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£3m helps more of Strathclyde to Dial-a-Bus
September, 2009
A surge in demand for public transport by elderly and disabled passengers has led to SPT spending £3million on 42 new buses.
The specially adapted ‘Dial-a-Bus’ vehicles are now being used on door-to-door services for people who have difficulty in using mainstream public transport in the Strathclyde area.
The new buses are smaller, narrower and allow services to get closer to where people are - and where they want to go.
A small team of dedicated staff currently manage an average of 900 calls every day at a special contact centre in Glasgow, dealing with requests from as far a field as Loch Lomond in the north to Girvan in the south.
Thanks to the two-year investment programme, SPT is now responsible for 370,000 passenger trips a year.
Sadie Fitzgerald, who lives in a sheltered housing complex in Drumchapel, told SPT Express how Dial-a-Bus makes a difference to her day-to-day life.
She said: “I’ve used the Dial-a-Bus for about 15 years. I have a large family but they live in different parts of Scotland and England and I can’t always rely on them when I want to go out as they have their own lives to get on with.
“Dial-a-Bus takes me shopping and to my clubs in the evening - it’s wonderful. It opens up my life otherwise I’d be in the house all day.
“I’ve given the number to dozens of my friends and they are using it too. Everybody likes it because it’s door-to-door and you can use it whenever you wish.”
Fellow resident Margaret Syme added: “It is a great help to people where I live and we use it at least three times a week. The staff go out of their way to help us on and off the bus. Everything is taken care of for us and I really think it is great.”
Dial-a-Bus operator John Henderson, of Hamilton based Henderson Travel, told SPT Express that the scheme was a measure of how a society looks after its elderly and disabled people.
He added: “We’ve been operating SPT contracts for over 22 years and Dial-a-Bus is certainly becoming very important now we have an ageing population.”
John Robin, SPT’s bus contracts manager, said the new buses provided great value for money.
He said: “Like most local authorities, we are short on cash so we need to ensure that we get the maximum use out of our vehicles.
“We’ve ensured that they are adaptable to meet a variety of needs. And when they’re not being used for Dial-a-Bus, they can be used for local and school services.”