WORCESTERSHIRE County Council and Local Transport Authorities (LTA) will conduct an extensive review on bus services in light of its £86million Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) being rejected by the Department for Transport (DFT) last month.
Every major operator in Worcestershire will be consulted to discover which services are commercially viable and develop an ‘enhanced partnership’ with bus companies.
The investigation with commercial service operators will also include recording how many passengers use each bus stop across the county.
The document – to be submitted to the DFT by July 1 – will help develop future plans in line with the aims outlined in the council’s 2019 Worcestershire Passenger Transport Strategy.
The Bus Recovery Grant (BRG) ending later this year could see more county services face the axe.
Coun Mike Rouse, the new cabinet member for Highways and Transport, said an advisory group could be formed to help to find short and long-term solutions, adding the council welcomed contributions from bus users and councillors.
Urgent feedback on the unsuccessful BSIP bid has been requested, along with similar details from plans by neighbouring authorities – Herefordshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire.
Several bus users attended Wednesday’s meeting to give feedback including one Bromsgrove woman saying one service failure took her over two hours to get to work the day before.
Coun Rouse said he understood and felt residents’ pain and shared the disappointment of the authority not getting the funding.
He added current problems needed to be addressed so there could be commercially viable services in September.
Assistant director of highways and transport Paul Smith said many ‘shire’ areas’ BSIP bids had been unsuccessful and other authorities had been approached to compare and contrast.
Current bus use was at just 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and a national driving shortage led to some operators missing services.
Operators have said more people working from home had led to changes.
The council is working with National Express to find a longer-term solution to the 144 route as people in Bromsgrove’s rural areas now had to walk further to get the bus.
Successful schemes such as the Bromsgrove On Demand (BOD) bus could offer a way forward and the possibility of extending and expanding it past July was being mooted but would not provide a solution for everything.
Coun Matt Dormer suggested smaller buses to make services more efficient and offering a multi-travel card for people to access trains, buses, bikes and scooters.
