Bus Services in York | About the website

In 1998, when I started studying at the University of York, the only website that had information about bus times was First York's own website - it only covered their own buses, and it wasn't even very good at that. I wanted to know what time I could get a bus to Clifton Moor (back in the days when you could get a bus right through from the university to Clifton Moor - thanks, First, for that "improvement"), but that information simply didn't exist on the internet.

So I started a website to complement First's, including all the other buses that run in and around York, and from York to nearby towns and villages. And it was, I'll be honest, crap. But gradually my web authoring skills improved, until the work of art you see before you now.

For a few years, the site just pottered along, slowly adding in First's timetables, until it gave a pretty comprehensive study of buses across the city. And there it stayed for quite a while. A couple of times, when I was getting far behind and didn't have time to keep it up-to-date, I thought about closing it all down, and then I'd get several emails from people who had been using it, and so convinced myself to keep it going for a bit longer. And I'm glad I did, because today alone I had over 150 visitors to the site, so I guess it's coming in useful to a lot of people.

Then in 2003, I moved to Selby and realised that it wasn't so helpful to me anymore, so I started added bus timetables for Selby as well. And so it spread. Within just over a year, I had got almost full coverage for the whole of North Yorkshire.

Nobody pays me to maintain the website, I have no affiliation with any of the bus companies or with the transport division of the councils, I just do it because I want to, because I enjoy being nice and helpful and because I support the ethos of public transport. So if you don't like anything you see on this site, or if you see a mistake, just remember that I've put this whole thing together, all one thousand pages of it, just out of the goodness of my heart.

How accurate is this website?

It's good. I won't say it's 100% accurate all the time, because that's just tempting fate. I always try to have revised timetables published no more than a week after they come into effect, and before the event wherever possible.

That puts it comfortable ahead of the City of York Journey Planner and the Xephos Journey Planner. I can't fault the North Yorkshire Journey Planner for the timeliness of its updates though.

You might notice that the times given here occasionally differ by a minute or two from other timetables. This may be because I have used a slightly different timing point, or it may be that I have adjusted the time because it makes the timetable easier to read. In this case, I will only show an earlier time than the bus is actually due, not later.

If you do see a mistake, please do let me know, using the link at the bottom of the timetable in question, and I will correct it as soon as I can.

How comprehensive is this website?

It's very good. More than 99.9% of buses running within York and North Yorkshire are listed.

Long-distance services such as National Express coaches are generally not included. Market day services that only run once or twice a week are generally not included. School buses are generally not included unless they fit in with another timetable. Routes that only just graze the edge of the county (such as Skipton to Burnley) are generally not included.

Where are the rest of the maps?

Hey, gimme a break, will you! I will add more maps as and when I have the time to draw them, but it takes a lot longer than writing the timetables, so I do them first.

Technical details

I wrote this site entirely hand-coded using Rogsoft Notepad+, which is just like Microsoft Notepad only a hundred times better. There is no generated code anywhere on this site.

All timetables and search facilities should work in all browsers, and on all platforms. I have checked them with IE 5 and 6, Netscape 7, Opera 6 and 7, and Lynx. (Some timetables don't work in Lynx. I am repairing these when they get updated).

Advanced features

What do I mean by "advanced features"? Answer: anything you don't get on other websites and timetables.

What browser do I recommend?

This isn't one of those sites that locks you out if you're not using the latest version of Internet Explorer, and there are two reasons for that. One is that it is a pretty dumb plan to deliberately stop a chunk of people getting to your website, and the other is that Internet Explorer is incredibly backwards. Seriously. The last update was three years ago - Netscape and Opera have had two new versions since then.

This means that many of the more advanced features are not available to those of you using Internet Explorer. This is not a deliberate act on my part - there is just no way to make Internet Explorer do what I would like it to do (and what Netscape and Opera do very well).

I strongly recommend anyone who spends more than about eight seconds a month surfing the web to upgrade to Opera. It's free, and it's fantastic.

Why Opera? - check out my reasons for using this particular browser

Active footnotes

How many times have you been looking at a bus timetable and noticed the obscure code LS or somesuch at the top of a column? Then you have to scroll down for ages or flick through the pages until you find out what the heck it means. Not here!

When there is a note in the timetable (usually shown by blue or gold letters at the top of the column), just hold your mouse over the letters, and a ToolTip will pop up with the note. All footnotes are also listed at the bottom of the page.

