Bus Services - your views wanted

Essex County Council are consulting citizens about a their new Bus Strategy.

They are proposing to introduce a Bus Strategy Commissioning Board: for the first time since deregulation in the 1980's, the council have a real opportunity to help plan and modernise the service.

You can read the strategy and respond to the questionnaire online at www.essex.gov.uk/busreview.

Liberal Democrats in government have been working to modernise bus services and make them more competitive.

Our policy is to fight for improvements in sustainable local public transport by:

• Creating minimum standards for frequency and access for local public transport.
• Giving public authorities greater influence over transport in their area, especially by supporting them to create 'Quality Contracts' which could help to achieve good services to meet the needs of local people.
• Supporting small-scale voluntary or other organisations to be able to provide flexible, local transport services.
• Ensuring all new significant infrastructure or vehicles meet standards for disability access, including audiovisual information.
• Extending 'smart ticketing', to give greater convenience for passengers, automatic lowest fares, and greater linkages across transport modes and with other public services.
• Ensuring providers make realtime information on their services available electronically, as Transport for London does.
• Giving a discount of two-thirds of the cost of buses to 16-21 year olds.