Campus Bus Trial

Tuesday 05-04-2016 - 11:06
Campus bus

Earlier this Year University announced the closure of Castle Irwell. Coupled to this was the move to stop running the campus bus service that was provided for students. As the voice of students, the Student’s Union raised concerns with the University about the decision to stop the bus service. The University listened and we then worked together with the University and Stagecoach, the service provider, to design a temporary pilot scheme to test and evaluate student need. By doing this we were able to address and respond to concerns raised by some of our students through various forums and understand actual patterns of usage to meaningfully inform future decisions.          

The trial has ended now and Stagecoach have provided us with the usage figures from this trial. Due to usage being very poor the service will now be discontinued, allowing the subsidy for this service from the University to be placed towards other more impactful areas that support the student experience. This service ending doesn’t affect the number 50 service - students can still use the number 50 bus service from University to Media city or vice versa for free.

In order to ensure we (the Students' Union and the University) continue to develop our understanding of student needs in this, and other areas of your experience, an independent body will be conducting a survey about the accommodation and public transport around University and the results of this survey will be presented to a focus group directly involving student body in the future. We would welcome all student contributions, thoughts, concerns and comments towards this piece of research when it is conducted. In the meanwhile, we, the Union, will continue to work with the university on the general wellbeing and security of our students.  Please continue to send your comments to the sabbatical officers who will collect these on behalf of the Students' Union-University partnership.

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