Transport User Voice October 2024 – Significant improvements in East Sussex

07 October 2024

Passengers return to bus travel

Research among bus passengers in East Sussex, which Transport Focus helped to design, has been widely praised by local bus operators and has also resulted in significant improvements.

East Sussex County Council approached Transport Focus over a year ago asking for our help in monitoring reaction to improvements they had made with £13m of support provided by the Government’s Bus Service Improvement Plan fund. These improvements included:

• Enhanced frequencies
• More evening and weekend services
• fares & ticket changes including a discounted multi-operator ticket, age-related and other discounts
• A new digital demand responsive transport service called Flexibus.

We felt that qualitative research among a cross-section of users and potential users would be the best way of finding out what people knew about the changes, how they felt about them and what they wanted to know and how best to reach them. Together with Council officers we drew up a detailed specification and sent it out to a list of agencies, appointing the one with the best plan for how to deliver the research.

In total, the successful agency Illuminas ran nine focus groups, including specific groups for users aged 16-18 and 19-29. They were able to recruit users of specific routes which had been improved. Finding Flexibus users to participate in focus groups was a bigger challenge, so it was decided instead to carry out extended interviews with individuals, which yielded very positive results.

The improvements to conventional services (to daytime frequencies, weekend and evening services and route extensions) have been promoted largely through generic advertising. The research suggests this should be more targeted, on buses and stops, as well as on apps and websites, highlighting specific information about the changes to particular routes.

The research findings also highlighted frustrating issues with real time information systems in East Sussex, with ‘ghost buses’ turning up without warning while some others never arrive. A wide range of comments were received about Flexibus services.

The full report on the research findings has been shared with local bus operators and disseminated to  local bus user groups and others attending the Enhanced Partnership Forum. It has been poured over by the operators, who ‘loved it’ and described it as ‘a great piece of work’. Action has already been taken to engage users on service changes and to highlight service changes on bus operator apps.

The Council is discussing with operators displaying services which are not running (for example, because of driver shortages or vehicle problems) as ‘cancelled’ and explaining the reason for cancellations and, where a bus has been turned early, where to pick up the next bus to shorten your wait.

The research has led to a significant review of Flexibus. The complex zonal system has been replaced by a single East Sussex-wide zone with a journey mileage limit. The Council is reviewing the website and call handling.  They are also clarifying that journeys do not have to be made from remote locations, but can be made to or from a more popular destination, such as a train station, with messaging such as ‘complete your journey with Flexibus’.

The majority of Flexibus journeys still carry just one, lone passenger.  The Council accepts that this model is not sustainable in the long term, and passengers are inclined to agree. The Council are discussing changes with the app provider to facilitate more ‘aggregation’ which involves looking at their algorithms – including allowing passengers to prioritise arrival or departure times, and to give more choice if a selected journey time is not available.

A review of fares and ticketing products and how best to promote them is ongoing.

Department for Transport figures indicate that, at 99% of pre-Covid levels, East Sussex’s recovery of bus patronage is third nationally. This is great work for a semi-rural county with an older than average population and high levels of car use.  East Sussex County Council and local bus operators will continue to use the research, and Your Bus Journey results, to drive further progress.

Back to the newsletter