Sunday 4th June 2023 I’ve been out DRT riding again. This time in High Wycombe. Carousel’s PickMeUp, introduced last September as a three year scheme with £736,000 from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund and Section 106 funding, is being hailed as a DRT that’s working well and "going from strength to strength". A series of... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th May 2023 I’m sorry to be reporting on yet another new DRT scheme so soon after last week’s East Sussex FlexiBus write up, but this is the reality of the bus industry at the moment with more DRT operations slowly but surely taking over. This latest scheme in West Rushcliffe began on Monday... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 9th May 2023 “Fflecsi is the perfect way to enjoy fun days out and explore the beauty of this part of Pembrokeshire” encourages a colourful Transport for Wales (TfW) leaflet extolling the virtues of its fflecsi DRT service and the scenic county of Pembrokeshire and the Coastal National Park. I didn’t need convincing about... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 4th April 2023 This week sees the controversial withdrawal of many tendered bus routes within the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) area and their replacement with an extensive DRT operation. It's been a rocky road to implementation and I've got a feeling it'll be an even rockier road now it's up and running.... Continue Reading →
Sunday 12th March 2023 You’re never far away from a DRT experience these days. Those living in the West of England region will soon be subjected to multiple schemes by the Combined Authority so I thought I’d relate my latest experiences on the off chance someone responsible at that Authority might come across this blog... Continue Reading →
Friday 24th February 2023 I couldn't round off a week of travelling on new bus routes without a ride on the very latest DRT scheme which started on Monday in Kent. (New blog subscribers are welcome to put DRT into the search function on this website to read about my travel experiences on all other... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 8th November 2022 It's time for another new DRT try out. This one's in Gloucestershire where £1.35 million from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund is paying for two schemes to operate in the county for a two year trial. One is in the southern part of the Forest of Dean... ... and the other... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th September 2022 Nottsbus On Demand It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen a DfT funded DRT launch but two more have recently hit the road including one in High Wycombe this week and another in Nottinghamshire at the end of last month which had sneaked passed my DRT launch antenna until now.... Continue Reading →
Thursday 30th June 2022 Long term blog readers may recall I paid a visit to Wiltshire's very successful 'on-demand' rural bus route 101/102 running between Pewsey and Devizes back in April 2019. I was concerned to read recent reports Wiltshire County Council are consulting on changing this highly successful arrangement to an app based fully... Continue Reading →
Saturday 28th May 2022 As well as a new station opening in Reston, Monday also saw another DRT scheme take to the road; this time in Warwickshire thanks to £1.02 million from the DfT’s magic money rural mobility funding tree. And if you’re thinking ‘haven’t I read one of your blogs about a DRT bus... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th April 2022 There’s a lovely hamlet in Essex called Good Easter. Located in rural Essex between Chelmsford and Braintree it just happens to fall into one of the two areas covered by Essex County Council’s brand new DigiGo branded DRT scheme which began this month and was officially launched yesterday. It seemed like... Continue Reading →
Friday 1st October 2021 The DRT craze reached Aberdeenshire on 16th August when the snazzily named Ready2Go five vehicle operation hit the road. Six weeks on it was time for a ‘BusAndTrainUser’ visit to give it the once over which I managed to do on Tuesday morning to add to my collection of DRT travel... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th July 2021 “Worcestershire on Demand” is the trying-to-be snazzy overarching brand name for what Worcestershire County Council hope will be a network of DRT schemes across the county to provide "better value and a better service for essential travel". That's what their 'blurb' says with its rather strange grammar in the first sentence:... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 31st March 2021 It's all change for Milton Keynes Council's funded bus routes tomorrow as the local authority sweeps away the low frequency services which compliment Arriva's cross town commercial network replacing them with Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) commissioned from the tech company Via. Councillor Lauren Townsend, Cabinet member for Community Safety, hailed the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th August 2020I had high hopes for fflecsi (it’s Welsh for flex) - the Welsh version of DRT (Demand Responsive Transport).Transport for Wales (TfW) are replacing existing fixed-timetable small-scale bus routes with a bookable flexible bus running along the route and its environs according to demand. It’s a bit like how Go Coach Hire... Continue Reading →
Friday 17th July 2020It hasn’t worked in Bristol, Sittingbourne, Sutton, Ealing or Oxford. And it’s on pause in Liverpool. But these failures haven’t dented Watford Borough Council's enthusiasm for joining the craze of flirting with Demand Responsive Transport (DRT). The latest scheme got underway in the Hertfordshire town a couple of weeks ago on 1st... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th February 2020 After Friday's Tees teaser I spotted the new 'Tees flex' app became available to download over the weekend so armed with that and the zonal maps which blog readers kindly pointed out were on Stagecoach's 'Tees flex' webpage as click throughs from the zonal names, I was able to plan today's... Continue Reading →
Monday 13th January 2020 Ride sharing's been around since the first horse bus began plying it's way but the modern incarnation envisages using a website or app to book a journey and clever software linking you up with other people going the same way, because that's what clever software can do. The fact there aren't... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 4th December 2019 The recent announcement by Oxford Bus of the withdrawal of their long standing X90 coach route between Oxford and London in a month's time on 4th January surprised a good few industry observers. Me included. But when I thought about it and read more of the background it really wasn't surprising... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st November 2019 Following last Friday's try out of TfL's latest Demand Responsive Transport trial in Ealing, I found myself back in the Borough with two bus industry colleague friends to give it another try yesterday afternoon. There was a Slide vehicle parked up waiting for custom as we came out of Ealing Broadway... Continue Reading →
Friday 15th November 2019 It's all change in the world of Bus Demand Responsive Transport (DRT). This week sees the final foray for Arriva Click's pioneering 'pilot' in Sittingbourne and Zeelo's scheme for pilots (and others) living in Crawley and working at Gatwick Airport. The former ends tomorrow having been launched with much fanfare back... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Small independently owned bus companies are a vital part of the industry. They serve small size towns and rural areas which other plc group companies cannot reach. They're becoming increasingly important as the Groups try and reverse falling margins. These small businesses are usually run by dedicated passionate individuals working very... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 28th August 2019 I was puzzled by a recent news item that Merseytravel are withdrawing a local bus route they fund in the Speke area of south east Liverpool from this weekend to be replaced on Monday by Arriva Click: 'the new Arriva Click Speke Zone service will operate between the same hours... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th August 2019 TfL's first foray into the new fangled world of App based Dial-A-Ride (aka Demand Responsive Transport) in Sutton is now in its twelfth week and yesterday a rather impersonal email popped into my inbox announcing an exciting extension of the area served by the swish exec style wishy-washy liveried Mercedes Sprinter... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th June 2019 Back in April I took a ride on the bus route formerly known as the 'Wiltshire Wigglybus' between Pewsey and Devizes - a traditional rural bus route combined with a Dial-a-Ride flexible option and wrote about it here. Yesterday I thought it might be interesting to sample a similar type of... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th May 2019 TfL jumped on the digital DRT bandwagon today launching its own version of Arriva Click and Oxford Pick Me Up. This latest app-based Demand Responsive Transport has landed in upmarket car dominated Sutton and Carshalton using six minibuses out of a fleet of eight between 06:30 and 21:30, seven days a... Continue Reading →
BusAndTrainUser 