£4m Government funding for technology to improve rural bus services

The Government has announced £4m funding for a new digital platform which will provide location information about rural bus services. The initiative aims to give passengers greater certainty about when their bus will arrive.

 

The platform enables app developers to use information from GPS trackers, which are already fitted to 97% of buses, to give rural communities the same sort of real time journey information that's already available in many cities.  The technology will give rural dwellers the ability to plan journeys more easily.

 

Research shows that one of the barriers to young people using buses is not having information readily available on their phones but with fares and times at their fingertips. This initiative aims to cut the uncertainty out of bus travel and also reduce the barriers to the introduction of mobility-as-a-service, one-stop-ticketing products and applications.

 

Buses Minister Nusrat Ghani said: "People expect to turn up to a bus stop knowing when their next service will arrive, particularly in rural areas.

 

"It could help revolutionise bus travel and move us one step closer to mobility-as-a-service and on-demand public transport systems."

 

The funding builds on the recently published Future of Mobility Urban Strategy (link), which looks at how people will use transport in the future and how new technology can make journeys better.