New plans for community transport

[Old Cruser]

I know we have one or two bus drivers who post on here and would welcome your thoughts on the proposed below


If the funding stops for active travel it will be really hard for those needing regular hospital appointments.

I don't think the increase of £2 to £3 fare for door to door shopping service is bad at all though, but would the once a week for each village etc be less than it is now?



Local residents are to be asked their views on new proposals for the county's 'shopping' buses.

We must make cuts of £157m by 2018, which means community transport services must be reviewed.

Dial-a-Bus services (DAB) − better known as shopping buses − are currently provided by Derbyshire's six community transport schemes. They are for people who are unable to use mainstream public transport because of mobility difficulties or because they live in rural areas where bus services are limited.

Currently, depending on where passengers live, they may have several trips a week to different shopping destinations which may be to a town centre or supermarket.

We also support community transport organisations to run aCTive travel journeys for individuals needing to get to GP surgeries, hospital, clinics and other healthcare appointments.

Last year we had proposed to withdraw all funding from April 2016 − a total of £1.4m - for DAB and aCTive travel services.

But following feedback from a survey carried out last year which identified shopping journeys as the most important to community transport users, we have revised our proposals.

Now councillors will be asked to approve consultation on the new plans at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 7 July 2015.

The new proposals are that:

Every community, town or village, will get a weekly bookable, door-to-door service to a nearby town centre or supermarket. This may be different to the current service, for example it may run on a different day, at a different time or by a different operator.
The flat-rate return fare of £2 for Gold Card holders could increase to £3.

Our funding for aCTive travel be withdrawn meaning passengers could have to pay more for their journeys or the service may stop unless other financial support is found.
Councillor Dean Collins, cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure, said:

"In putting forward these proposals we took into account what passengers told us in an earlier survey and the most used services, by, were for shopping trips.

"We listened to what people told us and in line with this we are proposing that every community in the county will continue to benefit from at least one service a week to a nearby shopping destination."

"However no decisions have yet been made and the future of shopping bus services and other community transport services will only be determined once the outcome of this latest consultation is known."

The eight-week consultation will start in July. The questionnaire will be available online and through Derbyshire libraries and community transport groups.

[eabbus]

Our dial a buses have had a big restructure to make them more viable, theyve had a shuffle to take in bigger areas at once and to extra places to make it more attractive to users. We have more bums on seats now but its the same as most services, people don't realise what they have until its gone. Luckily for me i dont do these services often as i do mostly private hire work.

[Old Cruser]

Our dial a buses have had a big restructure to make them more viable, theyve had a shuffle to take in bigger areas at once and to extra places to make it more attractive to users. We have more bums on seats now but its the same as most services, people don't realise what they have until its gone. Luckily for me i dont do these services often as i do mostly private hire work.

So extra journey time for passengers then - some will enjoy that whilst others won't.
It will hit those who use them a lot for hospital appointments though.

[Old Cruser]

They are to send out questionnaires on the above proposed changes later this month
Don't think they will make any difference to the already agreed changes though, so I'm not sure what the point of that is?

[eabbus]

I cant see any changes making it better to be honest, as a company we have done all we can to keep it viable, dronfield town council subsidise shopper buses in their area i believe, they are heavily used by dronfield people.