At last night’s Economy and Environment Scrutiny Panel meeting, Matt Kitchin from Southern Vectis gave a brief report on the bus service over the last year and shared upcoming plans.
He explained that the bus company would be introducing 14 new double decker buses over the next six to 12 months and that buses on Coaster routes would adapted to include slots for up to six bicycles.
Rise in bus travel
Given that 90% of journeys taken on the Isle of Wight are made by car, we were surprised to hear that Southern Vectis had seen an extra 400,000 journeys made by bus on the Island in the last 12 months.
Matt confirmed to OnTheWight that these were public transport journeys, rather than school transport. He said,
“The increase in the number of journeys made by bus is great news for the Isle of Wight as we are bucking the national trend of decline in bus travel in the previous twelve months.
“The fantastic summer weather has undoubtedly helped encourage more visitors to the Island and our relaunched Coaster bus route has proved phenomenally successful since launching in July.”
Only bus service running Christmas Day
Matt also informed the panel that Southern Vectis was the only bus company in England that ran a bus service on Christmas Day!
£8m per annum
Strategic director for Economy and the Environment Stuart Love informed members of the panel that the council pays Southern Vectis around £8m per annum – this is mostly to meet the concessionary fares and school transport contract.
Image: onemanandhisdog under CC BY 2.0
