Aylesbury’s DRT finally gets going

Thursday 22nd August 2024

In DRT news ……. following last month’s blog about NottsBus On Demand expanding into West Rushcliffe comes the long awaited new scheme in Buckinghamshire.

I paid a visit to Aylesbury on Tuesday to check out the town’s new Village Connect branded operation which began on Monday.

There have obviously been issues with this DRT’s introduction as it was one of the 19 schemes which received funding (to the tune of £1,114,000) from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund (RMF) back in March 2021. Many of those schemes have been up and running for a long time and indeed are nearing the end of their three year funding deal while Buckinghamshire’s other scheme in High Wycombe (PickMeUp) launched as far back as September 2022 with £736,000 funding.

A press release issued by Buckinghamshire Council in December 2023 confirmed Aylesbury’s scheme “is planned to start during the spring of 2024 and will benefit residents in villages around Aylesbury by providing another travel option to supplement existing public transport services.”

Like in High Wycombe, the scheme has been overlaid on top of the town’s bus network but, as its Village Connect brand name implies, the Aylesbury newcomer’s geographic reach extends to villages immediately outside the urban area albeit many of them are also served by inter-urban routes such as Aston Clinton and Hartwell.

It’s been contracted to WeMove with PADAM software but it’s not clear who the actual PCV ‘O licence’ operator is. Gary, my driver on Tuesday, is an agency driver so wasn’t employed directly by the operator. The address shown on the back of the three Mercedes minibuses being used on the scheme is a farm in Northwood, 30 miles from Aylesbury….

… so stretching it a bit to call it the “Local depot” as stated on the bus.

The website address, also displayed on the vehicle, through which bookings can be made doesn’t have a very memorable url and although there’s mention of an app, this isn’t yet available with the link from the information page about the service on Buckinghamshire’s website inactive (at the time of writing).

When I asked Gary if there were any printed leaflets available to promote the service he explained they weren’t ready in time and thought they might be available by the end of the week.

You’d think having been awarded the funding almost three and a half years ago and the subsequent much delayed introduction would mean these basic ingredients of a launch would have been sorted in time.

No wonder I was Gary’s first passenger of the day at 11:30 on Tuesday when he picked me up at Stoke Mandeville railway station.

I’d booked the previous evening (Monday) using the “online booking portal” for a departure at midday and was deliberately pessimistic about train connections across London…

… which in the event worked well so,having arrived in Marylebone earlier than anticipated, I rang the booking number manned by WeMove (I assume) and after a long pause (“could you hold the line please”) the lady answering rebooked me at the rather precise departure time of 11:31.

Which smacks of an AI derived time; where would we be without AI eh? Had I been told 11:30 I’d have had to wait a whole minute for the bus to arrive. But it was a load of rubbish of course because, as said, I was Gary’s first passenger and he arrived at 11:22 anyway, just as I was coming out of the station.

I’d booked a ride over to the village of Hulcott – a journey not possible on the current network without changing buses or taking a train and bus and a walk, but I actually alighted on the main A418 in Bierton before reaching the village so it was easier to catch a bus back into Aylesbury (route 100 as it happens).

While in Aylesbury, I tried booking other journeys, and obviously with three vehicles hanging around on the scheme and minuscule awareness among the public that the new service has commenced, it was easy to have any journey requests fulfilled including journeys which could easily be made on existing bus routes, which strikes me as odd, although the statement “another travel option to supplement existing public transport services” rather confirms this approach.

Why would Buckinghamshire Council want to undermine the existing network with three publicly funded minibuses which, once the RMF runs out in three years time at the end of the “pilot”, will have to cease?

Odd. But nothing about DRT ever makes sense.

Village Connect operates between 06:00 and 19:00 on Monday to Friday only – tough luck if you want to go to a village on a Saturday – with fares from £2.50 to £4.50 depending on distance travelled. My journey would have been £4.50 had I not had a concessionary pass which is valid after 09:00 although Gary was unable to record my pass on the machine as apparently that hasn’t been sorted yet either.

The news yesterday stated “Rachel Reeves is planning to raise taxes, cut spending and get tough on benefits in October’s budget ….. insisting she will still have a substantial black hole to fill”. Here’s £1,114,000 about to go down that black hole in another irresponsible and scandalous waste of public money by local authority officers and DfT civil servants who should know better. Has nothing been learnt from the DRT failures over the last five years in Bristol, Sittingbourne, Liverpool, Oxford, Ealing, Sutton, Aberdeenshire, North Yorkshire, Watford, East Leeds, Leicester and Berwickshire?

Buckinghamshire’s web page about the new service concludes “Village Connect is supported by Buckinghamshire Council and the Government’s Rural Mobility Fund and operated by transport specialists, We Move”. Interestingly the bus I travelled on had no legal lettering displayed to confirm ownership. Is that legal? The mystery operator.

Roger French

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