On July 20 our county council ended almost all bus subsidies in Oxfordshire. It ended 54 bus routes at a stroke.

Bus operators are now striving to save another 64 services by changing routes, reducing timetables or increasing fares. We want them all to succeed.
But most are on trial. Those that do not break even could be withdrawn. All need more users to survive.

OCC’s Comet bookable minibuses will be some help to elderly or otherwise less-mobile Oxfordshire residents. But running only four hours a day, with only 10 vehicles to serve hundreds of communities, it cannot meet all demand.

Buses should serve commuters as well as off-peak travellers. But OCC has ended peak-hour buses to communities as big as Leafield (population 950), Stanton Harcourt (950), Shipton-under-Wychwood (1,250) and Milton-under-Wychwood (1,650).

All had subsidised buses that were under-used at peak hours. But did OCC conduct travel needs surveys in those communities to see how many people wanted to travel, where and when? Or did it rely too much on trial and error?

Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership should also be improving public transport. OxLEP supports railway improvements and the proposed “Science Transit” to the county’s science and technology campuses.

Could OxLEP do more for communities that lack peak-hour public transport?

Could it not at least help with research to identify those communities that have the worst exclusion from public transport, and identify the solutions likely to need the smallest subsidy to put it right? And if not OxLEP, who else?

HUGH JAEGER
Chairman, Bus Users Oxford