Plans for city centre loop bus and one-hour ticket

A new city centre circular bus service and a one-hour ticket are being considered as part of a £4m upgrade programme.

Bristol councillors voted on Thursday to set up a task group to spend the next few months considering how best to invest income from the Clean Air Zone.

They heard a one-hour ticket would let passengers change on to another bus without having to pay twice, and a circular service would make it easier to get around the city centre and stop other buses getting stuck coming in and out of town.

Councillor Ed Plowden, the chair of the transport committee, said the aim was to make Bristol's buses work "as a network rather than a collection of individual routes".

In London and Manchester, passengers pay once for a single journey and can board another bus or tram within 60 minutes without having to pay again, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

In Bristol, this would cost the price of two singles - £5.20 - although this would be cut to £4 from January thanks to a national cap on bus fares.

This city centre loop bus would run anti-clockwise, potentially running from Temple Meads to Old Market, Cabot Circus, Broadmead, the Centre and Redcliffe.

A route has long been mapped out as an aspiration, and already has bus lanes to enable services to not get stuck in traffic.

Plowden said: "One of the things we recognise is people tend to see the bus network in Bristol not as a network but a series of individual routes.

"People are quite reluctant to change and I'm not surprised because you have to pay all over again."

He said bus lanes would mean only three vehicles would be enough for buses every five minutes on the city centre circular route.

Plowden added this would also stop other buses coming in and out of town getting stuck in city centre traffic.

This circular route could also benefit from "the next generation of buses", the transport chair said, which would be electric and look more like trams, with three doors to speed up getting on and off.

"What we've started is a process of councillors getting their heads together across party to have proper, grown-up discussions about how we can invest whatever money we've got in the future of buses in Bristol," he said.

The task group would also consider how to spend income from the planned workplace parking levy, which was due to be explored in a public consultation later this autumn, he added.

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