Bus services: Are better links with city just the ticket?

With scant train services from Clydesdale to the capital, many commuters and students instead use the far more frequent bus services.

The hourly 91/191 service from Lanark to Biggar with a connection to the 101/2 service to Edinburgh is used by many.

In January a new Biggar-Edinburgh timetable will be introduced by Stagecoach and it seems it will provide better connections with the service from Lanark.

The changes come on the back of dissatisfaction expressed by the Biggar-based Stand Up For Our Buses pressure group, unhappy with the existing timetable. The group’s co-ordinator campaigner Janet Moxley commented: “The changes to the timetable will improve the connection between the 101/2 service and the 91/191 service between Biggar and Lanark, and it is hoped that they will improve the reliability of peak-time service.

“In addition, the last bus from Edinburgh will leave at 8.30pm rather than 7.35pm allowing passengers to stay slightly later in the capital.

“However 8.30pm is still much earlier that the time of the last bus under a previous timetable and operator and we still hope that it will be possible to restore a 9.55pm service from Edinburgh.”

Lanark-based bus user Gordon Murray said: “Since new timetables were introduced on the 101/2 service in August the connection between this service and the 91/191 between Biggar and Lanark has deteriorated.

“I have been pressing Stagecoach and the transport authorities to amend the timetable so that this connection is restored. I am pleased that these concerns have been listened to and myself and others can once again use the 101 service to get to Edinburgh via the 91 from Lanark.”