50 Bus Service – Birmingham-Druids Heath

The 50 is a legend in Birmingham.
I don’t mean the type of legend you describe your mate as when he manages to drink 12 pints and a double curry without being hospitalised.
It is the «Most Regular» bus service in Europe which when you are standing waiting for one in horrible traffic seems unlikely. But during the day there is pretty much one at the Birmingham City Centre terminus by Selfridges almost non-​stop.
It’s a legend because of the people and they are amazing. There might be someone preaching one minute someone singing another,
You get spoken to by the public no matter how much you want them to leave you alone.
2014 saw it become a 24 hour service with hourly busses in the night. It hadn’t had a proper night service in years, if ever.
Tip: Don’t sit by anyone :-)

It may seem a little strange to review a bus route, but this is my most used bus route in Birmingham. This route runs from the Bullring to Moseley and Kings Heath (and beyond, but I don’t travel «beyond») and is incredibly regular. Travel West Midlands fares have increased somewhat since I first moved to Birmingham, but a single is now £2.20 or a daysaver (unlimited bus services) £4.20.
The service runs as often as every 6 minutes (and is hardly ever empty in my experience) and actually runs for 24 hours. After 11pm or midnight, it reduces to every 1 hour. You can check the timetable online, via their app or at the stop itself (it has a electronic display which lets you know when the bus is due). To get from the Bullring to Moseley, it takes around 10 — 12 minutes (Kings Heath, around 15).
The buses have always been pretty clean when I’ve used them. As this is a popular route, they tend to update the fleet fairly regularly and keep them all in top order. I’ve never had a problem with the bus breaking down mid-​route (a sight which is fairly familiar on the Birmingham network).
Again, I don’t use the buses very often — but I will always catch the number 50 when I’m planning on having an evening out in Moseley or Kings Heath. With it’s late service, it’s reliable and an easy (and cheaper) way to get around.

I have to say I have mixed feelings about this service. Having travelled the whole length both ways from outside Marks and Spencer’s to Druids Heath and lots of stops in between and at all times of day I’ve got a wide and varied experience to share. I’ve used this route for over ten years both for work and as a parent.
In my view the best times to travel on it are first thing in the morning with fellow commuters (plus the bus has not long been cleaned) and unusually, late at night because it’s nice and quiet. Usually I hate being out and about at either of these times, but on this route they’re actually the best times to travel in my experience. The busiest times are between 4pm-​6pm for obvious reasons.
The most interesting time to travel is between 10am-​3pm. It’s here that you see the wide range of people that make up our fair city. I’ve had genuinely lovely chats with complete strangers about the weather, the bus route, etc. Equally I’ve seen a man worse for wear have an ‘accident’ on the seat, get up and leave. The more concerned passengers, including me, spent the rest of our journey’s telling fellow passengers to avoid that seat. Or the time when I was quite heavily pregnant and not one person offered me a seat. Mum’s with pushchairs be warned too, drivers will go past if they think there isn’t enough space on the bus.
It is however a useful and mostly reliable service with buses coming regularly, but these days I only use it when I really have to I’m afraid.

It’s not an independent business, its a bus route, so I’m not sure how relevant this is to Unilocal.I won’t cover any other bus routes, but this one is truly worthy of a mention.
The 50 bus is a legendary service. It runs up the main arterial road running from the South of Birmingham to the city centre from Druids Heath to right outside Moor Street Station. You don’t need a timetable for this bus, and don’t ever run to catch one; there’s one every 3 minutes or so at peak times and they are very regular outside peak times.
About three years a go I I started off a rumour that the 50 is the busiest bus route in Europe and it always brings a smile to my face when I hear or see people tell me this. (See review by John N!) But, yes, it is busy.
All life is inevitably here. Office workers, schoolkids, night-​clubbers, winos. There’s often drama with teenagers trying to get on with out-​of-​date day tickets, or women fighting over much coveted pushchair space at around 5:15pm. It’s a speedy way into town and cheaper and quicker than taking a car. Do you want or need quick access to the city centre? The speed of the number 50 will enable you to live in the pleasant southern suburbs of the city and only be a 20 minutes ride away from the city, rather than reside in a city-​living garden-​less shoebox.

A few years ago, a DJ on Radio WM was holding a phone-​in on buses in Birmingham. He said that the 50 was known locally as the ‘Cannabis Express’. Now I’ve never heard anyone refer to a bus as anything other than its number, and certainly call a bus by a name that has more syllables than the number so I suspect he was just trying to stir up some interest.
I’ve never caught a whiff of weed on the 50, but I’ve seen a fair few fags on the go and been on one bus that’s been stopped and the police called because of kids fighting upstairs. As there’s a 50 every few minutes, it meant we could just hop on the next one when it arrived. To balance things out, I’ve also sat at the back of the top deck and it was just me and an alcoholic watching with amusement as a gang tried to get on the bus for nothing and didn’t succeed, leaving them swearing at the bus as it shuffled off through the backstreets of Digbeth.
The 50 is the quickest way to reach Moseley and Kings Heath from the city centre on public transport. It runs fairly late, which is also handy if you’ve been for a night out in either part of town.

This bus route goes from Birmingham town centre, opposite Moors Street Station, through Digbeth, Balsall Heath, Moseley, King’s Heath and all the way to Druids Heath. I’ve enver ridden it all the way to the end, but over an eighteen month period, I used this bus service at least three or four times a week. Someone once told me that it’s the most reliable bus service in Europe — I never found out if this was entirely true but I am sure that it’s the best I’ve used in Birmingham. You never seem to have to wait that long for one to turn up, rarely longer than fifteen minutes, even in the evenings, and buses during the day are rarely more than ten minutes apart at the absolute most.
Despite going through a few dodgy looking areas and having ridden it’s late services and it’s very early services, I can’t recall seeing anything more intimidating taking place than the odd teenager smoking on the upper deck. If you’re out in town late and need to get back to somewhere on the route, it’s worth checking out when the earliest bus is as this can save you quite a lot in taxi fare. My only real criticism is that in an ideal world, this service would run all night