Sunday 28th July 2024
Nottinghamshire County Council has expanded its DRT scheme for the third time.
Thanks to the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund, NottsBus On Demand began back in August 2022 operating in two adjacent geographic zones North Ollerton and South Ollerton covering an area stretching from Gainsborough in the north to Newark in the south with a third scheme offering travel in Mansfield on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.
Next came a fourth zone – West Rushcliffe – in May 2023 which covered an area including East Midlands Airport, Kegworth, East Leake and Clifton Park & Ride, enabling changes to be made to Skylink and the withdrawal of route 865. This was followed with another scheme in South Newark stretching from Newark south to Bingham in April 2024.
Here’s a map to show the geographic context of these zones in the County as well as frequencies of other “Transit lines”.
Last Monday saw a sixth zone added to the County’s DRT offering – Central Rushcliffe – while from tomorrow the Mansfield evening service is extended to operate on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (as well as ThFS) and Newark also receives a new evening DRT service on Mondays to Saturdays between 19:30 and midnight making for a seventh zone. According to Nottinghamshire’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) there are also plans to introduce new evening DRT operations in Worksop and Retford in due course.
Interestingly the BSIP also gives some details about use of these schemes up to December 2023.
The newly introduced Central Rushcliffe zone lies to the east of the longer establishesd West Rushcliffe zone (with East Leake on the boundary between the two zones). It also lies south of Nottingham with connections to buses heading into the city at Morrisons in Gamston shown as a “Main interchange point” at the top centre of the map below.
Prior to last week the area was served by four Nottinghamshire County Council operated routes 850, 852, 853 and 863 with the former being a two journey peak hour route linking villages in the north east of the zone (Colston Bassett and Cropwell Bishop) with Radcliffe on Trent (off the map) for connections to Nottingham while the other three routes comprised three return journeys during Mondays to Saturdays off-peak utilising three buses. Here are the timetables.
All four routes have now been withdrawn in favour of the DRT service. I’ve plotted the three off-peak routes (very roughly) on the map below which also shows the approximate boundary of the DRT operation.
These three routes provided what are often referred to as ‘lifeline’ services for people living in the villages and hamlets served. Replacing them with DRT obviously brings much greater flexibility for users but, as we’ve discussed many times in this blog, only if your travel needs fit in with others wanting to use it at a similar time. The jury is definitely still out as to whether DRT is a cost effective alternative to fixed timetables.
Keyworth, located slap bang in the middle of the zone, continues to be served by TrentBarton’s Keyworth to Nottingham route every 20 minutes Mondays to Saturdays with a journey as late as 02:05 from Nottingham on Fridays and Saturday nights and a half hourly frequency on Sundays, making for quite a stark (but inevitable) contrast with the paucity of service to the surrounding isolated villages.
I travelled up to Nottinghamshire on Thursday to take a ride on this new Central Rushcliffe DRT which is designated as Z7 on destination blinds. I’m not sure why.
Like the other four daytime geographic zones it operates between 07:00 and 19:00 on Mondays to Saturdays. Being the first week, I had no trouble booking a journey a couple of days in advance to take me from Costock (bottom left on the map) to Cotgrave (top right of centre on the map) at 12:05.
I was given confirmation of a 12:05-12:35 pick up which suited me fine.
An hour before, at 11:00 a text arrived confirming the updated pick up time of 12:18 and just before that I could see Monica was on her way from West Bridgford although I don’t know what she was doing there as it’s outside of the zone.
At 12:20 the bus arrived and I boarded for the journey over to Cotgrave.
If it had been a direct journey, Google maps advised it would take 14 minutes…
… but Monica explained we were going to pick Fraser up from Kinoulton which meant a slightly longer journey…
… but it involved some lovely countryside…
… pretty villages…
… and foot down for two and a half miles up the A46 dual carriageway…
… all the while as the friendly Monica was chatting away, except I couldn’t hear too much of the explanations due to the noise of the road surface but I think she said there are four vehicles allocated to the scheme – but almost certainly taken together with the adjacent West Rushcliffe zone.
After 25 minutes we arrived in Kinoulton and picked Fraser up who was heading off into Nottingham and had arranged to go to Gamston where he could get an 11A or 33 into the city, whereas I’d opted to go to Cotgrave and transfer on to the TrentBarton Cotgrave Connection route into the city from there.
Monica dropped me off first at 12:58, 38 minutes after being picked up and on she went to Gamston with Fraser.
