Suffolk Links Hoxmere DRT briefing

Briefing for County, District and Parish Councillors on the Suffolk Links DRT Service in Mid-Suffolk (to be operational as of 7AM on Monday 20 June 2011)


What is it?


Suffolk Links Hoxmere is a public transport service registered under Section 22 of the Transport Act 1985 (amended 2008) and is available to anyone who wants to use it as long as the journey, or the part of the journey to be completed by this service, takes place within the area of operation. 


Customers need to call Halesworth Volunteer Centre (the operator) on 01986 875600 between 10am and 1pm between Monday and Friday to book a seat on the vehicle, which will be minibus with 11 seats and will be fully accessible for disabled people and driven by a paid driver. Suffolk County Council is in the midst of installing IT infrastructure which will allow telephone booking for all Suffolk Links services to be accessible from 8am-6pm Monday-Friday.

What is it there to do?


The County Council aims for the service to link people to local bus services travelling through the area (e.g. service 118/119 which are mainly commercial bus services which travel between Framlingham and Ipswich stopping at Earl Soham). It hopes that this will help support core local sponsored and commercial daytime bus services and increase their take-up. However, end to end journeys within the area of operation will be possible. A full list of parishes and towns served by Suffolk Links Hoxmere is written below. 


Who will be served/have access to Suffolk Links Hoxmere?


The Parishes of: 


Aspall, Ashfield-Cum-Thorpe, Ashfield Green, Athelington, Bedfield, Bedingfield, Blacksmiths Green, Brundish, Brundish Street, Cretingham, Dennington, Earl Soham, Horham, Huntingfield, Kenton, Laxfield, Monk Soham, Occold, Redlingfield, Rishangles, Saxtead, Saxtead Green, Southolt, Stradbroke, Tannington, Thorndon, Wilby, Worlingworth.




View Hoxmere DRT in a full screen map



The service will also take people to fixed points (usually bus stops or prominent public facilities – like GP surgeries) within Framlingham, Debenham, Eye and Halesworth. However, it cannot take people from one part of any of these four towns to another.


What are the hours of operation?


The service operates between 7:00am and 7:00pm from Monday through to Saturday inclusive.


When does it start operating?


From 7:00am on Monday 20 June 2011. 


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More information about Suffolk Links 

Over the Hill

Over The Hill? Connecting Communities from Rural Media on Vimeo.

I very much like this film that’s been made extolling the virtues of DRT buses in Lincolnshire. It's a similar situation in Suffolk.

“Lincolnshire is one of England's largest and most sparsely populated counties but is fortunate to have a truly innovative, demand-responsive transport system that currently reaches 85% of its total population.

From humble beginnings of just a single phone number and a couple of staff, the Call Connect service now employs 20 people who handle 16,000 calls and some 20,000 passengers per month. In place of the diary used in the early days, the system now relies on sophisticated computer technology and has ambitious plans for the future.

For the thousands of geographically isolated people in rural Lincolnshire, the fact that they can access a reliable, safe and reasonably priced transport system means that they are not disconnected from the services they need. What's more, it enables them to stay in their own homes for longer.”

Though I am personally very positive about this service, actually, in my opinion, people in the film are praising the value of public transport rather than DRT per se.

What interests me most in sharing it is that they have a single call centre with live geospatial linking of their system to the buses on the road, quite unlike the decentralised and unconnected technology that’s in use in Suffolk. Something Suffolk was promised but has not been rolled out (yet?)

You can also see in the film that users are dependent on being able to use a telephone and there is a need for assistive drivers (which slows down the service). 

The film doesn't mention but it hints that pre-booking is inconvenient and there’s no mention of refusal rates. This service has some features that we found in the Time For You study that were barriers to use of DRT and public transport which the Handy Bus model overcame. Also, it doesn't show that the overall branding of the service is confusing. What's the difference between "Call Connect" and "Call Connect Plus"? That marketing idea should have been binned before anyone cut vinyl.

It seems as if the day-centre type of bus contracts are now being handled by DRT operators in Lincolnshire. That, to me, is good joined-up thinking. If only they had imagined that the bus can deliver things too and put a volunteer on board to assist passengers and to be a link to social care services on the spot, rather than the telephone operators. But it is a very positive place to start from and those features could easily be integrated with it now.

The Handy Bus Club Model

The Handy Bus Club is envisaged to support rural family carers and other similarly isolated people by providing better access to services in nearby towns by operating a scheduled minibus service along with the key innovation of a volunteer conductor known as a ‘Bus Buddy’ who assists the passengers with boarding, offers the opportunity of social interaction, provides transport and local activity information and who can act also as a courier to fulfil essential errands at the cost of a fare.


Another key feature is that the HBC model is passenger led. The schedules are determined by the club members according to their needs and resources. The HBC model enables communities to operate their own services - an ambition of the Big Society agenda - according to their needs in partnership with other local organisations and so are more flexible and agile and can respond more quickly to change in demand or resources and are less dependent on centralised management at county or district level.


By carrying both passengers and freight and addressing many of the barriers to the use of public transport, the Handy Bus can meet social needs which are otherwise unfulfilled or met by Good Neighbour schemes and similar volunteer groups. A partnership of an existing GNS and a Community Transport Operator has proven to be effective way to start a Handy Bus Club.


