04 July 2008
Transport and Technical Services has announced that, from next Monday 7 July, the rush hour relief services and returning school buses will be added to existing services. This means there will be eight extra morning buses scheduled during the main commuter peak period and a further three services will operate during school terms making use of school buses returning back to St Helier. There are also four additional services over the afternoon peak times.
The Minister for Transport and Technical Services said “As part of the agreement to extend the contract with Connex to 2012, Connex undertook to regularise a number of services which are currently run as reliefs on the scheduled network. This is good news for the commuting public because these services will, in due course, appear in the published timetable and create additional capacity into St Helier in the morning rush hour. On the western corridor, this represents a 70% increase in scheduled morning peak hour buses and I hope this will mitigate problems caused by full buses travelling at peak times.”
Most of the services operate on the Routes 8 and 15 covering the very busy St Aubins Inner Road corridor, with three starting from St Aubin. For instance, at First Tower, there are currently 9 scheduled services between 7.30 and 9.00 in the morning which will increase to 16 – a 78% increase in available services. Two returning Le Rocquier school buses will also provide extra capacity on the Route 1 and 2C coming into town from Grouville and St Clement. An additional Route 1 service operating at both morning and evening peak times will start at the beginning of September to coincide with the school term commencing. This enhancement is also part of the contract extension negotiation.
Connex’s Managing Director, Eric Le Roux, said “Scheduling these services will give our passengers an improved choice of services in the morning and help spread the peak demand. Connex is delighted to be able to provide this improvement and is looking forward to working with Transport and Technical Services to offer further improvements to the bus service in the future.”
An advertisement providing full details of these additional services will be published in the JEP today (Friday 4 July) and will also be available on Connex’s website.
gov.je