Passengers expect timetables to change at Christmas – it’s an old tradition after all. But can they reasonably expect to be able to find out when their buses will be running?
Not necessarily, at least if they rely on the internet and Stagecoach’s journey planner it seems!
Christmas Day
One thing that everybody knows is that there are no buses on Christmas Day. But if you were a visitor from Mars, or perhaps Edinburgh https://www.lothianbuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/LOTHIAN-XMAS-2025.pdf or, of course Switzerland where normal services are operated, you might want to check.
If, for example, you needed to travel to the University on Christmas Day you could make an enquiry on Stagecoach’s journey planner and would be happy to receive the following result:
Of course, having waited from 1258 until after 1358 (or any similar period throughout the day) without seeing either a 41 or a 100 you wouldn’t be very happy at all, as there are NO BUSES on Christmas Day, which everyone, except the people who run Stagecoach’s journey planner seem to know.
Christmas Week
Having been disappointed on Christmas Day, you might decide not to risk it on Boxing Day, which would be a shame as there is a limited service and the above JP result is correct, even though the times given are from the Infirmary stop, which is where the journey planner considers “Lancaster” actually is.
But surely the following day, Saturday, 27th December, won’t be a problem. Stagecoach is providing a Saturday service on the days between Christmas and New Year so that should be straightforward, shouldn’t it? Well, not exactly. A complication is that services to the University have different timetables depending on whether it is term time or vacation at the university. In particular, whereas in term time services 1 and 1A combine to provide a ten-minute frequency along the A6, during the vacation the 1 is withdrawn, leaving the 1A to run every 20 minutes along this stretch.
But make an enquiry to the Journey planner and what do you get?
A service 1 at 1233 (from the Infirmary, naturally) followed by a 1A at 1243 in a pattern repeated throughout the day giving the impression that there are twice as many buses to the campus as there actually are!
Strangely, the journey planner seems to know that in the vacations the 1A extends to the Graduate College (although it tells you to alight at the stop called “Lonsdale College” and walk, possibly because this is nearer to the actual Graduate College than the stop that has that name!), but it doesn’t know that during this time service 1 doesn’t serve the campus at all!
More confusion
Just to add to the confusion, the journey planner thinks that at least some service 100 buses (which in the vacation terminate at the Underpass) actually continue to the Graduate College as with the following enquiry concerning the 1254 (from the Infirmary of course) to the campus:
The online and printed timetables agree that service 100 terminates at the Underpass on 27th December and all other days during the vacation.
This post is being written on 14th December, by which time it is reasonable to expect passengers to be able to get correct information about services on Christmas Day and during Christmas Week. As far as the change of routes between the 1A and the 100 is concerned this happens every vacation and is not peculiar to Christmas so it ought to be in the journey planner automatically.
The Bus Users’ Group understands that Stagecoach’s website and journey planner are controlled centrally and not by our local Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancs staff, but someone, somewhere needs to sort this out – and in the case of Christmas Day (non) operation has eleven days to do it.
Lonsdale Buses
In the interest of balance, we looked to see what our other local operator was saying about Christmas and as long as you think to look under the “News” pages of its website the information seems clear enough. https://klch.co.uk/blog/article/christmas-operations/
Lancaster Bus Users' Group 