Park and ride is a great concept for cities, especially those that have compact centres, limited parking or horrific traffic. Dump your car out of town, hop on a dedicated bus every few minutes, swoop into town on the bus lanes, get dropped off really close to where you need to be, do your thing, pick the bus back up and pick up your car.

People who like having their car close, like driving or want some control and flexibility, they tend not to be big fans of the park and ride.

I tried it for the first time in decades quite recently. It was an interesting experience. I was taking my mum to a cricket match, in a place notoriously poor for parking – even if you have a disabled parking pass – so we opted for the park and ride.

First of all, there were almost no signs to get the park and ride. Fortunately my mum knew where we were going, and I had looked at the map beforehand, but still the signage was very poor, which makes no sense if you want to encourage the use of it by providing a good first experience. We had little or no wait for a bus to leave, and the fair was an extremely reasonable £4 each for both ways. The journey was OK, and we were dropped off at the place which, we were told, would also be the pick-up point, on the same side of the road. Fine.

The walk to the venue was short, so it was all good. Then came the return journey. As often happens after an event finishes, the whole attendance who had arrived at the event in steady streams over time then exited the event all at once in a massive throng. Consequently, there were a couple of hundred people waiting at the bus stop when we got there. The match had finished early and no-one seemed to have told the bus company to be ready early and at short notice. There were 15 minute gaps between the buses, rather than the 5 minute gaps that were advertised.

We finally got on a bus, which departed and took 40 minutes going 3 sides round the mobbed ground we had just exited in order to follow the park and ride route. We finally got back to the car and made our way home.

So, a great concept, with less than great execution, which was a shame. I score it 6 out of 10, a B-, ‘could do better’ on the report card.