blog: Leicestershire County Council’s Public Transport Transformation
Friday 30th August 2024
Providing integrated public transport which caters for a range of journeys purposes whilst being sustainable in the long-term, is challenging, particularly in a rural authority. At ITP, we thrive on such challenges and are pleased to be helping Leicestershire County Council to redesign its supported network to improve accessibility by public transport and tailor provision to meet demand.
The Council began reviewing the local bus services it financially supports prior to the Covid-19 pandemic but the process was paused to provide a stable network during those uncertain times. The Council was subsequently awarded BSIP Plus and Network North funding from the UK Government, totaling approximately £8m to improve the public transport offer in the county.
How to spend this funding in the most efficient and advantageous way, whilst securing the future of the network, is part of the challenge. Supporting commercial services which have struggled to remain profitable due to slow post-Covid patronage recovery will certainly be part of this, but effective integration and exploring new approaches to public transport provision, such as the expansion of the digital demand responsive transport offer, will also play a large role.
Our role is to work closely with officers in Leicestershire’s Sustainable Travel team, providing our wealth of experience, expertise and advice in reviewing supported networks and developing options. This includes:
- Analysing detailed origin and destination data from operators to ascertain patterns of demand over time.
- Considering options for serving existing demand and meeting demand from new areas of population growth, including accessing new trip attractors.
- Integrating scholar transport movements onto the local bus network wherever feasible.
- Planning and scheduling new services using Optibus scheduling software, which helps us to quickly assess the relative efficiency and cost of options.
- Creating digital maps to illustrate the proposed new network and the relative accessibility of different proposals.
- Assessing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges relating to each proposal.
We are also working with the Council’s communications officers to develop messaging which will enable service users to understand any service changes and what they mean in practice, whilst offering advice on other sustainable travel options.
If you would like to find out more about this project and how we can help you redesign your supported network, please get in touch with Clare Waldron.