Partnership celebrates first year

Sheffield Bus Partnership is celebrating reversing a decade of historic decline in the city’s bus travel at its one year anniversary mark. The voluntary agreement between South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE), Sheffield City Council, First South Yorkshire, Stagecoach in Sheffield and Sheffield Community Transport, has made efforts to improve the city’s bus offering, resulting in continued positive passenger growth since its launch in October 2012. Since its launch, there have been three consecutive quarters of patronage growth, with an average of 5.2% more passengers travelling by bus in Sheffield in the last six months alone.

Since the partnership was introduced, at least 60% of adult fare paying customers have benefited from cheaper fares. Customer satisfaction has been improved by up to 45% and there has been a 25% reduction in complaints. There has been an investment of £13.5m in newer buses, resulting in 60% of SBP vehicles meeting or exceeding European environmental emissions standards. There has been an increase of 2.75m fare paying passengers (8.9%), with growth across all quarters: 2.7% in Q1, 5.9% in Q2, 15.1% in Q3, and 12.3% in the fourth quarter. Reduced congestion and duplication on key bus routes has been implemented, significantly improving punctuality month on month to 90.9% and reliability to 98.8%.

MD for Stagecoach in Sheffield, Paul Lynch, said, ‘Sheffield Bus Partnership has delivered some fantastic results in its first year and shown a real commitment to providing the best bus offer possible for the people of Sheffield. All of this plays a major part in helping us to deliver one of the best public transport networks in the country, recognised in our recent triumph in the Making Buses a Better Choice category at the UK Bus Awards. Over the course of the year, this landmark agreement has shown that Partnership working is the best way forward in a difficult industry environment.’