Emily Bailey: How Bus Back Better Transformed South East England's Transport Landscape

Transport for the South East (TfSE), the Sub-national Transport Body for the southeast of England, led on joint project, Bus Back Better, with Transport East and England’s Economic Heartland.

The TfSE partnership is made up of 16 local authorities, local business groups, plus representatives of district & borough authorities, protected landscapes and national delivery agencies.  Together we speak as one voice to government about the region's transport priorities and investment needs. (More information about TfSE can be found here).

Bus Back Better aimed to identify and deliver the support needed by local transport authorities (LTAs) with the delivery of their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) and Enhanced Partnerships.

The three-stage project was a result of £300,000 of additional funding that was awarded to the three STBs by the Department for Transport (DfT).

The first stage encouraged LTA officers and bus operators (grouped by STB area) to complete questionnaire surveys and participate in a workshop. This allowed the STBs to identify and prioritise the additional capability support that LTAs needed to deliver their BSIPs.

From the first stage of work, eleven support packages were identified and delivered. They covered topics such as the role of demand-responsive transport, alternative/low-emission fuels, low-cost and quick wins, fares and ticketing, and making a strong case for bus priority improvements.

The delivery of the eleven support packages began in December 2022 and was completed by the end of April 2023.

Alongside the support packages, webinar recordings and guidance documents were produced and made available to LTAs. These materials remain open for use to LTAs and bus operators.

Throughout the project, both webinars and technical advice notes have been delivered on fares and ticketing, low-cost quick wins, building a strong case for bus improvements, demand-responsive transport, and bus infrastructure guidance.

Other topics that have been identified as areas of interest are covered within the TfSE Regional Bus Forums, a continued resource for local transport authorities and bus operators.

Bus Back Better Support Tools

We offered a toolkit specifically focusing on high-level methods that use data to identify areas of opportunity for improving bus services. The toolkit also monitored and assessed the outcomes of service interventions, taking into consideration the number of users, customer satisfaction, service performance journey purpose, and non-user surveys.

This information helped LTAs understand what data metrics were used in different circumstances including building a convincing business case. It also helped LTAs understand how to monitor multiple areas of bus services such as the number of users, as well as identify the right data sets, particularly where information already exists, identify the most cost-effective methods of collecting data, and understand when qualitative data should be used.

Research showed that our LTAs were all searching for best practice from schemes that had already been delivered. This led to Demand responsive transport (DRT) being a recurring request from our LTAs. A supportive technical note enabled self-learning of DRT while developing business cases and implementation. It covered how typical DRT schemes operate in a range of scales and contexts, which resulted in increased knowledge of how to create a commercially successful scheme.

Webinars were held for each of our support packages throughout the Bus Back Better project. An example is the alternative and low emission tools, where we were joined by three subject matter experts; Dominic Taylor, who works with low emission mobility at Arup, Director at Mott MacDonald, Mike Pain, who has experience in commercial and operational bus roles in the UK, and Anshel Cohen, a Transport Planner at Arup, who has successfully worked on business cases and implementation of lower emission vehicles transitions.

The South East's commitment to innovation and efficiency paves the way for a more sustainable and passenger-friendly commuting experience.

Emily Bailey, Project Manager Transport For South East