Happy birthday To Us!

The wheels on the bus have now been going round and round for a whole year – we passed our First Birthday on 2nd April 2024. In this article we reflect on our first year and look at the road ahead.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring something good about – and so it’s been what the Daffodil Line. 

When our bus services were finally axed in 2022 they had been in decline for years. Services which ran every hour and into the evenings as recently as 2015 were down to once every 2 hours, with attrociious time keeping and nothing at all in the evenings or on Sundays. 

And, not surprisingly, fewer and fewer people were using our buses each year. 

We hope that in our first year of operation we have started to turn the tide. We put Sunday services and Friday and Saturday evenings back straight away. Timekeeping was a little ropey at the start, but we fixed that quickly and now we can see that month on month, the number of people using the bus is growing. 

We carried 43,000 passengers in our first year, and March – usually a bit of a dud for bus travel – was our busiest month to date.

Better still, many people are taking the bus and choosing to leave the car at home for the day. We know this because we survey passengers, quite regularly, to find out who is riding and what they think of the service. 

Though passengers are pretty happy with the service – many giving the Daff 10 out of 10 – there are improvements we’d like to make. 

We had an hourly service back in 2015: we’d like to have that again. 

And how about an electric bus?  These are getting quite common in towns now, but not so much on rural routes like ours. Wouldn’t it be great to be one of the first rural bus routes to go electric?

Yes, we’re ambitious. They tell us the 232 is “one of the most ambitious community bus services in the country” .  We do want the best for our corner of the world. 

We are only able to dream of, and plan for, better things because of the amazing support we have. From all our local councils – who have now confirmed funding for year 2 and beyond. From local businesses, media and community groups who spread the word and help us reach new passengers. From our amazing bus company DRM bus who go the extra mile to provide a truly top class service. And most of all to you our passengers – who keep turning up at the bus stop, riding the bus and supporting the service. 

And there is still plenty of room on board for more passengers. Despite our constantly encouraging people to “use the bus, just once a month” We still meet people who say “Oh, yes the Daffodil Line, what a brilliant service, though I must admit, I’ve not actually been on it yet!”

You might wonder why we are so bothered about getting people to ditch the car and choose the bus once a month. Well, if you want to do your bit to help support your community and fight climate change, choosing the bus now and then is one of the quickest, easiest and most effective lifestyle changes you can make. Cheaper than a heat pump and more fun than giving up steak!

Thank you all for your support and we look forward to seeing you on board for many years to come.