DRT arrives in the People’s Network

Thursday 20th August 2026

As more areas give up on their dalliance with DRT (Norfolk County Council’s the latest to revert back to fixed routes with its Flexibus scheme coming to an end in Swafham at the end of the month) it’s interesting to see South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and its self styled People’s Network (SYPN) begin its own 12 month “pilot” (this one costing £800,000) with Mayor Coppard explaining the aim is to “test this new approach supporting our ambition for a fairer, inclusive and more accessible South Yorkshire.”

It’s a shame he doesn’t just give his Mayoral colleague on Teesside a call where the Combined Authority’s TeesFlex DRT bit the dust earlier this year after six years of trying, or talk to those in Norfolk as Coach Services (the new operator of the fixed routes replacing Flexibus) tells passengers from 1st September “getting around Swaffham and the surrounding local villages just got easier. Say goodbye to booking apps and pre-scheduling—these new fixed-route services mean you can just check the timetable and head to your nearest stop!”

He could also have a look at my DRT Chronology webpage and read about some of the areas who’ve enthusiastically launched DRT “pilots” and “trials” to great fanfares of publicity only to quietly withdraw them a few years later having lost a fortune … eg Bristol (Slide and First and Last Mile) Sittingbourne (Click), Liverpool (Click), London – Various (Chariot), Ealing (Slide), Sutton (GoSutton), Upper Skelmorlie/Weymss Bay (Connect and Go), Oxford (PickMeUp), Speke (Click), West Midlands (West Midlands OnDemand), Lubbersthorpe (Click then NovusFlex), Watford (Click), Bedale (YorBus), Inverurie (ready2go), Leeds (Flexibus), Berwickshire (pingo), Aylesham (Stagecoach Connect), Lichfield (LinkUp) … to name a few that come to mind.

The People’s Network’s £800,000 has come from the Authority’s “Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) which is supporting innovative transport projects in each of South Yorkshire’s four local authority areas.”

Software for OnDemand (as it’s branded) is from the Via stable and includes the usual App as well as facilitating bookings by phone through a contact centre (between 08:30 and 14:30 on Mondays to Fridays).

There are two distinct operating areas – one in Doncaster centred on Askern and one in Rotherham based on Dinnington. Each zone is reported to have four vehicles allocated to it, which strikes me as good value for £800,000. It’s operated by Via under Private Hire licensing arrangements.

Travel can be booked within each zone or from within a zone to various Hubs including South Emsall and Adwick railway station from the former with Meadowhall, Crystal Peaks and Rotherham Hospital among the Hubs served by the latter.

Hours of operation are 05:00 (first pick-up) to 18:00 (last drop off) on Mondays to Saturdays with no service on Sundays. Boookings can be made up to seven days in advance with a cut off an hour before pick-up time. The first two journeys are free and after that there’s a £3 fare and £1 for those under 19 with a ‘Zoom’ pass. Concessionary travel is available for ENCTS passholders.

SYPN OnDemand began on 3rd August so in its third week I popped up to Askern on Tuesday to give the Doncaster zone a try. It was straightforward to book a short journey from Askern’s Station Road to a nearby residential area – Sherwood Avenue. It was only scheduled for a three minute ride although the destination was shown as Anna Road/Airstone Road rather than Sherwood Avenue when the booking was confirmed and the pick up at High Street/Station Road although this was later updated to a bus stop just round the corner in Selby Road.

I was given a pick up time slot of between 12:00 and 12:30 and made sure I arrived in good time by catching a bus on First’s route 362 which links Doncaster with Askern every half an hour.

The usual text reminders came at 18:00 on Monday evening and 11:00 on Tuesday with the latter confirming the pick up time as 12:00, conveniently at the beginning of the half hour window I’d been given.

Half an hour before pick up the minibus was showing on the map in the App and ironically was coming from Doncaster where I’d also just come from.

It arrived exactly on time at 12:00 and encouragingly had a passenger already on board. She was travelling from Doncaster back home to Norton, a village north west of Askern devoid of scheduled buses for four years (she told me) so was overjoyed at this new service and had already made a number of journeys and found booking the rides easy.

I apologised for making her journey a little circuitous around the western side of Askern where the driver dropped me off before continuing on to Norton but she was just enjoying the ride.

Interestingly the Peugeot minibus was set up with just four seats for able bodied passengers and the rest of the space for wheelchairs accessed through the rear tail lift. The side door was manually operated and as always rather heavy to open and slide closed.

Via’s software prevents journeys being booked where conventional scheduled bus routes are available – for example, Askern to Doncaster, but Norton to Doncaster is possible as there’s no fixed bus route.

I’m sure this new service will be appreciated by passengers who’ve been devoid of a bus service, but as always with DRT, its success depends on being not too busy (that passengers find it hard to book a ride when they want it) and not too slack (that it makes no financial sense and loses a fortune). Excessive unproductive dead running between journeys has been another challenging factor in many schemes.

As is often the case with DRT schemes thee’s no detailed map clearly showing the boundaries of the zones in which journeys can be booked – I’ve extracted the online maps and included them earlier in this blog and the inly other source is the App itself which is fiddly to use on a smartphone to see the boundaries.

I’m not familiar with the area served by the Rotherham zone but I’d have thought, certainly with the Doncaster zone centred on Askern, if four buses are being expended on the “pilot” some useful timetabled conventionally operated routes could have been introduced instead – as has been found on Teesside and rural Norfolk – to better effect.

12 months on and £800,000 later Mayor Coppard might come to realise this.

Roger French

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