Network and planning your route

The maps below shows the network of bus routes in Cornwall. This will be the network with effect from 31 March 2024

You may be able to work out from the map the number(s) of the buses that you need to catch to get from your proposed starting point to your destination. Then look up the timetables and find the appropriate times of the buses. Generally, the timetables show a Monday to Saturday service and a different timetable for Sundays and bank holidays. Note, however, that the Monday-Saturday times may have notes against them indicating that they only run on Monday-Friday, or on Saturday, or on school days, or on college days, or on holidays, or with reduced start and end points. On some routes, the daytime buses are operated as a commercial service, but in the evenings, the service is run on a subsidised basis by a different operator. On some routes there is no Sunday service. Be careful to check these caveats against the times that you propose to travel.

Alternatively, you can use one of the travel planners available from websites or apps.
Traveline South West is part of a national public transport information service where anyone can plan a journey by bus, coach, rail etc. You put in your proposed starting point, destination, time and date of travel and the website will present you with one or more options for the journey. Note that, if a change is necessary from one service to another, make sure that the time gap between the arrival of one and the departure of the next one is sufficient to make the connection. Be careful if there are only a few minutes between one and the other and there is not another bus due for a while after that - you could have a long wait!
The websites of the main bus operators offer a similar facility, see First (Travel Planner) and GoCornwall (Directions).
As an example of using these travel planning websites when looking for buses from Veryan to Truro, see the results from the different sites - they produce essentially the same suggestion but present it in slightly different formats. You will also see odd features such as getting off at a particular stop and walking a few hundred metres, but the main journey is the same: Traveline, First, GoCornwall

The First and GoCornwall apps that you can download on to your smartphone also have the same planning feature. See apps for more details of the information that they provide.

Note that First Bus has a contract with Truro and Penwith College to provide specified services that fit in with the students’ requirements for getting to and from the colleges in Truro and Penzance. For details of those services, see Truro College First Bus. GoCornwall Bus has a contract with Callywith College to provide services for students attending that college at Bodmin. For details of those services, see  Callywith College guide. Note that these links take you to the guides that were for the 2022/23 academic year. I am trying to find links to new guides for the 2023/24 year and will publish these as soon as I can locate them.