Contact: Kevin Ings, ext 6986

1. Summary

1.1 The following decision is sought:

That the progress in this latest stage of the new Cango demand-responsive services, as detailed in the report to the Andover and Western Hampshire Transportation Strategy Members' Panel on 6 March 2003, attached as an appendix, be endorsed as part of the County Council's new approach to providing transport in rural areas of Hampshire.

2. Reason

2.1 To highlight the progress made in the Cango programme.

3. Other Options Considered and Rejected

3.1 Taking no action.

4. Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Decision Maker or a Member or Officer consulted - None.

5. Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee - Not applicable.

6. Reason(s) for the Matter being dealt with if Urgent - Not applicable.

Approved by: Date:

Councillor K B Estlin

7828/KI

APPENDIX

Contact: Kevin Ings, ext 6986

1. Summary

1.1 This report outlines the progress of the new Cango demand-responsive services which were launched in Test Valley on 28 June 2002 as part of the County Council's new approach to providing transport in rural areas of Hampshire.

2. Background

2.1 The first Cango demand-responsive transport services were introduced in Test Valley following a successful bid to the Government's Rural Bus Challenge Fund in 2000. Unlike existing conventional services in the area, which operate along fixed routes, Cango services are more flexible, travelling where they are needed within a wide area to the north and east of Andover.

2.2 Anyone can use Cango in its operating area, although it is necessary to register if people want to pre-book journeys and be assured of a seat on the vehicle. Bookings can even be made after the bus has set off on its journey, thanks to state-of-the-art technology linking Cango to the call centre which has been established in Winchester. New branded bus stopping points were installed to coincide with the start of these new services. Passengers can also arrange to have their own stopping points if this is more convenient. If people have mobility impairments the buses can go right to their front door.

2.3 The Cango services are being operated with two low-floor wheelchair accessible vehicles which have been purchased by the County Council. These are being operated under contract to the County Council by Stagecoach.

3. Cango Services

3.1 The approach taken in Test Valley involved converting two existing public transport routes, supported by the County Council, into the following seven more flexible demand-responsive bus services:

(i) C1 Andover Rail Link;

(ii) C2 Whitchurch Rail Link;

(iii) C3 Bourne Valley to Andover;

(iv) C4 Barton Stacey to Andover;

(v) C5 Andover to Redenham to the Chutes;

(vi) C6 Andover to Vernham Dean; and

(vii) C7 Andover to Picket Piece.

Summary details of the areas covered by these services, their frequency and operating times can be found in Appendix 1.

3.2 From Monday to Friday the Cango services are designed to transport commuters from the surrounding villages into Andover and Whitchurch railway stations each morning, to connect with the London trains. The two vehicles are then used to undertake two school transport contracts previously provided by taxis. They then provide services into Andover throughout the day to enable people to access shopping facilities and the hospital before providing return journeys for the school contract and commuters. On Saturday the services operate into Andover throughout the day to enable people to access shopping facilities.

3.3 Following the introduction of Cango services in June, there have been revisions to the services in October and January. These have been accompanied by minor changes to a number of other bus services in the area, to ensure that Cango services are integrated into the overall bus network. As a result of these changes the majority of people in the area now have a greater opportunity to travel.

4. The Results So Far

4.1 There is no doubt that Cango, which now has over 700 registered users and provides over 500 passenger trips per week, is proving to be very successful. Apart from the feedback from users, Stagecoach, which operates the services, has been surprised by the level of passenger take-up and confirms that the service growth is exceeding expectations. Indeed, on some services, the growth is creating capacity problems to the extent that additional services/different vehicles have had to be deployed to eliminate standing.

4.3 The results, set out in Table 1 below and represented graphically in Appendix 2, show the operating experience for Cango services for the period up to 12 January 2003. They show that, by the fifth month of operation, 68% more passengers were travelling on Cango services than on the previous network of services.

Table 1 : Testbed: Cango Passenger Trips

4.4 These figures exclude passengers carried on the two school transport contracts which are integrated into the Cango services. During the school term a further 480 passenger trips could be added to a four week period, or 24 trips per school day.

4.5 The downturn in passenger trips during the final four week period was for the following reasons:

(i) reduced operating days over the Christmas and new year period because of bank holidays; and

(ii) low patronage following Christmas, traditionally recognised as a down period in the bus industry. For example, the patronage on the commuter runs was lower than normal.

