New 24 hour bus service launched in Portsmouth

Transcript

00:00 I'm Mark Reddy, Managing Director for Stageco South. We're at the Hard interchange here in Portsmouth

00:05 and we are launching the new services that will start in February where we will be running a

00:13 24-hour bus service on service 23 which will take you from Portsmouth through North End out to

00:20 Leigh Park and Havant and we've also be launching extra evening services on services 13, 14 and 18

00:28 and this is all done in partnership with Portsmouth City Council who have been awarded money from the

00:34 Department for Transport for their bus service improvement plan. And so what would this mean to

00:39 the community and for those who frequently do or do not get the buses? Well it makes the bus service

00:46 more attractive by putting on extra services on evenings and weekends and also making it 24-hour

00:52 means that there's more journeys for more people to access to go about their business whether that's

00:57 to work or shopping or leisure. I'm Gerald Vernon-Jackson I'm the cabinet member in Portsmouth

01:03 for Transport I'm one of the Lib Dem Councillors and we're here because in Portsmouth we're having

01:08 more bus services for more people at more times of the day unlike other places so we're having

01:14 night buses for the first time in the city for years so on two routes on the 23 and the 2 the

01:23 buses will run all the way through the night and so that people are able to get home. We're doing

01:28 buses earlier in the morning so if people need to get to an early shift say at QA they'll be able

01:34 to go so from 4.00 - 5.00 in the morning buses will be running. We're doing later buses so on

01:42 the 13, 14 and 18 there'll be later buses running in the evenings and also better buses at the

01:49 weekend and then on things like the number one and number three buses they're going to be more

01:54 frequent so that every 10 minutes as opposed to what they currently do at the moment. So we've

02:01 got more buses going to be serving more people more reliably and we're also going to be putting

02:07 on every bus stop in the city real-time information so people can see when the next bus is coming. So

02:15 I think it's going to mean that more people here in Portsmouth will feel confident about taking

02:20 the bus knowing when it's coming, knowing that it's going to be there running all the way through

02:26 the night in some routes and that means that people can choose to leave the car at home. So

02:32 we want more people to take buses but also other ways and use public private transport their own

02:38 cars a little less so it'll just mean that roads are less clogged but also importantly that air

02:44 pollution gets better in the city and we need to work on that a lot but we're doing a whole range

02:51 of different things so this is more buses, better buses, more frequent buses but we've also got a

02:58 car club so people can rent a car for a few hours or for a day if they want or we've got breeze

03:05 bikes so that people can take a bike or a voice scooter so lots of different alternatives for

03:10 people so that they don't feel the need to always take the car. Choosing the bus is one of the best

03:16 ways to travel in and out Portsmouth it's clean it's green and it also means there's less cars

03:22 on the road so you're contributing to making the air better quality in the city and it's also

03:27 easier with simple two pound flat fares across the whole city and beyond on any bus means that

03:34 traveling in and out of the city or around the city is really easy so I'd recommend anybody that

03:39 hasn't done it for a long time to give it a go.

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