Welcome back to the ‘another day on the buses’ blog :-) Nothing’s changed except that this is now the blog of an ex-Stagecoach driver! I’ll tell more later but for the moment it’s just nice to be able to blog again.

There should be a piece on the threat to rural bus services due to reduced subsidies. I received the following e-mail from the BBC

Hello,

Please contact me on 0208 XXXXXXX

I had a chat with them but they’d already lined someone up. Wonder who it is?

Felt rather chuffed when they said “a great blog”.

That’s the title of today’s posting on the Omnibuses blog and questions whether rural bus services are a lost cause. I was going to post a comment but when I started to write it I soon realised that what I wanted to say was rather more than was suitable as a comment. So I’m responding to the post here.

My first observation is that few people who live in rural areas now consider it possible to live in these areas without a car – they need sometimes to travel to other rural areas which have no bus service at all, need sometimes to make journeys when rural bus services have ceased (typically after 6-7pm), or on Sundays etc. If you’ve already got a car and live in a rural area it’s difficult to think of why you’d ever want to use a bus!

Grocery shopping is something everyone needs to do regardless of living in town or the countryside. But most supermarkets are situated on the edge of towns and not in the centre near the bus terminus so anyone from a rural area will first have to take the ‘bus to town’ and then a second bus to the supermarket. Compare that with a direct drive to the supermarket and free parking in its edge of town location. I’m also seeing increased numbers of Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda delivery vans in rural areas. Online grocery shopping delivered to your rural door in a refrigerated van has got to beat a likely circuitous bus route with a frequency measured in hours. Plus the multiple bags needed for a weekly shop are heavy and awkward to carry on the bus with perishables such as chilled and frozen food soon getting too warm in the summer.

I mentioned in the previous paragraph a ‘likely circuitous route’ and it’s in this respect that rural routes really lose out when journey times are compared to using the car. For the bus company, or subsidising local authority, there is a need to pass through as many hamlets and villages as possible in order to offer the service to as many potential passengers as possible. But in doing so the route will twist and turn slowly weaving its way to the destination. A trip to town for 15 minutes at the Dentist can take an disproportionate amount of time on the bus and then a likely wait for a return service. A 15 minute dentist appointment can easily use up half a day.

If shopping is excluded as a reason for using the bus, as is a visit to town for a single purpose such as dentist, optician, bank etc. what’s left?

The greatest bulk of rural bus service users, in my experience are youngsters between 15 and 18. After 18 they either go away to Uni or if they don’t go to Uni they will leave home and live most likely in a town since they can’t afford rural rents.