Hampshire Bus Strategy

Our plans to improve bus services in Hampshire

In March 2021, the government published a new National Bus Strategy which set out a vision for future bus service improvements across the UK. The national strategy placed a requirement on all Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) to work with local bus operators to create Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs).

Working in partnership with bus operators and the public, the Hampshire BSIP was published in October 2021, setting out the local vision and strategy for improving bus services. We have also collaboratively produced an Enhanced Partnership (EP) that covers the whole of Hampshire and explains how the elements of the BSIP we have funding for can be delivered.

As part of the new Hampshire EP, the vision and strategy contained in the BSIP was used to develop an Enhanced Partnership Plan, setting out a long-term approach to making bus services more attractive and more responsive to need. This EP Plan was formally “made” in April 2022, together with an EP Scheme, that set out the measures and interventions that the County Council and operators would deliver and how the partnership will operate. The Hampshire EP is overseen by an EP Board, which meets 3 or 4 times a year. There are monthly EP Working Group meetings and an EP Forum which meets 3 or 4 times a year in advance of Board meetings.

In April 2023, the EP Plan and EP Scheme were updated as part of a process of annual review. In early 2024, the Department for Transport requested that all LTAs prepare, submit and publish a revised version of their BSIP by June 2024. The updated Hampshire BSIP sets out a refreshed vision and what improvements we would like to invest in up to March 2029 if Government funding were to be made available. The EP Board approved the revised Hampshire BSIP in June. The updated BSIP sets out a vision for where we want to be by 2035, a strategy of how we will achieve the vision and a set of guiding principles.

Our vision for local bus

Hampshire's bus operators and the County Council recognise that buses have huge untapped potential to cater for a larger share of everyday journeys.

Through a programme of co-ordinated and sustained investment over the next decade, we will deliver a renaissance in bus passenger travel which will see the number of journeys made by bus increase year-on-year. We aim to double the number of bus passenger journeys made by the end of 2034/35 (from 21 million journeys in 2023/24 to 42 million journeys).

Our strategy

We will target investment towards the strongest parts of the commercial bus network which we have classified as 21 “high frequency urban” and 24 “main inter-urban” bus routes.
We will focus our resources and available funding to ensure that Hampshire’s well-used and successful commercial bus routes, that are seeing passenger growth, are made more attractive to potential new users.
We will seek to make these 45 routes more appealing, faster and more reliable and promoting these enhancements to those who live and work along the routes, working closely with neighbouring LTAs as required. Doing this will improve revenue, which can then be re-invested in vehicles and staff.
We will work with bus operators to drive growth on secondary commercial routes, and with the 11 District and Borough Councils to make the best possible use of available collective resources to provide bus and community transport services for communities not served by the commercial network.

Guiding principles

Regulation

Use existing legal powers available to Hampshire County Council to improve the reliability of local bus services, building on the roles and responsibilities set out in the Hampshire EP scheme.

Customer focus

Put bus passengers at the heart of everything we do.

Infrastructure, network management and bus priority

Seek to improve bus journey times on key congested corridors in order to deliver improvements in air quality, journey time reliability and passenger usage.

Public transport information

Improve the quality and accessibility of information, including the provision of bus times and fares information and make greater use of technology.

Accessibility

Improve the levels of physical and digital accessibility both on buses and through infrastructure to ensure a fully accessible network for disabled passengers.

Invest in zero emission buses to improve air quality

Promote the role of buses in resolving air quality issues and work with operators and other stakeholders to seek funding from DfT to support the move from diesel to zero-emission buses.

School and college transport

Promote the bus as the most convenient, cost effective and sustainable means for travel to school, college and higher education.

Support socially necessary bus services

Secure and deploy all available funding and prioritise its use to support services that meet a social need and work in partnership with the community transport sector to supplement the core bus network.

Innovation and digital accessibility

Embrace innovative transport solutions such as DRT and MaaS models as possible alternatives to the private car and develop Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) solutions where appropriate.

Fares and ticketing

Provide flexible and better value ticketing options and use technology to provide a range of convenient and simple ticketing solutions on all operators’ services.

Meeting reports and other documents

Contact us

Email the team at [email protected] or in writing to:

Passenger Transport
Hampshire 2050
Hampshire County Council
The Castle
Winchester
SO23 8UJ