And that’s the latest DRT ticked off ….. but meanwhile the long standing scheme in Essex (and Suffolk) known as DaRT (Demand Responsive Transport) ceased operations with immediate effect on Friday due to the operator, Arrow Taxis announcing its closure “with great regret”. A spokesperson for Essex County Council told the BBC: “we are sorry to hear that Essex and Suffolk DaRT and Arrow Taxis has ceased trading. They have been a close partner of Essex County Council, running bus services in Essex. We are working urgently to identify the best approach for the services previously run by the company and will update residents as soon as we are able to do so.”
I took a ride on DaRT on the Dengie peninsular back in June 2019. It was often hailed as an example of a successful DRT operation. Not any more.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with Summer Su extras.
Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.
BusAndTrainUser 
The “50% reduction in costs over previously timetabled services” sounds suspect to me. Unless vehicle, and therefore Driver provision has been massively reduced, savings of this magnitude cannot be possible. Has “creative accounting” forgotten to mention the peak work these vehicles would have inevitably be required for? A touch too like the glowing reports now flowing out from Manchester for me.
Terence Uden
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It’s also telling that they haven’t given passenger numbers for scheduled services. I know of 2 schemes in Denbighshire operating under Fflecsi which as of the last FOI, were carrying less pax under DRT, than they were carrying as scheduled services in the middle of Covid lockdowns.
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A lot of DRT service appear to being propped up by BSIP money at present
The Arrow taxis failure came at an unfortunate time as a from today new recast ECC contract network starts. Fortunately Arrow were only a very small operator and only a few routes are affected
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Another DRT ****ing money up the wall example from the usually sensible Hertfordshire CC. A six week trial in the middle of the summer holidays will reveal nothing about likely usage fugures. Especially when it seems the virtual stops nearest the main traffic generator (Hemel Town Centre) are closed.
New evening service on the HertsLynx in Dacorum this Summer!
Between 19th July and 31st August, HertsLynx is trialling a new evening service from 20:00 to 23:30 every Friday and Saturday*.
Passengers can book a trip on the evening service via the HertsLynx app, booking website or by calling the team on: 01992 555 513. Bookings can be made up to 30 days in advance.
The evening service operates within a reduced zone; the map shows all closed stops in orange, this includes Hemel Hempstead town centre. Passengers will not be able to travel to or from any of these closed stops during the evening service.
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A difference here is that DRT is being used to replace 4 timetabled services that when you look at Roger’s map go from nowhere to nowhere. There have been numerous attempts at fixed routes in this area since deregulation, all of which have failed. It does not help that it’s thin rural territory between Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, and those two authorities have failed to work together over the years. Nottinghamshire have always seemed to be very pro bus, whereas as Leicestershire are utterly hopeless so that could be the reason. The frequent services northwards into Nottingham are all Trent branded routes and no doubt they have been reluctant to extend beyond the former large mining villages.
The statistics look interesting, and at least there are statistics. If others doubt their veracity an FOI request should produce the numbers behind those statistics .
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| The frequent services northwards into Nottingham are all Trent branded
| routes and no doubt they have been reluctant to extend beyond the
| former large mining villages.
They’re all former Barton Transport routes which originally served well beyond the mining villages (and, technically, those that remain are still operated by the Barton Buses Ltd side of “TrentBarton”) but the story of the Barton routes since Wellglade took over has been one of continuous retrenchment, although that’s true of “TrentBarton” as a whole.
If you compare Trent and Barton route maps of the 1970s (or earlier) with today’s “TrentBartonland” (as Wellglade call it) you’ll see just how significantly the combined operation has shrunk.
In fairness to Wellglade, none of Barton’s wide operating area from south Derbyshire across to Rutland and beyond was ever particularly good bus territory even in the “golden era” of the 1950s, which is part of the reason why it was never nationalised, and it’s not really surprising that only limited commercial operation survives in the area today.
With regard to this specific scheme, the area either side of the A46 all the way from Leicester to Lincoln in particular is incredibly thin territory and there is no way a viable level of service could be provided to meet 21st century expectations where people seem to want big city levels of provision in the tiniest hamlets; it’s simply not realistic. DRT is probably the way these villages and hamlets can best be provided with links for those few people who don’t (won’t or can’t) drive everywhere, but it has to be seen as social provision as it’ll never, ever cover its costs.
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I’ve reread Roger’s report on the West Rushcliffe DRT scheme and noticed that Z4 appeared on the leaflet pictured there. So perhaps Nottinghamshire identifies its various DRT zones by Z and a number.
East Midlands airport is of course in Leicestershire – though it was known as Nottingham for some years and its postal address is Derby.
