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WQ.181/2019
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
BY THE DEPUTY OF ST. JOHN
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 30th APRIL 2019
Question
Will the Minister advise what assessment, if any, was undertaken of the impact that withdrawal of the Number 7A bus service from the timetable would have on the ability of the residents of Rue de la Mare Ballam in St. John to access transport and to travel within the Island; and will he undertake to work with Liberty Bus to ensure that this year-round service is reinstated?
Answer
Service 7A ceased to operate at the end of the 2018 summer bus timetable in September 2018. At that time, the service consisted of a single weekday morning journey from St Johns Church to St Helier, and a single weekday mid-afternoon journey in the opposite direction. The service was fully replaced by additional journeys on the standard Service 7 via St Mary, still departing from St John and St Helier at the same times, to provide a much-needed additional morning commuter trip for the residents of St Mary and to eliminate a two-hour gap in the afternoon timetable.
Recorded passenger demand for Service 7A on the section of route between St Johns Church and Carrefour Selous during the month of September 2018 was less than one passenger per weekday. The replacement services via St Mary and Six Roads were in March 2019 being used by more than ten times as many people. Therefore LibertyBus were entirely justified in proposing to reallocate their resources in order to benefit the much greater number of customers now using Service 7 at those times.
While the ideal situation would be for every section of major road to be provided with a regular bus service, in this case the area is very rural with few potential customers living within a reasonable walking distance of the former bus route. With a finite number of buses and bus drivers available, it is regrettably not cost- effective to provide a service where there is unlikely to be a viable level of passenger demand.