FREE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING BUSES START ON SUNDAY

 

Sunday, November 28th, sees the start of free buses in Lancaster designed to help people with their Christmas shopping in the city centre.  The normal Sunday bus services on the 7 (Vale); 10 (Ridge); 11 (Marsh) and 18 (East Lancaster) will be free of charge to everyone on every Sunday until 19th December.

Also, to help people take full advantage of late-night opening on THURSDAY nights, LATER buses will run from the City Centre, which will also be free to all passengers. These will run on 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd December

Timetables are available to view on this link

The Bus Users' Group has been concerned for some time that whilst Lancaster City Council encouraged people to shop in the city by removing parking charges in its car parks, it did nothing to help people who either do not have a car or who choose not to use one.  The free parking encouraged many more people to bring their car into town, which lead to traffic congestion that delayed the buses as well as adding to pollution and all the other problems associated with car use.

Our Group has therefore been working with the Lancaster Buisness Improvement District (BID) team to develop a way of encouraging people to come into to city over Christmas without bringing a car.  

Here is what the BID team have to say.

THURSDAY EVENINGS

One difficulty has been the early close-down of many bus services following the County Council's withdrawal of supported evening services a few years back. This has now been overcome by providing extra buses on local services after the end of the daytime service until just after the shops close at 9pm.  As an added bonus, these buses will be free of charge to all passengers. They will be operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire and will follow the normal Stagecoach routes except that they will start and end at Common Garden Street in the city centre and will not serve the Bus Station.  Stagecoach will, however, continue to operate its existing evening service on service 7 to Vale and this will also be free of charge after 8pm.

SUNDAYS

Sunday shopping is also popular in the run up to Christmas and therefore the free travel offer has been extended to services 7 10 11 and 18 where the usual Stagecoach Sunday buses will operate but without collecting fares.

Organised by the Lancaster BID team, with help from the Bus Users' Group, the project has received funding from the Government's Welcome Back Fund, Lancaster City Council, Lancaster University's Community Winmd Turbine Fund and, in what must be one of last examples of this source of funding, the European Union's Regional Dvelopment Fund.

CHRISTMAS WEEK

The extra free buses will also run on Monday 20th, Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd December to allow people to enjoy the run up to the festive season without bringing a car into the city centre.

If successful, it is hoped that the pilot project can be extended to other areas in future years.

County Survey Shows Benefits of Bus User Groups

 

During the month of September, Lancashire County Council conducted a survey on the views of bus passengers and non-passengers alike. The purpose was to discover what people thought about the county's bus service, what they liked and didn't like and if they didn't use the buses what would need to change to persuade them to do so. The results were used to inform the development of the Bus Service Improvement Plan, which sets out proposals for major improvements to bus services from next year.

The survey could only be completed online via the County Council's website and, knowing that the site was not widely read by local people, the Bus Users' Group promoted it widely on social media as did those local county councillors who take an interest in buses and the Bus User Group.

Our promotion seems to have paid off.  Out of 2,552 responses  fully one-third came from Lancaster! In contrast Rossendale District produced 2% and Hyndburn just 1% of replies.  Lancaster bus passengers can therefore rest assured that their voices were heard (and hopefully listened to!) at County Hall

Lancaster residents comprise only 12% of the population of the county council's administrative area, so in fairness have been over-represented. Twenty per cent of responses came from NoW card holders, whilst 70% were from the 25 - 64 age group.  Young people, who are major bus users but who only provided 10% of responses, were grossly under-represented, which is disappointing for an online-only exercise.

What Did the Survey Show? 

• 89% of passengers felt safe when travelling by bus.
• 59% of passengers agreed buses were "reliable" (although only 11% "strongly agreed"
• 50% of passengers thought buses affordable (although 20% of respondents were NoW card holders who benefit from free travel)
• 59% of passengers agreed it was easy to get information on buses, although only 15% "strongly agreed" and if the respondents were regular users they were unlikely to need to seek information for most journeys.
• 54% of passengers found bus services did not meet all their needs.

Why people don't use buses.

Respondents who said they didn't use the buses said that was because they:

• "are too expensive" 
• "are too slow"
• "don't go to where I need to travel to"
• "are too difficult to get information on times and routes"

What would make people travel more by bus?

Consistent with these findings, the most frequently-cited attribute to encourage respondents to use bus, or to use bus more frequently, was lower fares, followed by tickets that could be used on other modes, and availability of multi-operator tickets.

Respondents were then asked about the influence of ‘soft’ measures – over half said that the ability to track your bus, and real-time at stops and interchanges would encourage them to travel by bus more often. Only 1 in 5 cited Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) services or the availability of wifi and USB charging. 

Where do we go from here?

The survey was intended to inform the development of the Lancashire Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), which was published at the end of October and which sets out the measures the County Council and bus operators will implement from next April to improve the bus network, subject to the requested funding being awarded by government.  The Council has asked for £165m over the next three years but, realistically, doesn't expect to get the full amount. How much of the BSIP will be implemented depends on the level of funding received and every other local authority with transport responsibility in England is simultaneously bidding for funds from a limited pot.

The Bus Users' Group will be discussing the BSIP in our meeting on Thursday, 18th November at 14.45hrs in Lancaster Library. The meeting is open to everyone and those attending are asked to wear a face covering.

Lancashire's BSIP (all 224 pages of it) can be read here.