City of York Council asked Momentum to conduct a review of its bus network to develop emerging ideas for its new Local Transport Strategy. We understand this is the first comprehensive review of the network in over 20 years.
Buses are the main public transport mode in York and play a key role in reaching net zero by 2030, strengthening the economy and improving the health and wellbeing of residents. The aim of the review is to identify opportunities to adapt the bus network to answer these challenges, and to meet the needs of a changing and growing city.
At the same time, there is uncertainty on the resources available to the council to fund bus services in the future – and we were also tasked to assess ways services could run more efficiently.
Momentum sourced and analysed available socio-economic data, and data on bus operations, to identify key areas where the current bus network can be made more:
Accessible: is the bus network serving the places where people live and work, key amenities, visitor attractions and future development?
Efficient: are there overlapping routes that offer opportunities to make better use of public resources?
Reliable: could routing be improved, or termini changed to increase reliability and reduce waiting time between services.
The study considered the extent of the bus network, service frequencies and operational hours. These were combined with data on deprivation, residential and workplace densities from the Census, to identify priority areas for bus improvements (such as areas of low accessibility and high density or deprivation). We also carried out an analysis of ease of interchange to improve connecting journeys across the bus network.
The study will propose recommendations for changes to the bus network that could improve the experience of public transport users, and/or make the network more efficient to run. We anticipate this evidence base and recommendations will help the City plan for the future of its network.
