Bus service in the Dales COULD be improved

A bus franchising model could be used to improve a disjointed public transport network in rural North Yorkshire.

The system has been proposed in the Transport to Work and Study Review of transport in the Richmond and Northallerton constituency area, prepared for North Yorkshire Council.

The report by Align Property Services found a patchy bus network in the area, with a general dissatisfaction of the service from local businesses.
Examples of the issues highlighted in the review include limited connections from west of the A1 to Northallerton and Thirsk railway stations which do not align with train timetables, a lack of direct services to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and no bus services running in Swaledale during peak times.

The review also noted that there were no bus services from Leyburn and Masham to Bedale at peak times to connect with the 73 bus service to Northallerton, and no bus services from Wensleydale and Ripon to Richmond at peak times to meet the 55 service to Northallerton or 29 to Darlington.

The study aims to direct efforts to improve transport services to enable residents to reach places of work and study in the area.
It concluded: “Analysis of existing public transport provision has indicated that the majority of settlements are lacking service provision during peak hours.

“Main settlements are an exception to this, with some towns served by multiple services; however, not all services provide the same level of service, as detailed in.”

It added: “The surveys indicated that businesses had a general dissatisfaction with the availability of bus services, felt that this impacted their ability to recruit members of staff and negatively impacted their business.”
The review proposed a number of recommendations.

These included improving the availability and quality of information about existing services, implement multi-operator bus ticketing, extending existing services to cover peak times and ensuring bus timetables connected with train times.

The report also suggested looking at implementing a bus franchising model.  York and North Yorkshire will be one of the first places in the country to trial bus franchising, which sees local authorities take control of planning and managing bus services, with private operators contracted to run them.

The report will be discussed by members of the Richmond area committee next Monday.

Chairman of the committee Yvonne Peacock said the report identified short-term opportunities to improve transport to work, study and health provision and also identified longer-term options that could feed into the Local Transport Plan and the York and North Yorkshire mayor’s own plans to improve transport.

The councillor said there was definitely a need to improve public transport in the area, adding: “I broke my arm recently and I found I couldn’t get by bus from Bainbridge to Northallerton for 10am meetings.  “It just wasn’t possible — it was quite a shock.”

Other recommendations in the report include building on existing demand-responsive transport services and encouraging businesses to consider the use of pool bicycles.