COUNCIL MEETING, 3 APRIL 2003

REPORT OF THE

EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Environment

Part II

CANGO BUS SERVICES

1. The County Council's commitment to improve access to public transport in rural villages has led to the introduction of new demand-responsive bus services called Cango. The first service to be launched was in Test Valley in June 2002 following a successful bid to the Government's Rural Bus Challenge Fund. The County Council's efforts have been recognised by a further award from the Fund in January 2003 in the region of £736,000 to extend the service to communities in East Hampshire and Basingstoke and Deane later in the year. The bid for this latest success `Hampshire Cango Further' detailed the County Council's strategy for introducing further services. Suitable areas had been identified by combining accessibility analyses, consultation feedback and local market knowledge, together with a strategy for rolling out these services, which are integrated with conventional, statutory and community services.

2. Cango services offer far more flexibility than fixed route conventional services, travelling where they are needed and can respond to the daily needs of individual passengers. All Cango vehicles have distinctive branding making them easily identifiable, offer low floor and low height boarding making the step-up into the vehicle easier in areas where there are no kerbs, have wide entrance doors, a spacious interior, climate-controlled air conditioning and are wheelchair accessible. Drivers receive training, including disability awareness, in order to respond effectively to passenger needs. The service offers two types of stopping point - timed and bookable - both stopping points are clearly marked to indicate which type they are and are branded with the Cango logo to distinguish them from standard bus stops. Seats can be pre-booked by going though a simple registration process which is free and thanks to state-of-the-art technology linking Cango to a call centre in Winchester, bookings can be made after the bus has set off on its journey. To help users get used to the service, they receive six free tickets once they have registered. The call centre operates Monday to Friday from 8.00am to 7.00pm and on a Saturday from 8.00am to 4.00pm and can be contacted by telephoning a local call number. Better still, passengers can also arrange to have their own stopping points such as their local shop or garage and for people with mobility impairments the buses can go right to their door thus making the service reliable, comfortable and safe. Services start operating at around 6.00 am, providing vital links for commuters with the rail network as well as undertaking school transport contracts and offering passengers access to shopping centres, hospitals and social venues.

3. The introduction of Cango services to date have met with an enthusiastic response and are proving to be very successful. In Test Valley over 700 users have registered for the services, which are providing in excess of 500 passenger trips per week and service growth is exceeding expectations. Data collected has confirmed that by the fifth month of operation, 68% more passengers were travelling on Cango services than on the previous network of services. In addition to the trend of increasing passenger figures, positive feedback had been received in respect of the quality and format of the publicity material distributed which had been viewed from the outset as a critical issue, a number of disabled people were using the service from Enham who had previously been unable to use a public transport service, over 80% of journeys were booked on the day of travel thus demonstrating the benefits of demand-responsive transport services and reasonable gains had been made in terms of encouraging modal shift.

4. Detailed monitoring and evaluation of the Cango services will be undertaken by the University of Newcastle who have been commissioned by the County Council. This will enable the performance of Cango to be measured by way of agreed performance indicators which will also cover the operation of the call centre. The monitoring and evaluation exercise will be eased by the ability to capture data automatically through a combination of the dispatch software, telephone records and electronic ticket machine data.

5. The introduction of these innovative alternatives to conventional bus services are undoubtedly making public transport more responsive to the needs of rural passengers and it is hoped that the positive results and feedback received will encourage people who might not normally travel by bus to give Cango a try.

KEITH B. ESTLIN,

Executive Member

for Environment.

8ER330303