggregators are available).
Of course, each operator has its own website, which will be linked from the Traveline journey results page against the relevant leg of your journey.
With help from the satellites
Real-time satellite-driven information is often available, though remember that it will always be a few minutes out of date. The “real-time” information on aggregator sites such as Google Maps may be theoretical (i.e., from the timetable rather than the transponders) if the transponder on the bus has not been switched on, or if the satellites are somehow misaligned or misconfigured.
The comprehensive and easy-to-use bustimes.org brings together all local bus, coach and ferry timetables in a consistent format, and it has tracker maps to show where your bus is (or, at least, where it was at the last transponder connection): this can be useful to distinguish a late-running bus from one which has gone off-piste for some reason, and which will not be serving your stop — thank you, First Essex, for arranging that surprise 8km addition to the day’s walk after I had been waiting for almost two hours for a bus which was foraging to the north for no apparent reason. This site is particularly useful in identifying services which do not run on more than a few days each week.
Changes
Note that route numbers and operators may change — some operators seem to change their route-numbers deliberately as a re-branding exercise every now and then — so do not become too reliant on these historic details. In most cases, there will only be one route calling at a bus stop: this is where the Traveline search (or googling something like “bus times Penn Wycombe“) is better than trying to recall an operator and/or route number from the past. There is no 355 bus in Crail any more, even if it was the first “large number” I learned as a three-year-old.
Taxis
There are some public transport advocates who are so devout that they scorn the use of a taxi — “four wheels bad, more wheels good” is their mantra. We are not members of that sect.
Taxis are indeed public transport — after all the original Greek taxis just means payment, and the kind of service for your fare is immaterial. Remember also that a single taxi may save the need for several vehicles on the road on any one day.
A taxi may be the only option (getting to or from the Blaenhafren roadhead on the Severn Way and Wye Valley Walk, for example), or it may fill the gaps in a sparse bus service. For two or three walkers, it may be less expensive than a bus. For larger groups, many taxi companies have people-carriers (but wait — aren’t buses, trains and taxis of every size all people-carriers?) and minibuses, but these will generally require more notice and planning.
Arrival time at the pick-up point at the end of a day’s walk may be fraught with uncertainty (perhaps particularly in areas where you need to resort to a taxi), and in many places, there may be no phone signal to call up a cab from the nearest town. It is generally better to have you wait rather than the driver, though the agreement of a modest waiting fee may smooth out irritation.
Be considerate when using a taxi: have the wherewithal (spare clothes, bags, and so on) to deal with muddy or excessively wet clothing and footwear before getting on board. Actually, this also applies to buses and trains, if you think it through.
Finally, if you still need to be convinced of taxis’ place in the walker’s transport arsenal, consider the case of one walker who used taxis much of the time, a chap by the name of Wainwright.
Disclaimer and advisory notices
Note that the greenwalks.uk team can accept no responsibility for content on an external site or in an external publication, nor for any action by an external site which renders our content or link outdated or unworkable. Furthermore, the team retains the liberty to unlink external content if, in its opinion, there have been changes which mean that a route may no longer be able to be considered a Green Walk (e.g., following changes to public transport services).
The responsibility for safety and security is vested in the walker alone: greenwalks.uk can take no responsibility for any inconvenience, damage, loss or injury sustained while using a route or other information from this site — many things can change without warning.
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