Luton Council, local bus operators and their partners came together last week (28 March) to celebrate the town’s Enhanced Bus Partnership – Better Buses Luton.
Thanks to the production of an ambitious Bus Service Improvement Plan the partnership were last year awarded £19.1m funding from the Department for Transport to help improve bus services in the Luton area. The money is helping the partnership to deliver faster and more reliable services, encouraging more people to take the bus and driving up passenger numbers. The partnership is made up of Luton Council, Arriva South, Centrebus, Grant Palmer Buses, Stagecoach East, Uno and other key stakeholders.
The money is being used to develop a wide range of measures including; more evening and weekend services, better daytime connections to health and education facilities, and reduced fares. Also to benefit are bus shelters, real time information at bus stops and online as well as bus priority schemes to help ensure bus journeys are more reliable for local people within Luton. A brand new park and ride facility is also planned for Butterfield Park.
Robin Porter, Chief Executive of Luton Council said, “Working in partnership with local bus operators we are using the funding we have received to help transform bus journeys within the town. We will provide a network of bus services across our area that are fast frequent and reliable, offer excellent value for money and tempt people out of cars and onto more environmentally sustainable public transport.
“Better Buses Luton will help us to achieve many of the council’s other goals and commitments such as those relating to the environment, climate change and decarbonisation. We recognise that cost of travel is an important factor in people’s everyday life, the partnership allows us to fund a significant reduction is bus fares to help people on low income and partially address the cost-of-living crisis and we are delighted that over 30,000 Hip Hop tickets are being sold per month”.
The Hip Hop scheme has been one of the successes of the partnership and means discounted fares on the Multi-Operator Tickets with unlimited travel within the Luton and Dunstable areas for seven days. The adult price for the tickets has been reduced by over 31% to £13.00 per week and child price by 23% to £10.00 per week. Another benefit is that 7,000 bus trips per month are being added on most routes running earlier and later in the evenings with more buses on Sundays and better frequency on some key services during the day. The pre 9.30 am restriction for England National Concessionary Travel Scheme and Disabled Passholders has also been lifted, allowing free travel at any time