Important News about local buses:

Post date: 28-May-2014 21:11:28

South Fife Subsidised Services - Bus Consultation

Hello everyone.

Fife Council subsidises a number of bus services in the South Fife area. Contracts are due for renewal in August 2015 and so we are holding public consultations the first 3 weeks in June, and aim to go to tender in October this year. Travel surveyors will also be carrying out on board bus surveys on Fife Council subsidised services to gather passenger travel patterns and comments about our services during June & July.

As it is impossible for us to visit every community group/representative, we would like to inform Councillors, Community Council representatives and representatives of disability/elderly groups the various ways of how you can feed into the consultation process.

We are offering various drop-in sessions to hear any specific issues about the subsidised routes in your area. We will be travelling with the mobile library, visiting various communities with the Revolution bus and also attending Dunfermline bus station and Ferrytoll P&R. Please see the poster attached to this email for locations and times of the drop in sessions and also for the list of Fife Council subsidised services within South Fife.

You can come at any time during the session times and staff will be on hand to answer (and ask you) questions about the subsidised bus services in your area. Attendance is not essential and, if you prefer, you can submit a separate response on behalf of your Community Council/group by either visiting www.fifedirect.org.uk/southfifebus by giving us a call or emailing us direct.

Whilst we already study the passenger boarding/alighting data for every route and know where the popular/weak parts of every service are, we would still like to hear from local representatives on what is important in relation to the bus routes.

We will be tendering all the current routes but we will also tender variations of these routes, as contingencies, if returned bids go over budget. You will be aware that the Council is facing a difficult budgetary situation and so it is vital we have as much local feedback as possible on the importance of the bus services in your area. Think about....

• places/facilities you go to - what towns, health centres, leisure facilities are most important for your community?

• how frequent the bus is - is hourly, 2-hourly, a few journeys per day essential for your community?

• your need to travel at a specific time - how flexible can you be in your travel arrangements?

• journey time - too long? would it matter if it became longer?

• evening travel - how important is it and how late is it required? would reduced evening frequencies be acceptable?

• Sunday travel - how important is it and would reduced Sunday frequencies be acceptable?

• how far you can walk to a bus stop - do all the current streets served by buses need to be served? would a longer walk to the 'main road' be a problem?

• connecting with other buses or trains - how important is this? how inconvenient is this?

It may be prudent to consider whether parts of the routes are unnecessary/poorly used and which you could therefore 'live without,' if it was necessary to curtail services in any way.

This e-mail is addressed to all Councillors, Community Council representatives and representatives of disability/elderly groups in South Fife. However, some bus services in South Fife cross the boundary into Mid Fife and so I have also copied this e-mail to representatives in the relevant wards there.

Hope to see you at one of the drop in sessions.

Regards

Gillian

Gillian Hill

Technician

Network Planning & Information

Transportation & Environmental Services

Fife Council

Bankhead Central

Bankhead Park

Glenrothes

KY7 6GH

Tel : 03451 55 55 55 ext. 44 43 71

Fax : 01592 583231

e-mail : Gillian.Hill@fife.gov.uk

Web : www.fifedirect.org.uk

Please note I work only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.