Bus Service Improvement Plan objectives and Enhanced Partnership approach: Bus Back Better Enhanced Partnership consultation
Consultation closed: Monday 24 January 2022 (responses had to be submitted before 11:59pm on Sunday 23 January 2022)
Consultation opened: Thursday 6 January 2022
Through detailed discussions with the partnership's stakeholders, bus operators and the neighbouring partnerships, we have identified a series of specific measures designed to improve the bus network provision in Central Bedfordshire and encourage greater use of the network. These measures are detailed in the Bus Service Improvement Plan and form the basis for this Enhanced Partnership plan and scheme.
The measures fall into five defined categories:
- promotion and publicity
- operational benefit
- network development
- fares and ticketing
- standards
The proposed measures have been categorised into short, medium and longer term timeframes, dependent on their agreed priority, deliverability and the availability of funding.
Bus Service Improvement Plan objectives and how the Enhanced Partnership could achieve them
Objective: Promotion and publicity
Examples of how the Enhanced Partnership could achieve this include:
- promote a “Get on Board” campaign (short term)
- develop a marketing plan for promotional campaigns for bus (medium to longer term)
- specify a limited number of change dates for bus services
- improve bus network information for passengers
- provide a new pan-Bedfordshire, all-operator app and web platform for bus service timetables, fares, ticketing and real time running information
Objective: Operational benefit
An example of how the Enhanced Partnership could achieve this: introduce selective vehicle priority for buses through some signal-controlled junctions across Central Bedfordshire.
Objective: Network improvement
Examples of how the Enhanced Partnership could achieve this include:
- improve frequencies on a number of core services and on the Luton-Dunstable Busway
- introduce early morning, evening and weekend services on selected routes
Objective: Fares and ticketing
Examples of how the Enhanced Partnership could achieve this include:
- introduce multi-operator tickets covering Central Bedfordshire, Luton and Bedford
- introduce fare capping as soon as back office architecture permits
- introduce concessionary fares for young people
Objective: Standards
- agree targets for increased reliability of bus services
- agree targets for improved punctuality of bus services
- encourage and support operators to invest in higher specification, cleaner, low emission buses for the Luton-Dunstable Busway and as part of packaged measures for the upgrade to selected core routes