Ian McNeil
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Does Z7 =Zone 7? (Per the destination display)
MotCO
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Roger, The 852 timetable shown in your blog is unfortunately incorrect, it was revised in May 2019 and was wrong on the Nottinghamshire County Council Website. The 2019 timetable consisted of 2 journeys, Not Saturday (1030am/1215pm), from Colston Bassett ONLY, with two ‘notional’ return journeys operating ONLY when requested by passengers boarding an outward journey according to the leaflet. I can’t find the leaflet on the web but a timetable can be found on bustimes from April 2023 here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230401042026/https://bustimes.org/services/852-cotgrave-cropwell-bishop-radcliffe-on-trent
Keep up the good work, Mitch in Notts
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i believe that Notts CC headquarters are in West Bridgford which is probably why the DRT came from there
Running DRT to an interchange point is fine, but introduced two problems. Firstly there is a financial penalty in changing operators and secondly there is interchange anxiety on the part of the user. Roger has provided examples where late running has caused connecting trips to be in jeopardy. At least a supermarket is likely to be open providing toilets, seating and warmth, but DRT call centres and algorithms struggle with passengers being delayed by public transport.
Of course the planners could schedule the DRT to meet the connection, but that is dangerously old school thinking and not innovative enough.
Gareth Cheeseman
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| Firstly there is a financial penalty in changing operators
DRT and its predecessor dial-a-ride seems always to presuppose that all passengers are using concessionary passes, which means that there is no financial penalty to the passenger as they’re not paying anything.
If DRT was intended to be used by ordinary fare-paying passengers then it would certainly be helpful if arrangements were made for through tickets to be sold, but since as far as I can tell they’re mostly provided to allow Mrs Old Dear to go to the doctors once a month and to the pharmacy in the same location the week after, then it’s not relevant.
What DRT doesn’t do, of course, is provide the social element of the weekly shopping bus where all the Mrs Old Dears (and occasionally Mr Old Boy if he’s been allowed along) to have a darn good gossip and occasionally alert each other to
“Has anyone seen Mrs O.D. from Blogsville? I’m sure I haven’t seen her for a month!”
“Ooh, no, I haven’t… I’ll ask my grandson to pop round and see if she’s OK“*.
There’s no revenue from that, of course, but I suspect that the buses these DRTs replace may have a far greater social benefit than as a pure form of public transport. The problem is that, as I mention in a previous reply, DRT is the only way of providing a semblance of service every weekday to these hamlets and villages at something like a cost the local authorities can get funding for.
* That’s a paraphrase from a conversation I overheard on the Reliance Selby to Tadcaster bus.
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Understand the Arrow run Essex/Suffolk Dart routes no more due to bankruptcy due to falling passenger numbers.
Tony
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Nottsbus On Demand has a dedicated team based at Nottinghamshire County Council at County Hall in West Bridgford. Having spoken with the team in 2023 I was struck not only by the attention to detail and research being carried out with the implementation of the schemes but also by the enthusiasm of everyone concerned. Whilst some schemes in other parts of the country do sometimes appear to warrant criticism, the Nottsbus scheme could well be seen as an exemplar, and as a result is one that deserves to succeed.
Stuart R
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Would be fascinated to know how they can get DRT seat-mile costs down below those of a conventional bus.
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| Would be fascinated to know how they can get DRT seat-mile costs
| down below those of a conventional bus.
I’d say that they can’t, but they can get access to funding for DRT schemes which they simply can’t for conventional bus services and also the DRT can provide wider operating hours to some surprisingly remote villages and hamlets which simply can’t realistically be served by a conventional bus at an attractive frequency – and I’ll emphasise those last four words.
It’s difficult territory to serve.
As Stuart R says, the Nottsbus team are very dedicated – and they do try to run scheduled bus routes where they can within the funding they have; they certainly don’t seem to be one of the counties which is withdrawing scheduled routes just so they can have a sexy DRT scheme.
It’s a shame that the council is historically not as pro-public transport as next-door Derbyshire, but maybe the East Midlands mayor can get the other EM counties following best practice there. I shan’t hold my breath, though!
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The company statement from Arrow Taxis, issued on Friday, says:
“It is with great regret, that we must announce that Essex and Suffolk DaRT and Arrow Taxis have ceased trading today with immediate effect. As far as we are aware, the 45 route between Bradwell and South Woodham Ferrers will be taken over by Stephenson’s of Essex, and the 332/3/4 route will be taken over by Vectare. We have no knowledge of the plans for the other routes, so please contact Essex County Council for further information. We are so sorry for this, but had no alternative options. The cause was losses of passenger numbers since 2020 and spiralling costs. We would all like to sincerely thank all our passengers (friends) for supporting us over the years. You have been a wonderful bunch of people and we loved serving you, and absolutely hate having let you down”.