Future figures are expected to be higher.

4.6 An indication of how these figures relate to the individual services themselves is shown in Table 2. This sets the passenger numbers for each of the services for a four week period from 20 October 2002.

4.7 Not surprisingly, the daytime services into Andover from the parishes show the highest levels of patronage figures, with the Barton Stacey to Andover service proving to be particularly popular.

4.8 The rail link into Andover station has been the slower of the two commuter services to build. Interestingly, unlike the Whitchurch rail link, this was a journey which some people could make by public transport prior to the introduction of Cango. There is a specific marketing campaign currently being undertaken at Andover station in an attempt to encourage more commuters to make use of this service.

Table 2: Passenger Numbers by Service

Service	Passenger Numbers 20 October - 17 November
C1	110
C2	211
C3	722
C4	476
C5	323
C6	296
C7	48

4.9 All the evidence suggests that, from a financial perspective, the unit cost per passenger has been reducing steadily during this period and is now down to £5.01 per passenger. This would seem to be a satisfactory unit cost trend, given:

(i) the deeper rural nature of the areas served;

(ii) the improved service that has been provided; and

(iii) the high standards of vehicle and system access, allowing disabled passengers free access to a public bus service even when they have limited walking ability.

It compares favourably with the cost of low patronage fixed route services, and particularly with the unit costs of dedicated dial-a-ride services for disabled people.

5. Monitoring and Evaluation

5.1 The County Council recently commissioned the University of Newcastle to undertake detailed monitoring and evaluation of the Cango services. The University is involved in evaluating a number of the demand-responsive transport services which have been introduced around the country with the help of the Rural Bus Challenge Fund. This will enable the performance of Cango to be measured from a `horizontal' perspective, relative to other demand-responsive services, as well as on a `vertical' basis, over time.

5.2 Discussions are currently underway with the University of Newcastle to confirm which of the available 100 performance indicators will be used locally to monitor the services. These include:

(i) economic viability indicators;

(ii) service provision indicators; and

(iii) technical performance indicators.

5.3 The performance indicators will cover the operation of the call centre as well as the services themselves. The monitoring and evaluation will be greatly eased by the ability to capture data automatically through a combination of the dispatch software, telephone records and electronic ticket machine data.

5.4 The exercise, which will involve consultation with the key stakeholders and users, is expected to be completed by the end of the summer.

6. General Observations

6.1 As well as the encouraging trend of increasing passenger figures, there are a number of additional positive aspects to report on the service:

(i) Comments about the quality and format of the publicity have been made on numerous occasions by a range of people. Marketing the scheme was at the outset seen as a critical issue and this feedback has been particularly encouraging.

(ii) There are a number of disabled people using the service from Enham who would previously have been unable to use a public transport service.

(iii) Reasonable gains have been made in terms of encouraging modal shift. For example, a number of commuters are now regularly making the journey to Whitchurch station, which was not possible on the previous network of public transport services.

(iv) Over 80% of journeys are now being booked on the day of travel, demonstrating the benefits of a demand transport service.

6.2 The experience has not, however, been without its disappointments. For example, having provided the right connection for a regular commuter on the Andover rail link, who was full of praise for the service, it was disappointing to learn that the person no longer feels able to use the service because of the lack of reliability of the trains returning from London in the evening. This clearly demonstrates the difficulties of trying to integrate bus and rail journeys. This is despite the fact that the Cango vehicles will wait up to ten minutes for the train to arrive.

7. Conclusion

7.1 There is no doubt that the Cango services are making public transport more responsive to the needs of rural passengers in many of the parishes surrounding Andover - the first people to benefit from this new generation of public transport services.

7.2 The passenger figures show that the new Cango services are already achieving a higher `ridership' than the previous services they replaced, whilst promoting some reasonable gains in terms of encouraging modal shift. More importantly these are the only rural services in Hampshire showing increasing patronage.

7.3 The process on introducing the Andover-based Cango services was founded on converting existing suitable bus services to demand-responsive services and integrating these with school contracts. This provided an initial passenger source on which to build, and a foundation of financial support, both of which should help to ensure the sustainability of these services in the longer term. This is now an approach which is being rolled out to other areas of Hampshire as further Cango services are introduced.

Recommendation

That this report be noted.

7728/KI