Milton Keynes is a great place to live, work, learn and relax. With such attractions, its strong growth will continue, but with this may bring the detrimental impacts of more traffic and pressures on the infrastructure and environment.
To maintain the momentum of growth and offset these impacts, Milton Keynes needs excellent public transport. Towards the end of 2020, Milton Keynes Council established a partnership with all bus operators to consider ways of transforming bus travel and achieving recovery following the pandemic.
The publication of the National Bus Strategy in March 2021 provided further impetus and support to develop the public transport offer for the people of Milton Keynes. This Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) sets out how this will be achieved. This document sets out the ambitions of Milton Keynes Council, bus operators and other partners to deliver an excellent, green and inclusive public transport system across the Milton Keynes area, for urban and rural users.
It gives context to the challenges and opportunities the partnership is seeking to address, to ensure that public transport achieves its full potential in Milton Keynes for the growth of the area and the extensive planned development and renaissance of the City, delivering the groundwork for the 2050 Strategy, mass rapid transit and the new University.
Milton Keynes is a unique place and needs its own bold solutions. Earlier in 2021, MK Connect was launched across the entire area, offering demand responsive transport where bus services don’t exist. This is the first step in building up public transport usage and will establish demands for new conventional bus services.
The Bus Service Improvement Plan will facilitate further substantial service developments and accelerate programmes of infrastructure replacement and improvement.
BSIP vision
The vision for Milton Keynes is that it will have an excellent, green and inclusive public transport system used by all.
BSIP goals
The main goal is to significantly increase the relevance of public transport in the lives of the people of Milton Keynes, reducing the dominance of the car, supporting growth, creating inclusivity of movement and helping to improve health and wellbeing for all. The aim is to see the public transport system in Milton Keynes acknowledged for excellence – used out of choice by all. Success will be driven by innovation and determination to achieve the best quality of service and lowest environmental impact.
BSIP objectives
The vision will be achieved by addressing a number of objectives:
• Based on a service hierarchy, provide an attractive, coordinated public transport network, offering high quality services and infrastructure, supporting the potential for the development of rapid transit services.
• Enhance bus service frequencies and operating times on key routes and across the borough to significantly increase patronage. • Provide measures to support bus reliability and improve journey times.
• Offer integrated ticketing that makes bus travel easier and fares that offer good value.
• Protect and improve passenger infrastructure and facilitate multi-modal interchange.
• Ensure that planning policies fully support public transport delivery and prioritise more sustainable transport modes.
• Work with bus operators to help achieve the Council’s ‘carbon neutral by 2030 ambition’ by improving fleet, introducing alternatively fuelled vehicles and trailing innovative technologies.
The Bus Service Improvement Plan sets out ambitious proposals to transform bus travel in Milton Keynes. Not only does it seek to restore bus use to pre-pandemic levels during 2022/23, it sets out a significant investment programme in service enhancements and infrastructure that will create a reimagined experience of bus travel. By offering a world class service, the people of Milton Keynes will have confidence and satisfaction in the public transport service, which will translate to significant patronage growth. The funding sought from the DfT for this transformation programme is summarised as follows: