Avanti West Coast and bus company Stagecoach have again joined forces to make Keswick in Cumbria part of Britain’s railway network, with a virtual railway station that allows visitors to the Lake District to enjoy seamless journeys by train and bus.
A single ticket now covers both rail and bus travel throughout the Lake District and coincides with Stagecoach increasing the frequency of buses between Penrith and Keswick to every 30 minutes.
With the support of Avanti West Coast and Stagecoach, a fully integrated ticket was introduced as a trial last year by the local visitor economy partnership, Cumbria Tourism, as part of a Go Car Free campaign.
Last year, during the five months of the trial, 750 integrated tickets were purchased for travel to and from Keswick.
With the virtual railway station at Keswick being part of the national network, the departure times of trains and buses can be viewed online, and customers can purchase a single fully integrated ticket for their entire journey.
Tickets are valid for travel by Avanti West Coast services to Penrith (gateway to the North Lakes) and on Stagecoach connecting bus services X4 and X5 to Keswick.
The integrated travel scheme will continue until 2nd November, and tickets are now on sale for travel until 19 June.
Tickets can be purchased via Avanti West Coast’s website, its app, or at ticket offices, and customers should select Keswick Bus as their destination when booking. They will receive one ticket that covers their complete journey.
“We’re delighted to be offering a fully integrated ticket to the heart of the North Lakes, so visitors can once again reach this beautiful part of the world more easily. By making it possible to complete entire journeys across public transport with just one ticket, we’re supporting Cumbria Tourism to champion exploring the region using greener travel options. We hope it will inspire more people to leave their car behind and take the train and bus to visit the Lake District’s beautiful scenery on foot or public transport.”
Kathryn O’Brien, Customer Experience Director at Avanti West Coast
Responses
This is at least a small step in the right direction, but we need integration between all public transport modes across the entire UK, just like in Switzerland. That means both connections and fares.
It is a crying shame that the Keswick line, like so many others was closed in the first place. A well operated rail service would surely have been better than a bus service, especially if there were direct services to/from Manchester, not just Penrith.
They use to call this proper timetabling which Switzerland does very well, but Northern does not as you have the situation at Preston where you can arrive on a fast train from London, ‘The Lancastrian’ (this does not stop until Crewe) in a couple of hours , and then you wait for nearly an hour for a train to crawl towards Burnley, with the time taken from Preston nearly being the same as that from London to Preston.