Norwich - Transport

Transport

Road

Norwich sits north of the A47 (bypassed to the south of the city) which connects it with Great Yarmouth to the east and with Kings Lynn to the west, which ultimately connects to Peterborough. At present the A47 is in the planning stages of upgrades, largely to sections which are still single-carriageway and with much focus on improving the road network in conjunction with the in-construction Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour. Norwich is linked to Cambridge via the A11, which leads to the M11 motorway for London and the M25. It is linked to Ipswich (to the south) by the A140 and to Lowestoft (to the south-east) by the A146.

Rail

Norwich railway station is situated to the east of Norwich city centre and is managed by Greater Anglia. It forms the northern terminus of the Great Eastern Main Line with half hourly services to London Liverpool Street provided by British Rail Class 90 locomotives. It is also linked to the Midlands with hourly services to Liverpool Lime Street and are operated by East Midlands Trains Class 158 DMUs via Peterborough, Nottingham and Manchester. These additional hourly regional services to Cambridge, and out of Norwich as far as Ely, are run along the Breckland Line by National Express who also run hourly local services to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, using the Wherry Lines, and to Sheringham, using the Bittern Line. These all use either Class 156 or Class 170 DMUs. Norwich is also the site of Norwich Crown Point Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD).

Bus and coach

Norwich is served by several bus operators including Anglian Bus, First Eastern Counties, Konectbus, Norfolk Green and Sanders. Destinations throughout Norfolk and beyond are served including Peterborough, and Lowestoft. National Express run ten coaches a day to the three main London airports (Stansted Airport, Heathrow and Gatwick), five a day to London, and one a day to Birmingham. Most bus and coach services run from Norwich bus station or from Castle Meadow.

Norwich has six park and ride sites run by Norfolk County Council using colour-coded buses, one of the larger UK operations. Altogether nearly 5000 parking spaces are provided and in 2006 3.4 million passengers used the service.

Air

Norwich International Airport is a feeder to KLM's Schiphol hub. FlyBe, Eastern Airways, and Bristow Helicopters all serve Norwich, in addition to a strong holiday charter flight business. The airport was originally the airfield part of the former RAF Horsham St Faith. One of the former RAF hangars was once the home of Air UK, which grew out of Air Anglia and was then absorbed by the Dutch airline KLM.

Bicycle

National Cycle Route 1 passes through Norwich, linking Beccles and Fakenham (and eventually Dover and the Shetland Islands).

Water

The River Yare is navigable from the sea at Great Yarmouth all the way to Trowse, south of the city. From there the River Wensum is navigable into Norwich up to New Mills, and is crossed by the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge. Scheduled trips through the city and out to the nearby The Broads are run by City Boats from outside Norwich Station and also Elm Hill. In June 2012, Norwich City Council gave the go-ahead to introduce punting on the River Wensum.