Meet the new bus: not quite the same as the old bus. With echoes of the Latin American colectivo or Israeli sherut but in super-smart vehicles networked by Uber-style apps, on-demand services are popping up in cities around Britain – with the big transport companies unshackling their buses in the hope of driving cars off the roads.
The biggest on-demand experiment yet launched this week in Oxford, where passengers can use an app to summon a minibus to and from any street corner in the eastern half of the city.
At £2.50, the fare is a fraction of a taxi and only slightly more than the normal bus but the PickMeUp service is not limited by routes – although it will stop to pick up more passengers going the same way. With an almost identical scheme, ArrivaClick, launching in Liverpool later this summer, could on-demand bus services lure car owners onboard, cutting congestion and pollution?
David Brown, the chief executive of Go-Ahead transport group, which owns the PickMeUp operator, Oxford Bus Company, is cautiously optimistic.
Speaking at Oxford’s science park, on the fringe of the city, he says: “This is classic territory where it’s tricky for a traditional bus service to deliver. But with the new technology you can identify where people are and provide for them in a way you couldn’t before.”
The city’s geography mean that while plenty of buses ply roads in and out to the centre, many people’s journeys are orbital. Thousands work in business and science parks on the periphery, where hospitals and shopping centres are also located, and more than 90% travel by car.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
