blog: Bus Champions: Just a Name or Real Impact?
Thursday 16th January 2025
Over the last 18 months ITP has been supporting Derbyshire County Council and local bus operators to create a safer and more sustainable bus network through Travel Derbyshire. Alongside introducing new bus services, ticket offers and improved information, a key element of the programme has been engagement and communication, which is where the bus champions come in…
So what is a bus champion I can hear you asking? Well, we’re the team on the ground speaking to organisations, stakeholders and members of the public about the improvements made to the network and encouraging people to make journeys by bus. My remit is to work with education sites across the county to support more young people to use the bus. This has involved hosting 25 events, which have reached 2,117 young people and of those 76% received advice on catching the bus.
Although we are very proud of these stats, it’s not all about the numbers. For us, even one meaningful conversation makes it all worthwhile.
One of the amazing things about a project like Travel Derbyshire is you can see the difference you are making in front of your eyes. When I was at the University of Derby Freshers Fair, we spoke to many students who wanted to make sustainable choices. In particular, there was one person we helped who had never tried the bus before but was keen to give it a go having moved out of halls.
We gave her advice on route options, ticket information and timetables and leaflets to take away. The delight she had when Travel Derbyshire were able to offer her a free 7-day wayfarer bus taster ticket to try the plentiful provision of buses to get to uni each day really stuck with me. Just being able to help that student made the event invaluable and I really learnt the difference we can make to people on a personal level.
b_line discounts
There have been some real impacts on improving accessibility for young people. The enhanced b_line card discount, means that anyone aged 11-18 in Derbyshire can get a single bus ticket capped at £1.50. That’s half the national fare cap of £3!
For those lucky enough to live in the High Peak area of the county the discounts go one step further, with the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) funded b_line free pilot scheme enabling young people with a b_line card to travel for free on five bus services towards Manchester.
Promoting the incredible b_line offer has been at the heart of our in-person engagement with secondary schools, colleges and universities at the start of the 2024 academic year. This collective effort, alongside digital campaigns delivered by Derbyshire County Council, Diva Creative and local bus operators; and the teams agreeing the ticket discounts, will no doubt have supported the 150% average uplift in the number of b_line journeys made in September, October and November 2024 compared to the previous 8 months, more than doubling the average number of b_line trips.
Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) students
As awareness of Travel Derbyshire grew, we have expanded our support for young people to include those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). This involved attending events such as the Chesterfield College SEND Progression Fair, a careers event specifically aimed at allowing SEND students to talk to local employers, education providers and stakeholders about their options after college. Our role is to widen student perspectives on the next steps available to them post-college by disproving the view that you have to be able to have a lift, or drive yourself, to be able to travel to somewhere that is not on your doorstep. With a plethora of traditional bus routes and Travel Derbyshire on Demand in the Chesterfield area, there are so many options of how anyone can use public transport to get about. We have found communicating this at careers fairs helps students themselves, but also other event attendees because we have opened students’ eyes to how they can access all the opportunities available to them.
We’ve also been working closely with teams that are directly supporting young people with additional needs, such as Derbyshire County Council’s Community Connectors. This has involved providing interactive classroom sessions for SEND students about how they could use and benefit from Derbyshire’s bus network. Being able to delve into what barriers these groups face when trying to access public transport and support students to overcome some of these barriers where we can, has been important for helping improve accessibility and has personally been a highlight of the project. These classroom sessions perfectly complement the more practical independent travel training sessions the Community Connectors are providing. As we enter 2025, we are planning on increasing our support to SEND groups, empowering us as bus champions to make a meaningful impact on individuals' lives.
If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you have concluded that although named bus champions, really we are champions of people. Doing work that improves the way the world (or, in this case, Derbyshire) moves, enables us to put into practice our ethos of enhancing society together.
If you are interested in how you could use your next round of BSIP funding to create more tangible impacts through engagement and campaigns, please get in touch with Stephanie Meyers.