Alternative routes

Maybe you found the website through Google. You asked for buses between Tadcaster and Askham Bar, and it gave you the timetable for the C3. But there's actually a much quicker and more frequent service on the Coastliner bus - and if you read the notes at the bottom of the C3 page, it tells you this.

You won't get that sort of service at other websites - especially not when the better service is run by a different company!

Where services are infrequent, and journeys can be made more often by using different routes and changing buses, I have indicated this. Where a train serves two or more stops on the route, I have provided a link to them timetable

Just hold your mouse over the link to see where the alternative service runs to and from, and (if it is a different company) who runs it: 843

Railway stations

If you travel by bus, there's a fair chance you'll travel by train as well. And sometimes you'll want to make a journey that involves both.

It's all very well Arriva putting in their timetables that buses stop at Selby Bus Station, South Milford, Sherburn in Elmet Crossroads, Micklefield Boot and Shoe, Garforth Lynden Avenue and Leeds City Bus Station, to take one example, but how many of those stops are anywhere near the stations? You would need to get a map out and check.

Or you could just use my website. Where a bus runs within ½mile of a station (or further in very remote areas), this will be shown by a

image by that stop.

But that could still be half a mile away, which is a long way to walk if it's raining and you've got a train to catch - you want to know how far away it is. And you can.

Hold your mouse over the station symbol. If no message pops up, the bus stops within 200m of the station (or it's an old timetable that I haven't updated. But there aren't many of them). If the station is more than 200m away, as is the case at Danby

then a note pops up to tell you. It will also warn you at places such as Eggborough

where the station has a different name to the village or town shown in the timetable.

Route summmaries

On most timetable search facilities, it gives you a very brief summary of the service, eg: 36 - Leeds - Harrogate - Ripon and 770 - Leeds - Wetherby - Harrogate. If you're going from Leeds to Harrogate, you don't know from looking at that, which one will be better. You can't tell that the 770 takes the long way round and doesn't run as often as the 36.

Here, you will see a more detailed summary of the route, listing up to ten stops, and approximate frequencies in the daytime, evening and on Sunday. And because you will see all the summaries on one page, you know which timetable will be most helpful without having to load the full timetable up for each one first

Search by 'click'

Middlesborough - Place not found ... who has seen that? Anyone else always typing Harroagte into the search box and not getting any results? Do you need the hyphens in "Thornton-le-Dale"?

It doesn't matter - on this site, you don't type in anything! On the search page, just click on the destination you want, or if it isn't shown, click on the map below to narrow down your search to one part of the county, then find your destination in the alphabetical list (use the quick jump letters on the left-hand side of your screen to reach the far end of the alphabet instantly) and click on it.

Fed up because you need to know which stop you're going from? If you ask the NYCC planner for "Brayton", you have to choose between Brayton Green and Brayton Moat Way - despite the fact that all buses call at the Green, and even if they didn't, Moat Way is only a few minutes' walk away.

Not a problem! Choose Brayton on the destination list and you will get all the buses that call at Brayton, whichever part of the village, so you can choose the one that is best for you.

Highlighting

When you're looking for a time on the right-hand side of a large timetable, it's sometimes difficult to follow the row across.

Problem solved! Just hold your mouse over the time or the place you are interested in, and it will highlight the entire row, so you can easily see where and when the bus stops

Smart Printing

It's so frustrating - you want to print a timetable, and it splits across two pages - aaarghh!

This is an experimental feature, and may not work properly - I have not been able to test it in different environments because my printer has gone to computer accessory heaven - so if you do have Opera, Netscape or any other browser that supports CSS2, please try this out and let me know what works

The theory is that if the printer can't fit all of a table on one page, it will leave a blank space and start it at the top of the next page, so that you don't have to turn pages over or Sellotape them together just to follow a bus from one end of its journey to the other

Probably works in: Opera 7+ Maybe works in: Netscape 7+ Does not work in: Internet Explorer

All information contained on this page is believed to be accurate at the time of publication. However this page is independent of the operator and I can not guarantee that changes to the timetable will be posted here immediately. I hope you have found this website useful. If you have any comments or queries about it, or know that one of the timetable here is no longer valid, please email me.

About this website

Who am I, and why do I run this website?