Image source, Steve Hubbard/BBC Image caption,

The 7A carried 771 passengers in 2022/23 but its operator said it had seen fewer in recent months

By Ben Schofield

BBC News

The 7A bus runs four times a day, six days a week. Its 12.5 mile (20 km) route connects four settlements in South Cambridgeshire. But it only runs thanks to a tax payer subsidy of £124 per passenger. Its operator admits it is not value for money and the elected mayor responsible for transport is planning big changes to the local network. What does the 7A tell us about how bus services need to change?

Jean Wakefield is three months shy of her 80th birthday. She is also - probably - the 7A's most regular passenger.

Most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she catches it to shuttle between her home near the Imperial War Museum at Duxford airfield and a friend's house in the village of Sawston.

She is one of three passengers we meet on the 7A, as it completes two loops through countryside that straddles the M11.

"There were more people who used to use it, but several of them have died," Mrs Wakefield, who trained as a nurse, says.