One idea for rural communities that can greatly encourage bus travel is a ‘wiggly bus’. These are buses that use GPS software so that the admin office knows where the bus is for safety. Then rather than ‘set times’, people can ‘phone up for a bus’ or hail it down, as the bus ‘wiggles’ through rural villages. It operates a bit like an on-demand rural taxi, but for several people and villages rather than one, to save costs (and only one bus and driver is needed). On-demand bus services are already operating in Surrey, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands
make use of local community transport
With big companies like Stagecoach increasingly cancelling rural services due to ‘lack of profit’, it makes sense to look for local community transport. In Yorkshire, the recent axing of two local bus services resulted in one man with skin cancer now having to book a taxi to hospital, and no longer being able to tend his allotment two miles away.
One local campaigner says that big bus companies ‘decide where buses go, how much to charge and what timetables look like’. When of course, buses should run according to community needs. Bus services have reduced by around 80% in the last 15 years or so in small communities. Children are entitled to free school transport, if there is no safe walking route, children have special needs or the school is 2 to 3 miles away (laws differ for age).
