New buses, running more often – what’s not to like

12 December 2019

Basingstoke bus passengers can catch greener buses now that Stagecoach has launched its new fleet of Euro 6 low emission vehicles. The company has started a ‘go by bus, go greener’ campaign to spread the word.

That’s all well and good but I think passengers will be more interested to hear that on many key routes buses will run more frequently and later in the evening. And surely this is a more compelling message for getting new users on to the buses.

A colleague who lives in the area tells me that his route has gone from three, hourly, evening buses from the railway station with the last one at 9.15pm (already ‘not bad’ for a last bus) to half hourly buses running until 11.10pm Mon-Weds and just after midnight Thurs-Sat.

He reports that there were four passengers on the first 10.40pm service. A great improvement like this will only stay available if the demand is there – so hopefully there will be more promotion at the station itself, and in the car parks or by the taxi queue, to make non-users aware of this positive initiative.

If you want to read more about what non-users think of buses, check out our work here.