New 'on-demand' buses for Frome Valley

A NEW 'on-demand' transport service enabling people in the Frome Valley area to 'hail' a minibus will be launched this year.

The aim of the 'WEST link' service is to enable people who live in areas with little or no bus service to reach a stop or station where they can pick up another bus or a train.

Funded by the West of England Combined Authority, out of £3 million from the government's Bus Service Improvement Plan, the minibuses will run between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Saturday.

The service was originally set to start in the summer but a meeting of the West of England Combined Authority in January heard it could start in April.

The new ‘demand-responsive transport’ WEST link minibus services will cover all of South Gloucestershire north of the M4, and other rural areas of the district, as well as large parts of North East Somerset and some parts of South Bristol.

People will be able to phone, go online or use an app to call up a minibus as a "feeder service", to reach a stop linking them up with main commercial routes.

The system works by splitting the region into zones and using an algorithm to work out when requests by several people in a zone can be combined into one minibus journey that collects them all.

It has no timetable, and ticket prices will match regular fares on the region's buses, which have recently been reduced to a £2 flat rate single.

Details of how many minibuses will be provided and how far they can go from each town or village covered by the scheme have yet to be finalised.

The idea grew out of consultations held by Metro Mayor Dan Norris last year to try and find solutions to the public transport crisis facing the region.

He said the government had insisted that Bus Service Improvement Plan money cannot be spent to subsidise existing services but must instead be invested in "innovative and new" schemes.

Mr Norris said: "Everyone knows the buses don’t currently work as well as we need them to, so it’s time to try something new.

"WEST link will provide a much-needed new public transport option to help people get out and about to their destinations."

The Metro Mayor also hopes running a fleet of smaller minibuses will help solve the shortage of more than 250 drivers on the region's bus network: they are easier to drive and quicker to train on than a large bus, as drivers don't need a public service vehicle (PSV) licence.