Subsequent ECC announcements say that 332/3/4 are in fact to be covered by First rather than Vectare. No news yet on the actual DRT routes that Arrow operated, including the critical 99A Maldon area to Broomfield Hospital and the various rural DRT schemes, one of which was due to replaced fixed route 9/9A from Braintree from tomorrow.
Richard Delahoy, Southend.
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Richard D.,
Re the replacement for the 9/9A, this is being operated directly by Essex County Council as “Digigo” so shouldn’t be directly affected by the collapse of Arrow Taxis. My friend has spent an hour this afternoon trying to download the app and book a journey on Digigo to Braintree for tomorrow morning. She has eventually succeeded (she hopes) but interestingly the app wouldn’t let her book a return time for less than than an hour after her arrival time in time.
Hopefully Roger will be checking out the latest changes in Essex in due course.
Nigel Turner (The last passenger on the 9/9A service after 103.5 years of operation).
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Nigel Turner is of course quite correct, the Braintree 9/9A was nothing to do with Arrow, before or after their demise. I plead tiredness! Sorry for any confusion.
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What ap[pears to be unknown is what will now happen to the F315. It was due to be withdrawn and to be replaced by extending the DART 3 area but Dart 3 has now gone
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EU Countries where the Employer is required to cover sone of you commuting costs. I this something the UK could copy ?
Belgium has a very generous public transport reimbursement scheme.
There is a compulsory minimum of 75 per cent covered by the employer. In a city like Brussels where a monthly pass costs €50 it means you’d only have to fork out €12.50 per month to have access to all metros, trams and buses. Cheers to that!
France also has a national mandatory rule on reimbursements. French employees entitled to a minimum of 50 per cent of their public transport costs.
Moving into Central Europe, Slovenian employers must cover the costs of employees’ journeys to and from work. This is done in line with collective agreements in work places and usually takes the form of paying for public transport tickets or a certain amount per kilometre for people commuting by car.
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my understanding is that the replacement for the F315 is to be operated as a Dart type service by the Halstead depot of Flagfinders – a Vectare company. I was told this on Friday but it’s not clear when it was decided.
Nigel Turner
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There is some information around suggesting some of these routes have temporary operators. Whether operating today is unclear as no updated information that I could find o the Travel Essex Web Site
Bus services operated by Arrow Taxi’s and Essex and Suffolk DaRT
26 Jul 24
We are sorry to hear that Essex and Suffolk DaRT and Arrow Taxis has ceased trading. They have been close partner of Essex County Council, running bus services in Essex.
We are working urgently to identify the best approach for the services due to be run by the company and will update residents as soon as we are able to do so.
There will be a gap in service from Monday for the following services:
We are working with other operators to seek to provide as many services as possible
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The 850/852 hadn’t actually been running for some time. I attempted a journey on both of them before DRT came in, and neither turned up. On phoning the council to enquire as to their whereabouts, I was simply
told they had stopped running them, as nobody had used them for a long time!
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30 Jul 24
Following our Latest News post on 26 July 2024 “Bus services operated by Arrow Taxi’s and Essex and Suffolk DaRT | Travel Essex”, we are pleased to share the following update. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.
Services will start to run as follows:
The following service will run initially for 3 months as follows:
We will provide an update on Service 99A Chelmsford to Maldon – as soon as possible
Travel will be free of charge on these services until they are registered. We will update further when that is the case.
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Wiltshire Connect Pewsey Vale records +55,000 passengers in First 12 months. This is the semi flexible timetabled DRT that seems to be more successful than the totally flexible type.
https://www.route-one.net/news/wiltshire-connect-drt-sees-over-55000-passengers-in-first-year/
Peter Brown
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DRT as a fully fledged taxi cannot have a future. But DRT as a semi timetabled connection from a wide area to a fixed route stop for a fixed time and vice versa could if it was done right. Services like this have been running for a long time in German speaking territories especially for evenings and weekends, oddly, the English ones don’t.
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I’ve just read in August edition of Buses that the Pingo DRT in the Scottish Borders has been replaced by eight-seater taxis bookable by phone. The taxibuses also cover school contracts (to maximise the efficient use of vehicles) so public service hours are 10:00 – 14:00 and 17:00 to 21:00 weekdays and 08:00 to 21:00 weekends.
Peter Brown
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