My week using buses in Ipswich and how it really was

I decided to see what it was like by spending a week using Ipswich Buses and, incidentally, it fell on the same week that I was without a car.

I love driving, even if I do have to do it around Ipswich's one-way system and risk my car with the potholes, so I was interested to see what it would be like to go a week without one, and rely on Ipswich's bus system.

Firstly, I am going to talk about the cost of using the bus for a week.

I wasn't sure how many journeys I was going to do on the bus, as I only used it to come into the office and go to the car dealership on the other side of Ipswich to where I live.

I spent a week using the Ipswich bus system and this is what I thought (Image: Newsquest)

In total, I bought four day tickets and a single journey ticket. Each day ticket on the Ipswich Buses app costs £4.40, with single journeys costing £2.30 each - in total for a week on the bus, it was £19.90 - 40p more than a seven-day ticket available on the app.

This all means that, in my view, it can easily become quite expensive to use the bus around Ipswich, considering I can get a full tank of petrol for £60 and that normally will last me the month.

Obviously, depending on how much you use the bus, they offer tickets on the app for a certain number of journeys, or six or 12 months, which does work out cheaper in the long run.

Now, moving on to the delays and timings of buses. Largely, it was alright, there were only a couple of significant delays where I was waiting for 15 minutes or more after the scheduled departure time for the bus to still depart.

I spent a week using the Ipswich bus system and this is what I thought (Image: Newsquest)

Otherwise, other than maybe one or two delays of just a couple of minutes, the timings were pretty good - obviously buses come with a huge caveat that they stop regularly to drop off and pick up, so the times are likely to vary to what they say.

The staff I found to be very friendly, all of them said hello when you walked on the bus so I certainly didn't come across any rude staff.

I tried three different bus routes during the week, the number three bus through Nacton Road, the number four starting in Bixley and the number eight, which goes all the way to Asda Whitehouse.

Of the three, the Nacton Nipper, as it is titled, was the most reliable, often arriving at the right time and setting off from Tower Ramparts at the scheduled time.

I spent a week using the Ipswich bus system and this is what I thought (Image: Newsquest)

The Bixley Bustler was fairly reliable as well, albeit arriving late on one occasion which left me standing out in the cold for around 10 minutes for the bus.

The Whitehouses Own bus really made it feel like I was getting a good journey for my money, though. I was sat on it for 25 minutes while it went from Tower Ramparts to just outside Anglia Retail Park when I got off to go to the car dealership.

While it wasn't the most straightforward route, with it having to cover such a large area, it was quick and reliable.

They're not the most comfortable seats in the world, some of the newer buses which are white, are much more comfy than some of the purple and green buses.

In all, I can't wait to have a car back to be honest, but my week using the bus system in Ipswich wasn't too bad.

Staff are friendly, buses are generally on time, they are extremely handy if you are a nervous driver or elderly and do provide a really good service in Ipswich.

I spent a week using the Ipswich bus system and this is what I thought (Image: Newsquest)