All Mole Valley now has DRT

Sunday 16th July 2023

This week’s Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) journey experience comes courtesy of Surrey County Council (which pays for it) and Mole Valley District Council (which operates it).

The ‘Connect’ branded DRT drifted into service as a trial in four micro areas close to Leatherhead in 2021 with a public launch in November that year. It was funded with a £660,000 grant from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund.

I gave it a try at the time and blogged about it here.

It was always said the scheme would be expanded and sure enough in April this year the area covered by the service increased to cover the whole of the Mole Valley District Council area as well as cross border journeys to Epsom Hospital, Effingham Junction station as well as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in Cobham (you can tell you’re in Surrey).

Connect operates between 07:00 and 19:00 on Mondays to Saturdays (finishing at 18:00 on Saturdays) and passengers can book up to seven days in advance. Fares increase from a minimum of £2 (for five miles) to a maximum of £15 for over 15 miles with half fare for those aged 20 and under, although the service doesn’t cater for taking children to school and children under 11 need to be accompanied by an adult. Concessionary passes are valid (not before 09:30 on Mondays to Fridays).

As you can see the livery and branding is somewhat understated and difficult to make out on the light grey background colour.

I thought I’d take a short ride from Leatherhead railway station to Epsom Hospital a journey that can also be achieved by either bus routes 408 (hourly) or 479 (half hourly) operated by Falcon Buses, or I could have taken an SWR train to Epsom and got a bus to to the hospital from the town centre.

But you can’t beat a nice new electric powered minibus offering a bespoke door-to-door service, and even better, I was able to book a pick up for 10:40 from right outside the station exit from my train arriving at 10:36.

And even better, on the booking confirmation on the Surrey Connect app there’s a space to add information to pass to the driver so during my journey to Leatherhead I added a note to confirm I was arriving by train at 10:36 and it was currently running on time, which was reassuring to do as I was a bit worried the four minute connection might be a tight.

However, after I boarded the bus when it arrived exactly on time at 10:40, and asked Andy (yes, another DRT driver called Andy) if he’d got my message he said he hadn’t adding that another passenger had asked him the same thing about their message which he hadn’t got so it would seem the facility isn’t working anyway, which is a shame.

In any event Andy said he’s only allowed to wait for a minute if passengers are not present at the pick up time as it has a knock on effect for later bookings if he were to wait longer. This is also explained on the website.

Allowing only a minute’s grace seems a bit harsh but I can appreciate if other passengers are on board they don’t want their journey delayed unnecessarily to wait for someone – but if there aren’t any other passengers on board – as there no doubt usually aren’t – waiting a few more minutes shouldn’t be a problem. After all, trains do get delayed and what do you do if the connecting DRT you’d booked and are relying on drives off without you?

Anyway we were off on our way to Epsom Hospital and Andy explained he had another passenger to pick up in Ashtead along the way, which I’d guessed from the icon on the booking confirmation (circled in red on the above screen grab).

Andy confirmed it was unusual to do this as in his experience he only carries one passenger per journey.

Andy is a casual driver for Mole Valley District Council rather than one of the team of regulars. There are four electric minibuses on the scheme based at Council premises, two in Leatherhead and two in Dorking. Andy is from the latter and he explained the bus has to return there during the day to enable the battery to be charged up but the charging is a slow process there with the Leatherhead base being quicker.

The bus gives a very smooth, quiet ride and we were soon travelling down some very narrow country like roads …

… passing by some very desirable Surrey properties near Ashtead Common …

… until we arrived at our pick up where a lady was sitting on a chair in her drive with her carer alongside waiting for us.

Andy gingerly reversed into the drive so there was less distance for the lady, with accessibility needs, to walk to climb aboard. Andy got out to open the manually operated side door with a retractable step and with help from the carer and my arm, she managed to get on board.

The lady and her carer were off to the local garden centre but first Andy had to drop me off at Epsom Hospital …

… which didn’t take long to reach – the whole journey including the deviation for the pick up had only taken 20 minutes – pretty much exactly as the app had predicted.

And that was another DRT journey done. Another one next Sunday.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS plus Su DRT extras.