Archived decisions

BUS PRIORITY POLICY

At its meeting on 7 May 2003, the Environment Policy Review Committee agreed to convene a working group comprising Members and officers to investigate the need for a Bus Priority Policy for Hampshire. This resulted in a draft policy document being prepared and a decision was taken on 11 November 2003 to approve the draft for consultation.

In excess of 200 stakeholders were invited to comment on the draft policy document between December 2003 and February 2004, and a total of 57 responses were received. Over 95% of respondents supported the principle of bus priority measures, with the majority agreeing that buses, bicycles and taxis should be permitted to use bus priority measures. However, a much lower number of respondents (50%) were of the view that private hire vehicles (PHVs) and powered two-wheelers (PTWs) should be permitted to use bus lanes. In addition, 54% of respondents agreed that bus priority measures should operate 24 hours a day.

In consideration of the outcomes of the consultation exercise, a number of revisions have been made to the final policy document. The document is divided into two sections, part one detailing a Summary Policy Statement on the elements required to assist in developing effective bus priority measures and part two, a Technical Issues Paper setting out the key technical issues fundamental to effective and consistent implementation of a bus priority policy.

A decision was taken to approve the Bus Priority Policy document on 14 September 2004 in support of Aims 2 and 4 of the Corporate Strategy (Stewardship of the Environment and Building strong and safe communities) by seeking to develop a policy where buses, taxis and bicycles are provided with priority over other traffic to increase the attractiveness of these modes of transport and improving accessibility. The policy document will be fed into the development of Hampshire's Local Transport Plan 2006-2011 and become one of its supplementary documents.