DISCOVER: Thinking about passenger transport services (including School transport, subsidised bus services, door to door transport, and concessionary travel), what's currently working well in Fife?
Any changes you try to make to school transport will be met with opposition but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. One of the loudest voices about the need to change our culture and reduce carbon emissions is from young people at school – the climate action strike days show us that. Walking instead of being driven/bused to school needs to return to being the social norm. And for those who will say that it is unsafe – if we haven’t managed to educate our children in road safety by the time they are at High School then goodness knows what we are actually covering in the Curriculum for Excellence.
Bus services in general are working well. Bus passes for senior citizens are a must but could be restricted to those who are actually retired to save cost to the Council
It would be great to see greater investment in cycle paths. I live in Blebo Craigs and would love to cycle along the Strathkinness low road but it's far too dangerous, especially for children (obviously - impossible!)
Thanks Anya. Fife Council's Roads and Transportation Services covers a wide range of services including: Sustainable Transport and Parking, Roads Design and Build, Roads and Street Lighting, Roads Maintenance, Roads Network Management, Structural Services (such as Bridges), Management of Assets, and Passenger Transport. They are all interlinked.
We particularly want to hear about what is working well with Passenger Transport, the services that we provide to keep people moving around Fife. This includes concessionary travel, door to door transport for older people, school transport and making sure buses can continue to run in the evenings and weekends to meet community need.
I have two family members who use the dial-a-ride/ring-and-ride service, and the people on the phone and the drivers are wonderful. Not only does this service help to promote independence and reduce social isolation, the support and reassurance it provides to carers is invaluable.
I think its important to stress that it is not only mobility that prevents the elderly from using the normal bus services. Those with eye sight and hearing issues can struggle, and be frightened they will fall or not be able to cross roads safely and without this service would not venture out into the world. In addition, I know a few people who use the service to attend church - one in particular who has onset dementia and the driver always makes sure he gets into his house safely on the return journey (amazing people).
I worry that some of these smaller services get overlooked in the bigger plans, and that the decision makers do not always fully understand the vital part they play in peoples lives
Thank you for your positive feedback on the Fife Bus services. To ensure fair representation and to allow everyone their chance to comment freepost suggestion cards are available at local offices, libraries, bus stations and community centres. Fife Bus staff are also handing out the postcards to the passengers on the Dial a Ride and Ring & Ride buses.
I can see no reason why secondary school buses should exist. Running a bus service to the schools is necessary, but why can't these be timetabled and used by the general public as well? Schoolchildren would be safer and less prone to bullying if there were adults on the bus.
Thank you for your comments and taking the time to contribute. School buses are registered local services therefore anyone can use them, not just school pupils.
Ring and ride are a wonderful service,I find it wonderful I am able to get to the gym, being disabled it helps greatly with pain management.The only gripe I have is when I've booked a bus to recieve a call in late afternoon telling me we can get you there but unable to get you home,or visa versa,Otherwise i manage to get most weeks.when we ask why it's computor that makes the decisions? being regular visitor there is it not possible to keep and eye for folks that use this service regular and help keep us mobile otherwise we stagnate at home ...just a thought perhaps let the drivers sort it out too? many times 2/3 buses for folks coming from the same area sometimes a few doors down for another to the same place .......Thank you for letting me voice my opinion
Thank you for taking the time to contribute and for the positive comments about the Ring & Ride Service. It's good to hear that our much valued service is helping people get out and about and remaining socially included in their communities accessing much needed services and in particular regarding yourself and us being able to assist you accessing the gym to help with your pain management.
I appreciate it can be frustrating and disappointing to receive a call late in the afternoon advising we cannot accommodate part of your journey; however, we are dealing with more than 650 bookings per day. Our telephone lines open from 09:00am - 14:30pm when we simply take a note of everyone's wish to travel with us. When the booking lines close we then start the scheduling process using our scheduling software system which looks at how many people wish to travel on any given day, where they are travelling from and too, if they require the use of the passenger lift and the times people wish to travel. It also takes account of the length of time someone may be aboard the bus. We also must take into account that on weekdays we have to accommodate our school runs for children which additional support needs which is a statutory requirement of the Council. This then impacts on the availability of our service at particular times of the day for the rest of our passengers.
Our booking system is very specialised and makes sure we can accommodate as many journeys as possible on any given day based on the number of vehicles at our disposal. Last financial year, for example, we were able to provide 177,000 passenger journeys but do appreciate with the finite resource available to us there may be people we simply cannot accommodate.
I appreciate the need to provide school transport; that's a given. However, it has always irritated me that, rather than add extra buses for those school runs (for which I presume they receive a subsidy), the companies (i.e. Stagecoach and Bay Travel) remove public services during this period and amend their timetables to accommodate the absence of transport for the rest of us in the morning and the afternoon. Providing the usual service during those school runs would be extremely helpful, particularly as many people travel to work at the same time as kids are being taken to school. Get rid of that little abbreviation on the timetable which indicates "during school holidays only".
Thank you for taking the time to contribute. ‘School gaps’ as they are commonly referred to are customary throughout the country for off peak services, traditionally keeping costs down as the contractor can use their bus for both schools and local services.
I like: wheelchair access on buses; bus no.7 route for quickly going between neighbouring villages/towns; subsidised train travel for people with disabilities and over 60s.
Open answers (77)
Any changes you try to make to school transport will be met with opposition but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. One of the loudest voices about the need to change our culture and reduce carbon emissions is from young people at school – the climate action strike days show us that. Walking instead of being driven/bused to school needs to return to being the social norm. And for those who will say that it is unsafe – if we haven’t managed to educate our children in road safety by the time they are at High School then goodness knows what we are actually covering in the Curriculum for Excellence.
