First Minister considers rolling out "innovative" Teifi Valley bus service
It is only five months since Bwcabus - Connecting the Teifi Valley bus service was launched, but already it has made over 4,500 passenger journeys and attracted nearly 500 registered users.
Mid and West Wales AM Joyce Watson praised the scheme’s early success, saying:
"Bwcabus goes from strength to strength. Results from passenger surveys show that people are using the service for all sorts of reasons – it has enabled people to access education and training, get to work, make doctors appointments and generally get out and about more easily."
Bwcabus, which began running on 24th August 2009 and operates Monday to Saturday from 7am to 7 pm, is the first door-to-door bus service of its kind in Wales. Residents living within the operating zone can phone up and book a journey from close to home to a bus stop on a main route. It covers several villages that were previously without a bus service and enables people to travel between local villages and the Carmarthen to Cardigan 460 bus service, which has seen a 40% increase in passengers since Bwcabus was introduced.
Joyce asked new First Minister Carwyn Jones, in his first question time since taking the reins, to congratulate the scheme. He responded:
"We know that there are many communities where a conventional bus service is never going to work in terms of viability, but Bwcabus has been important in demonstrating how an innovative and flexible scheme can be made to work not just for the individuals who need it, but for those communities that are helped by the fact that public transport is available to them.
"I am certainly taking an interest in how the scheme is developing to see whether it can be rolled out across the rest of Wales."
Regular Bwcabus user Valmai Crampton, who lives in Bryngwyn said:
"I don’t know what I would do without the Bwcabus service. Since having my operation I have been able to get out and about thanks to the new service."
The Bwcabus service is operated by Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion Local Authorities, in partnership with Traveline Cymru and Wales Transport Research Centre, with funding from Welsh Assembly Government and European Convergence Programme.
To learn more about Bwcabus go to http://www.traveline-cymru.info/bwcabus/ or call 01239 801 601 or email Bwcabus@carmarthenshire.gov.uk
