In travelling around Birmingham, when I want to get somewhere I haven’t been before, I mostly go by bus. So I need a reliable, easy method of identifying routes and timetables.
Let’s say I want to go from Moseley to Merritt’s Brook in Northfield. The first thing I’ve got to do is identify the local roads, then find the buses that travel them.
Fortunately, Google Maps do a good job of locating bus stops, so I can look round an area til I find a stop that looks close enough. I’m choosing the stops at the junction of Merritt’s Brook Lane and Holloway, one northbound, one southbound. Let’s see which buses get me there. Using the pop-up ‘Get Directions to here’ option, I add “St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK” as the starting point.
That brings up St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK to NE-bound. But that’s not showing bus routes. So I go back to the map and choose the Transport Direct link. Which presumes I want to leave from that stop rather than arrive at it. So I need to move over to Moseley and pick my start point, then add the address of the end point.
When the Transport Direct options page comes up, I add “Ley Hill, Holloway” to the destination, and select the “All stops (e.g. Bus, Tube, Tram)” option as well.
That brings up a list of 59 places around the country, 17 of which are in Birmingham.
- 0: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Opposite Ley Hill Farm Road (SMS:nwmatgad)
- 1: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Ley Hill Farm Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatgag)
- 4: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Holloway (SMS:nwmdmtgm)
- 5: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Merritt`S Brook Lane, Bef (SMS:nwmatgaj)
- 17: Northfield (Birmingham), Bell Hill, Bell Holloway, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatpgp)
- 21: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpd)
- 22: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpg)
- 24: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Opposite Basil Road (SMS:nwmatwaw)
- 25: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Basil Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatwda)
- 34: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Vineyard Lane, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjw)
- 35: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, School Playing Fields, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjt)
- 37: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Opposite Colworth Road (SMS:nwmgjtwt)
- 38: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Colworth Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjwad)
- 42: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwam)
- 43: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwap)
- 44: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Opposite Taysfield Road (SMS:nwmatdwd)
- 46: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Taysfield Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatdwg)
I don’t know which of these stops is the one I aimed for, so I’ll just pick the first one.
When the results come up, it’s not the stop I had in mind. But I can zoom in and look at the 8-digit codes for the stop I do want, then back track and try again. The stops labelled nwmdmtgm, nwmatgaj, and nwmgjtjt look like better prospects.
The nwmdmtgm result looks good, indicating that a 50 to the 18 is an effective option. But I want to see another one. The nwmgjtjt result tells me that the 50 to the 27 is also an option. Both routes take about 45 minutes.
There is, however, a simpler method of planning. Centro have plotted stops on a Google map. All I need to do is zoom in on an area, pick a stop, and the Centro map tells me which buses are running there. If I want to plan ahead, it links to the Transport Direct page, where I have to go through the same faff about the start or end point. But it gets me there!
Things found in the process of reseaching this stuff:
- Network West Midlands - Network West Midlands
- ÖPNV-Karte (related to Birmingham - OpenStreetMap)
- Transport Direct - Britain’s free online route planner & journey planner
- walk — walkit.com
- and the somewhat less effective National Express West Midlands, which shows timetables if you know what bus you want. It’s not so good at identifying the route by searching on the destination. I tried Merritt’s Brook Lane and had poor results.
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