Bus and rail travel both have great potential to help us solve many of our worst transport problems.

Some of our largest public transport schemes will be developed as part of our Oxford or Network Development programmes, because they tie in with other work we’re doing in those programmes. However, we’re planning to do a lot of work to improve bus and rail travel in addition to these larger schemes, and these form our Public Transport programme.

Our programme for improving bus transport includes three main types of work.

• Bus priority measures to improve service reliability and allow as many services as possible to run commercially, without subsidy.
• Bus Quality Partnerships with bus operators which will include such things as improving vehicles (in terms of emissions, access for passengers with mobility difficulties etc.), ticketing arrangements, and timetable information.
• Ensuring that people have access to key services such as employment and healthcare by subsidising bus services where these would not otherwise run.

In addition to our work to improve bus travel, we will continue to work with rail operators to make travelling by rail more attractive. We have no direct influence over the provision of train services, so most of our work will focus on improving access to stations and contributing to improvements to stations themselves.

View our bus strategy document