Last week we met with residents on the route of our 52 service for a general catch-up and an opportunity to share latest news and get passenger feedback.  We held two meetings: one in Woodingdean and one in Ovingdean, and alongside the meetings we’ve also been running a survey.

The main news shared at the meeting was that the existing contract for Route 52 (which relies on Brighton & Hove City Council for the majority of its funding) was due to expire this September, but the contract has been renewed for another year.  We’re very happy that it is continuing and residents also expressed great relief. The million dollar question of course is what happens next year but we will continue to support residents to keep their bus service as we understand how much of a lifeline it is for them.

It was great to hear feedback from residents, and on the whole this was very positive.  Residents said they liked the new ticket machines and the fact they can now use key cards and mobile tickets on the service.  They also liked the new bus on the route, even though currently it’s not yellow (it’s a temporary trial bus so we can’t paint it!) The new bus was reported to be very comfortable, and has also improved reliability. Residents were unanimous in their praise for the drivers, which was lovely to hear.

In terms of improvements, the main request was for an improved information system to give real-time running information, so we are taking steps to get the ball rolling on that and hope to include it when we move to the new electric buses.

Feedback from our survey was very similar to feedback from residents at our meetings; the main findings are below:

Then towards the end we asked people to rate the service:

By no means a scientific sample (14 respondents in total) but it did give us a flavour of how we’re doing, and it was nice to see most respondents ‘very’ or ‘mostly’ satisfied!  There were no scores of ‘never’, and at most only one ‘rarely’ in each category; and the three ‘rarelys’ were from the same person, who also reported that they used the bus ‘only occasionally’ and declined to answer the question on how we can improve the service… So we’re not sure what to do with that one!

But what do YOU think?! Put your comments in the box below 🙂