London's Free Buses 847: Stratford to Here East Length of journey: 1 mile, 7 minutes
London has a handful of free bus routes if you know where to look. Possibly the busiest and most frequent of these is a shuttle bus that runs up and down the Olympic Park and has done since May 2017. It may therefore come as a surprise to hear that I've never previously ridden it, especially as it's very close to home, so I've been out to put that right.
During the Olympics the International Media Centre was located at the top end of the Park by the River Lea, almost in Hackney Wick, the intention being that afterwards it'd be transformed into a place of work. What moved in were innovators, creators and technologists, plus the London campus of Loughborough University, plus the footie-banterers of BT Sport, all under the umbrella name of Here East. But they were some distance from Stratford's transport nexus, as anyone who hiked to the hockey in 2012 will know, so a bespoke shuttle bus was funded to improve general accessibility. Best of all it was free to use*†‡ and ran twice as often as the usual TfL bus, so a bit of a winner all round.
* But was it really free for anyone to use? I always thought it was, having seen umpteen punters stepping on board without swiping, paying or showing anything. The website was always a bit vague. In one place it said "Our electric shuttle bus service is available for the Here East community and event attendees", which sounded like maybe No. Elsewhere it said "The service is available to anyone travelling to and from Here East", in which case hopefully Yes. Would I be called out as an impostor for boarding or were the drivers really willing to carry anyone up and down the park?
† Additional evidence for No came from a Digital Product Manager on a TfL tech forum. "The Here East Shuttle used to be included in our Journey Planner," he said. "However, we received complaints from users who were advised by Journey Planner to take the Shuttle, but were denied entry. I reached out to Here East and the company that operates the Shuttle on their behalf, who confirmed it is not for the general public. We therefore decided to remove the Shuttle from Journey Planner."
I shuffled up to the bus stop outside Stratford International station and chanced my luck. There's no timetable at the stop, only a single tile to confirm that the 847 service exists. That's a very unusual route number for London, and what's more it never appears anywhere on the bus, inside or out, instead it just says Here East on the front. At least the buses are all brightly coloured so you'd never mistake them for a normal red one. I didn't have to wait long. The 847 runs every 7/8 minutes between 7am and 9pm, and every 5 minutes during the peak, and one of the orange vehicles soon turned up. Fingers crossed.
...and it was all fine, the driver didn't even look up. It felt really odd walking straight past what looked like a functioning ticket terminal but I soon got over that and took my seat. It wasn't especially comfortable, my steed being a 15 year-old vehicle of the type that used to operate on route 108, whereas others in the fleet used to operate on routes 507 and 521 so are fully electric, boosting Here East's green credentials. The second stop on the loop is outside Stratford station on the Westfield side, and here three techy-looking passengers got off and six dead cert students got on. Then we headed off to the top of the park.
It's a bit of a cone-fest up Westfield Avenue at present with a long line of roadworks while a proper cycleway is added to a road that's barely 10 years old. Someone really messed up designing the original layout. There are also an excessive number of traffic lights, most of which halted us. Then blimey, another closed lane across the bridge where roadmaking materials were being stored, then blimey even more roadworks once inside the Park because that layout's turned out not to be right too. My fellow passengers stared at their phones and awaited deliverance.
You could if you like ride round the three-stop loop forever but disembarking at Here East seemed wise. The hoodies headed off to classes, a suited gent long past his student phase stepped aboard, and the driver headed off back to Stratford. I could have caught the normal 388 bus back, or I could have walked, but instead I plonked down in the bright orange shelter and waited for the next 847 to return. I'm still not sure I should have done but it's all no questions asked, indeed it was again, so if you fancy a freebie up the Olympic Park the Here East circular will do nicely.
‡ A reader has since provided very convincing evidence for No, which is that the Here East website has a page called Here East Shuttle App with the fairly uncompromising message that "Everyone will need the app to board the Here East shuttles." Signing up requires workplace/college email. Worse, the accompanying video says passengers are required to "activate your ticket before you travel", so it sounds like they've concocted a 'free' bus service that's frustratingly faffy to use. Didn't happen to me though, or anyone I travelled with.
