Report to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
Accessibility and Community-Centred Public Transport: Final Report
click
here for the ABSTRACT
PREFACE
Community-centred public transport" is a public transport system that is
designed on the basis of needs expressed by potential users within the
community. The community in question can vary - it could be a part of a
town (e.g. a housing estate) or a village (or collection of villages) in
a rural area. The public transport system resulting from such discussions
is very different from the sort of system designed by operators and planners:
a community-centred system tends to be smaller (perhaps reflecting the
shorter trips characteristic of local travel), operating in a more dense
network and at higher (or more predictable) frequencies than the conventional
system. Buses (the foregoing conditions generally preclude rail systems)
are fully-accessible and the infrastructure is designed to suit passengers,
both when waiting for the bus and when boarding or alighting from it.
This project arose from initial considerations about the implications
of such an approach to the design of public transport systems. Although
the technical aspects of designing a public transport service in this way
are not particularly difficult, there are important issues to address about
the community. People normally do not think about their transport system
so they have to be encouraged to consider why they do or do not use it
and what they would like to use it for. This means exploring ways of communicating
with communities.
The project has therefore had to investigate what local people - transport
businesses, users, health, education and social services providers - want
from the transport system in order to provide what people will use.
click
here for the PREFACE
ABSTRACT
This report discusses the concepts of Community-centred Public Transport.
Community-centred public transport is non-private transport that is designed
on the basis of needs as expressed by a local community. The report notes
that a lot of public transport is designed away from local communities:
by commercial operators or local authorities. It then examines the legislation
concerned with the conventional public transport sector and comes to a
conclusion that there is no legal reason why community-centred public transport
should be difficult to implement. The results of discussions and small
surveys in Powys are discussed. Implications for other Counties are raised.
Some recommendations are presented for approaches which should help the
implementation of community-centred public transport schemes.
If you wish to receive a copy of this paper or leave a comment, please
fill in the form below, including your email address if a reply is required.
Select the Submit button to send the form.
(Back to the Accessibility and Public
Transport publications page)
Return
to the Centre for Transport Studies site or to UCL
home page.
Please note that any views expressed here do not
necessarily reflect UCL College policy. No claim is made, explicit or implied,
about the suitability of any data presented here for any purpose. All rights
are reserved by individual members of the Dept., the Dept. itself, or UCL
as appropriate, unless otherwise indicated. Any links to pages provided
by individuals in the department are done so on the understanding that
they agree to abide by the College
and draft UCL Guidelines.
Last updated Sept '99
Please send any comments or queries about this web site to
the webmaster