Worcestershire on Demand: 80,000 journeys per year

[TheManOnThe172]

Worcestershire County Council are reporting 80,000 DRT journeys in a year.

Is that good going? They offer no info on number of vehicles, let alone utilisation levels or subsidy cost per journey.

Shoukd the DRT-sceptic ignore this as just another bit of PR puff (hey, everyone, look at this big number!) or is there actually a story of DRT success here?

 

[Farigiraf]

Worcestershire County Council are reporting 80,000 DRT journeys in a year.

Is that good going? They offer no info on number of vehicles, let alone utilisation levels or subsidy cost per journey.

Shoukd the DRT-sceptic ignore this as just another bit of PR puff (hey, everyone, look at this big number!) or is there actually a story of DRT success here?

UK average for DRT is around 50 pax/day so Worcestershire's 200+ per day is actually quite good (though still not very high compared to frequent fixed-route buses).
DRT success depends on a lot of things, including the amount of buses in service (high amount = lower wait times) and the population in the area. Worcestershire has quite a sizeable elderly population, lots of little villages and fairly mediocre fixed-route bus connections so it makes sense that DRT works well there.

 

[RT4038]

UK average for DRT is around 50 pax/day so Worcestershire's 200+ per day is actually quite good (though still not very high compared to frequent fixed-route buses).
DRT success depends on a lot of things, including the amount of buses in service (high amount = lower wait times) and the population in the area. Worcestershire has quite a sizeable elderly population, lots of little villages and fairly mediocre fixed-route bus connections so it makes sense that DRT works well there.

Where did you get the 50 pax/per day UK average? Is that 50 pax / per day / per bus? Any comparison figure is meaningless without that metric. Could be 10 buses in use, and even then is that Monday to Sunday, Monday to Saturday or Monday to Friday. Are the buses entirely in use on DRT, or do they do School transport at school times (with that school transport shouldering its fair share of the fixed costs?). Without knowing these things it is very difficult to compare .....

I would think 200+ passengers per day, per bus would be impossible in Worcestershire.

 

[JKP]

There are six zones in the Worcestershire scheme operating 0700 to 1900 Monday to Saturday.

 

[Farigiraf]

Where did you get the 50 pax/per day UK average? Is that 50 pax / per day / per bus? Any comparison figure is meaningless without that metric. Could be 10 buses in use, and even then is that Monday to Sunday, Monday to Saturday or Monday to Friday. Are the buses entirely in use on DRT, or do they do School transport at school times (with that school transport shouldering its fair share of the fixed costs?). Without knowing these things it is very difficult to compare .....

With a 12 hour daily operating time and an optimistic estimate of 3 journeys per hour, it's about 36 pax/day per bus. The 50/day average is fairly typical for the less busy rural DRT schemes (which make up most of them tbh), but with 4 buses and high utilisation you can manage around 144/day.

Worcestershire's DRT doesn't appear to run on Sundays or bank holidays (wasn't aware in my previous post) so it works out at around 26 journeys an hour (or 4.3 per hour if you split it across the six zones). That seems quite good, though I'm not sure how many buses they run.

Urban DRT schemes often have 10+ vehicles in service, but these serve a largely different purpose to rural DRT where it replaces standard bus routes.