Bus services in general are working well. Bus passes for senior citizens are a must but could be restricted to those who are actually retired to save cost to the Council
Thank you for taking the time to contribute. The National Entitlement Card (i.e bus pass) is funded by the Scottish Government and not Fife Council.
There should be better timing in relation to long distance bus arrivals and local bus departures - e.g. X55 and 8 at Dunfermline Bus Station
Thank you for your feedback. Feedback like this is invaluable when planning and establishing new journeys and routes with the bus companies.
It would be great to see greater investment in cycle paths. I live in Blebo Craigs and would love to cycle along the Strathkinness low road but it's far too dangerous, especially for children (obviously - impossible!)
Thanks Anya. Fife Council's Roads and Transportation Services covers a wide range of services including: Sustainable Transport and Parking, Roads Design and Build, Roads and Street Lighting, Roads Maintenance, Roads Network Management, Structural Services (such as Bridges), Management of Assets, and Passenger Transport. They are all interlinked.
We particularly want to hear about what is working well with Passenger Transport, the services that we provide to keep people moving around Fife. This includes concessionary travel, door to door transport for older people, school transport and making sure buses can continue to run in the evenings and weekends to meet community need.
I agree with Anya. The Strathkinness Low Road is far too dangerous for all cyclists.
I have two family members who use the dial-a-ride/ring-and-ride service, and the people on the phone and the drivers are wonderful. Not only does this service help to promote independence and reduce social isolation, the support and reassurance it provides to carers is invaluable.
I think its important to stress that it is not only mobility that prevents the elderly from using the normal bus services. Those with eye sight and hearing issues can struggle, and be frightened they will fall or not be able to cross roads safely and without this service would not venture out into the world. In addition, I know a few people who use the service to attend church - one in particular who has onset dementia and the driver always makes sure he gets into his house safely on the return journey (amazing people).
I worry that some of these smaller services get overlooked in the bigger plans, and that the decision makers do not always fully understand the vital part they play in peoples lives
Thank you for your positive feedback on the Fife Bus services. To ensure fair representation and to allow everyone their chance to comment freepost suggestion cards are available at local offices, libraries, bus stations and community centres. Fife Bus staff are also handing out the postcards to the passengers on the Dial a Ride and Ring & Ride buses.
Fife Council needs to take climate change seriously and spend at least 10% of the annual transport infrastructure costs on footpaths and cycle paths.
I can see no reason why secondary school buses should exist. Running a bus service to the schools is necessary, but why can't these be timetabled and used by the general public as well? Schoolchildren would be safer and less prone to bullying if there were adults on the bus.
Thank you for your comments and taking the time to contribute. School buses are registered local services therefore anyone can use them, not just school pupils.
Ring and ride are a wonderful service,I find it wonderful I am able to get to the gym, being disabled it helps greatly with pain management.The only gripe I have is when I've booked a bus to recieve a call in late afternoon telling me we can get you there but unable to get you home,or visa versa,Otherwise i manage to get most weeks.when we ask why it's computor that makes the decisions? being regular visitor there is it not possible to keep and eye for folks that use this service regular and help keep us mobile otherwise we stagnate at home ...just a thought perhaps let the drivers sort it out too? many times 2/3 buses for folks coming from the same area sometimes a few doors down for another to the same place .......Thank you for letting me voice my opinion
Thank you for taking the time to contribute and for the positive comments about the Ring & Ride Service. It's good to hear that our much valued service is helping people get out and about and remaining socially included in their communities accessing much needed services and in particular regarding yourself and us being able to assist you accessing the gym to help with your pain management.
I appreciate it can be frustrating and disappointing to receive a call late in the afternoon advising we cannot accommodate part of your journey; however, we are dealing with more than 650 bookings per day. Our telephone lines open from 09:00am - 14:30pm when we simply take a note of everyone's wish to travel with us. When the booking lines close we then start the scheduling process using our scheduling software system which looks at how many people wish to travel on any given day, where they are travelling from and too, if they require the use of the passenger lift and the times people wish to travel. It also takes account of the length of time someone may be aboard the bus. We also must take into account that on weekdays we have to accommodate our school runs for children which additional support needs which is a statutory requirement of the Council. This then impacts on the availability of our service at particular times of the day for the rest of our passengers.
Our booking system is very specialised and makes sure we can accommodate as many journeys as possible on any given day based on the number of vehicles at our disposal. Last financial year, for example, we were able to provide 177,000 passenger journeys but do appreciate with the finite resource available to us there may be people we simply cannot accommodate.
I appreciate the need to provide school transport; that's a given. However, it has always irritated me that, rather than add extra buses for those school runs (for which I presume they receive a subsidy), the companies (i.e. Stagecoach and Bay Travel) remove public services during this period and amend their timetables to accommodate the absence of transport for the rest of us in the morning and the afternoon. Providing the usual service during those school runs would be extremely helpful, particularly as many people travel to work at the same time as kids are being taken to school. Get rid of that little abbreviation on the timetable which indicates "during school holidays only".
Thank you for taking the time to contribute. ‘School gaps’ as they are commonly referred to are customary throughout the country for off peak services, traditionally keeping costs down as the contractor can use their bus for both schools and local services.
I like: wheelchair access on buses; bus no.7 route for quickly going between neighbouring villages/towns; subsidised train travel for people with disabilities and over 60s.