Gloucestershire Bus Network Review

THE CHALLENGE

The Council supports an extensive network of bus services across the County where the commercial doesn’t operate. With reductions in the subsidy budget planned the challenge of matching the available funds to the level of network coverage expected was significant.

SYSTRA’S ROLE

Further to a countywide consultation process and Bus Review, and the reduction in budget for supported services, Gloucestershire County Council asked us to design and implement changes to the supported bus network to achieve considerable savings. This involved a secondment into the Integrated Transport Unit (ITU) to direct and manage the team through the implementation of changes.

The project sought to design a new supported bus network, linking with home to school transport provision, and community transport to help achieve the savings. This included liaising with bus operators, route and timetable design, tender formulation and stakeholder engagement as well as managing the ITU through tender preparation, procurement, tender analysis, information provision, consultation and communications. It also involved designing and managing a public consultation exercise and analysis of consultation responses.

The project achieved significant savings whilst maintaining a level of service similar to that previously provided. There were very few complaints given the scale of changes and the results were deemed so successful that the project was entered for an internal award within Gloucestershire County Council.