The shuttle bus, an important link between the two campuses, misses a very vital node in the local public transportation system: The Hatfield Railway station. With the increasingly expensive living costs, a hiked bus ticket price with more to come in 2026, and more students commuting than ever before, the Hatfield railway station needs a fast, reliable and free connection to both the university campuses. This addition to the service will not only help the students and staff financially and in their commuting but also increase the overall public transportation usage, thereby reducing the carbon footprint. 

If a student currently travels from Hatfield Railway station to Campus on a single day return, 3 days a week, that’s £10.50 extra expenses for students weekly, or £42 a month! This is less than a 10 minute journey for a shuttle service and students should not have to pay this much money just to commute to the university. Even if students consider any of the bundle packs, there are no passes that consider 3 days of travel a week, or other such combinations, making purchase of passes that are available highly prohibitive.

One persistent issue for years has been the timetabling issue for students at Herts. Having a consistent free shuttle bus available from Station to campus helps the students reach their early morning classes and late evenings classes much easier. Using the data form insight team, we also found the following results that clearly show a demand for such a service.

75% of students identified as commuters last year

35% of students lived under 60 mins away

22% of students lived 60mins plus away

When asked to respond to 'I can afford my living costs' - 49% of students had some concerns of finances

8% of students had serious concerns for finances 

79% of respondents agreed that travelling to campus was easy.

However, respondents of Arab ethnicity (41% ), of home fee status (34%) and respondents

travelling from 60+ minutes away (34%) felt travel to campus was difficult.

The university also very proudly advertises how it is just 25 minutes away from Central London. Anyone who has been here for more than a month knows that’s not true, because there is a 40 minute walk from campus to the station and a very unreliable paid bus service. If the university actually cares about bringing London closer to its students, and not being misleading about the claim on its advertisements, it should support this shuttle bus service.

We demand that for appropriate times, discussed and decided with the Student Council(not just the elected officers) an additional stop at Hatfield railway station should be added in the shuttle bus route for all students and staff of the university. However, this additional stop should not impact the current set frequency of shuttle buses. In order to achieve this goal, we demand that the university allocate all the required resources as soon as possible, along with a dedicated team to work on this project. We demand that by the next student council, a detailed plan be presented in this council as to how this change will be implemented, the proposed timeline, the team members and what action will be taken if the project starts to fall behind the proposed timeline. We also demand that accurate prices be displayed on the uno bus website for their tickets with and without student discount.