It is the combined revenue from carrying passengers, freight and providing social services that potentially achieves sustainability of transport provision where simple passenger services have not been viable on a commercial or subsidised basis. Combining social care and transport on one platform can deliver excellent value for money for statutory funders such as county or district councils.


The need for the HBC model exists because a barrier to using a typical Dial-A-Ride and Community Car service (such as those operated by many GNS) for the target groups is this mode of transport usually needs booking 24 hours in advance on the telephone and access has a short booking window. Also, some destinations require coordination of two or more DRT services to fulfil a journey. Evidence from our HBC trials is that a reliable scheduled service, no matter what the schedule is, is preferred to an ad-hoc DRT service - which is thus unobtainable when demand is elsewhere - because predictability and regularity is the key promise users want assurance will be fulfilled before adopting that mode.


Another benefit to statutory or charitable supporters of a HBC service is that it encourages the target groups to remain active and socially engaged by removing the transport barriers preventing the use of other services already provided. A nursery or an Over 60’s club or a lunch club becomes more accessible to a greater area when the transport there can be coordinated with a HBC. 


Research with carers found that their caring role often didn’t give them enough time to attend to their own personal needs and the public transport schedules made it impossible for all of them to access the basic services they needed, thus they were more likely to only seek medical services when their needs were acute. The trial found users could visit services like a doctors’ surgery or take part in social activities, use the library or complete shopping which their present bus schedule doesn’t allow. 


The HBC model has environmental benefits of encouraging shared transport rather than low-occupancy cars which reduce emissions, congestion and the demand for parking spaces in rural towns. 


The HBC model makes volunteers more productive by an efficient use of the scarce social capital of the volunteer conductors and drivers which benefits a greater number and mixture of target groups. A community car scheme may have a volunteer to user ratio of 1:1 whereas a Handy Bus can easily achieve 1:8 for a greater level of service.
A HBC directs consumer spending to local retail businesses, thus adding to the vitality of rural towns and villages for services that may otherwise be purchased online or mail-order from distant retailers.

A HBC makes scheduled stops but it can vary its route to collect/drop at a passenger’s door. Target groups found the distance from their homes to the bus stop when carrying shopping was a barrier to using ‘staged’ buses. 


The Bus Buddy on the HBC can fulfil essential errands for the target groups such as collecting prescriptions or returning library books during the turn-around times in the town. They can also fulfil delivery of pre-ordered items from local shops and services en-route or take recycling to the bottle-bank or charity shop, purchase small household items such as batteries, light bulbs etc. Then, for instance, if a carer or other target group can’t leave their house, some essential needs can still be met by using the service. 


The Bus Buddy can support sensory or mobility impaired passengers in using the Handy Bus better than a bus driver alone (who cannot leave their vehicle). By being able to talk with the passengers during the journey (which the driver cannot) the Bus Buddy provides another opportunity for social interaction and enhances the experience of the journey for the passengers. The HBC can carry leaflets and information on services and local activities and the Bus Buddy can make referrals for passengers to other services and advise of events and cultural activities going on. 


The HBC service is run as a membership club on a charter basis from a community transport operator using volunteer drivers. Although the club publishes a schedule to its members, it is not a “public” schedule and it is adjusted to suit demand or opportunity by the members. The membership is advised of changes and the Bus Buddy takes care of advertising changes in the schedule along the route.

Users request service by calling or texting the Bus Buddy (who is issued with a mobile phone) up to the time of the first advertised departure of the day. This reduces the advance booking time required to 30 minutes or less. If necessary, a locked-out single number mobile phone can be provided to in public places as well. Costs have been such that a fare of £2 per journey for about eight miles distance is feasible, a great saving over taxi fares or even community cars operating at 35-45 pence per mile. Unfortunately, under present rules, concession passes issued by county councils cannot be honoured.


Service benefit development:


Actions with other parties can greatly enhance the value of a HBC scheme and its chances of success with quid-pro-quo benefits. 


If local doctors’ surgeries can give priority to the targeted groups to set appointments in the service window, it then enables the targeted groups to use the buses to visit the surgeries rather than being dependent on taxis (which they are very reluctant to use because of cost) thus removing the target group’s barriers to health care. The benefit of more predictable appointments (and the reduced cost) could steer patients to use the bus service, thus supporting its passenger numbers. A doctor’s surgery would gain a predictable patient stream with a reduction in missed appointments due to transport issues. 


Shops and retail services in nearby towns can take telephone orders for goods and services unavailable in the customer’s home villages that can be collected by the Bus Buddy and delivered to the customer to the nearest shop (as a scheme partner) or to their door depending on need. The bus service and local businesses can establish transaction protocols and this makes deliveries in the villages being served by businesses nearby more viable, improving their customer footprint. 


Village shops in the communities served do not lose custom as the service also makes deliveries from them viable too which they cannot do now below a certain spend. The village shops can also be collection and delivery points. Users don’t have to wait to give something like a library book to the Bus Buddy; but can leave and pay for delivery at the shop at their convenience. The Handy Bus collects it from the shop, thus this increases the shop’s footfall.