Sustainable travel support for Associate Members

Bus travel

Which Bus?

First and Arriva offer the majority of bus services into Colchester, with Hedingham and Chambers offering several frequent services too. Check your nearest bus service and frequency on our bus network map. Once you know your nearest bus service, you can check timetable information using Essexbus.info

If you work on Severalls Industrial Estate, North Colchester Business Park or on Axial Way, you can find more detail about bus services here .

Useful apps

First ,  Arriva and Hedingham have apps offering real time information for your bus service, timetable and service update information.

Types of ticket and how to buy

Single operator

First, Arriva and Hedingham offer season tickets

First and Arriva also offer a Family ticket

Multi-Operator tickets

The Colchester Borough Card offers a range of multi-operator tickets for travel on First, Arriva and Hedingham services.

This includes a day ticket as well as weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual. There are now also multi-operator family tickets and child season tickets. They can be purchased as Mobile tickets or paper tickets. You can find information about the Borough card on all of the operators websites.

You can purchase these tickets as Mobile tickets from any of the participating operators websites, on bus for the shorter length tickets or from the First information office in St Botolphs. The Colchester Borough is more expensive than the individual operator season passes but offers more flexibility.

Prices

Prices for both individual operator products and the Colchester Borough Card can be found on each operators website:

First website

Arriva website

Hedingham website

Mobile Ticketing

Both operators offer Mobile tickets for most of their products.

First mobile ticketing and Arriva mobile ticketing

Other local operators

There are other smaller bus operators, some offer season tickets.

Hedinghams

Chambers

Park and Ride

You can download a leaflet about the Colchester Park and Ride here.

Colchester Park and Ride offers a quick and comfortable route into the town centre from the Park and Ride site just off the A12's Junction 28.  A daily ticket allows unlimited travel on Park and Ride buses along the route. There are also season ticket and group fare options. The Park and Ride stops at the hospital, train station and Middleborough, as well as the town centre.

Buses leave at approximately every 15 minutes from Monday to Friday from 5:30am - 9:30pm, and 7am - 7pm on Saturdays. Bus priority measures along the route give journey times of as little as 8 minutes to Colchester Station and 12 minutes to the Town Centre.  The last bus leaves the town centre just after 9pm during week days and shortly before 7pm on Saturdays.

The routes and timetables for this service are available from Traveline or you can find out more including fare information from Essex County Council's website.

Train travel

You can check the timetable from your local station and season ticket prices on Greater Anglia's website.

For onward travel to or from the station.

Walking

Follow the Fixing the Link walking route to the town centre - look out for the yellow way finding banners and the plaques in the pavement offering interesting historical insights along the route.

Cycling

Colchester station has extensive cycle parking on both sides of the station.

There is Bike and Go cycle hire for £3.80 a day

Bus

There are frequent buses into the town centre and towards Colchester Hospital and High Woods/North Colchester business parks. See map in bus information above.

You can add bus travel onto your train season ticket using PlusBus. 

Car sharing

If you travel with colleagues to meetings by train, there are also four Loveurcar car share bays on the south side of the station. These are free for up to a maximum of 8 hours as long as you car share to the station and are signed up to the Loveurcar carshare scheme.