Taxi Driver Online

Leicestershire bus services face taxi replacement


A policy of providing bus services to remote areas of Leicestershire looks set to be dropped in an effort to save £750,000.

The county council had maintained a day time bus service, of at least hourly frequency, within an 800 metre (2,600ft) walk of 95% of residents.

But this means some low-use routes cost the equivalent of £12 per passenger in subsidies.

Now the authority wants to replace these services with a pre-booked taxis.

Pilot schemes

Officials said widening the use of demand responsive transport (DRT), made financial sense.

DRT schemes use a taxi to pick up residents who have pre-booked trips.

Lesley Pendleton, county council cabinet member for environment and transport, said: "We have some tough savings to make - £74m over a four-year period - and need to ensure the residents of Leicestershire are getting good value for money.

"In order to address this, we are looking to review our current bus policy and will consider other ways of enabling residents who live in areas where bus usage is low to access essential services.

"There are a number of DRT schemes already running in the county and the response we have had from residents who use them has been good."

The county council provides around 15% of the county's bus network with the rest being covered by commercial firms. The council said the cost of DRT to the user would be comparable with commercial bus fares.

The exact number of routes affected will be considered by the council's cabinet on 3 April and a consultation will be carried out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-le ... e-17466054

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

You know it makes sense.

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IDFIMH

happy days. A lot of the rural bus routs around here are being cut so who knows.

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Grandad,

Next time someone asks what I do for a living I'll have to say I'm a Demand Responsive Transport Provider.

Perhaps this site should be renamed Demand Responsive Transport Provider Online.

DRTPO - it has a certain ring to it.

Maybe if they just said they're moving to a subsidised taxi service then we'd all know precisely what they meant?

Even better than Waste Management Operative and Domestic Engineer. Our office cleaner gets grumpy being call a Hygene Enforcement officer.

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Nobody told me to use my initiative. To err is human to arr is pirate.

Don't get too excited many of the the neighbouring counties are covered by the call connect service which is a subsidised minibus operating a taxi service where you have to become a subscriber to use it. Its in Lincolnshire,Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire so it could easily extend across into Rutland and leicestershire

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

there have been several already on the tendering doodah

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

The fewer buses we have the better.

And the fewer subsidised buses we have the much much better.

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IDFIMH

but by putting the intended service through the council tendering system the price is beaten down and folk are getting a cut price, door to door,on demand taxi,operators have to put a price in per mile or trip IF they are rung and have to the job

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

So are you saying the more work the trade get the more damaging effect it has on us?

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IDFIMH