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updated 20/08/2002

Visitors to this page since 7/6/98

Park & Ride in Oxford dates back to Oxford City Council's Balanced Transport Policy of 1973. This sought to discourage the use of private car movements within the city and the use of public transport to reach one's destination. Queen Street & Cornmarket were closed to all but buses and Park & Ride sites were established to the north, west and south of the City centre at Pear Tree, Seacourt and Redbridge. Services were operated at first using normal buses or coaches, often demoted coaches such as the AEC Reliances with Willowbrook DP bodywork. However in 1978, when funding was transferred away from City and Council support and the services had to be commercially viable, four second hand Daimler Fleetlines ex Midland Red were given a special "Starsky & Hutch " livery of blue and white and dedicated to the Pear Tree- Redbridge service then designated 590. This is now the 300 and it has seen a variety of buses including ex London Transport DMSs and Titans, Olympians of two varieties and of course the Bristol VRs and lately even Volvo B10B's.

A special livery has been adopted of Green, Red and White and most buses operating on the present two routes, both now cross City, are in this special colour scheme. Indeed demand is such that at least 20 buses are required to operate the two services at peak periods. The 400 now operates from Thornhill to Seacourt and the two services offer a very regular service as can be seen from the details below.

The 300 service proved so popular, that it began to operate during the evenings and on Sundays. This meant a considerable increase in the fleet and a total of 16 Olympians and 1 Titan (950) were repainted into the special livery. These were supplemented by Cityline Olympians, the then other remaining Titan (970) and occasionally Volvo B10Bs with Plaxton Verde bodywork on an as required basis.

The Park&Ride facility at Thornhill is also used by intending passengers for the Citylink services to London and the Airports and has proved a useful starting point for many peoples journeys.  Destination blinds are now colour coordinated with the destination of the bus and red is for Redbridge, green for Pear Tree, yellow for Thornhill and blue for Seacourt.

The old fleet of mainly Olympians has now been replaced with a brand new fleet of purpose built double deck buses, being 20 super low floor Dennis Trident IIs with Alexander ALX400 dual door bodywork encompassing wheel chair access. These buses make a marked comparison with the Fleetlines which satisfied the needs of passengers, some 20 years ago, in the late '70s. All had entered service by 16th July 1999.

2000 saw the proposals for a fifth Park&Ride go to the Minister of Transport on appeal, against a ruling locally that this addition could not go ahead. Oxford Bus had provisionally ordered further double deck Tridents but it is unlikely at present that this order will go through. 

A further development was that the 400 service commenced Sunday operations for the first time in its history, giving full coverage up to 11pm at night on this route. The Tridents are giving good service and have proved very popular with the users. Young families, where parents have push chairs and on a return lots of shopping, have found the ability to leave a child in its buggy most useful.  

Again during the summer of 2000, the Olympians returned to service and were pressed into service from time to time on the P&R services. Now that they are retired it is often possible to see both low floor and normal Volvo saloons on either service. The 8xx series offer similar facilities to the Trident except for seating capacity. 

The final event in 2000 seems to have been the repainting of 120 into red bus livery for use on the X3. Thus it still shares the Abingdon Road with its fellow Tridents, albeit in red but still with green drivers binacle. 

In July 2001 a highbridge Trident appeared on loan to Oxford. Some remedial work is required on the Oxford fleet of Tridents by Alexander and 929 is covering whilst buses are returned to Falkirk. A picture appears on News Page - issue 160.

During 2002 a fifth Park & Ride site was approved. This will be at Water Eaton, near Kidlington and Oxford Bus plan to serve this site with a new service to and from Oxford. Six new Mercedes Benz Citaro saloons have been ordered for this service and it appears that half the site will be ready by November 2002 by which time the new single decks will have been delivered.