Securing local transport services

East Sussex Strategic Commissioning Strategy for Supported Bus Services

The East Sussex County Council wanted to secure the best possible local bus services within severely reduced budgets, so they brought our team in to prepare a strategic commissioning strategy for their bus network.

Our evidence-based approach involved research to identify and quantify residents’ needs for bus services, the prioritisation of objectives by journey purpose, and the full re-design and tendering of the supported bus network across the county. By focusing on outcomes—not the existing bus and community transport services—the Council was able to make the best possible use of resources, manage markets, and configure a public bus network to ensure a balance of cost, health, social, economic and environmental benefits for East Sussex.

The re-designed network was implemented in April 2015 with annual savings of £1.88 million on a budget of £2.73 million. Despite the scale of saving, it’s estimated that 95% of existing bus users continued to have access to a bus service operating daily on Monday to Saturday.