Residents and commuters are being invited to join local bus providers and City of York Council transport officials to discuss proposed changes to local bus services.

The changes come at a time when concerns about bus service reliability are growing.

The best performance in York, in recent years, came in 2010/11 when 75% of bus services ran on time. The Council has so far refused to publish the real time reliability stats which are now gathered routinely by bus operators using GPS systems. This process is more accurate that the manual samples on which previous reliability information have been based.

We think that reliability stats should be published routinely as they are for rail services.

The drop-in event is taking place at York Explore Library on Monday 6th August between 10am and 6pm and is apparently aimed at “consulting with residents on proposed bus service changes set to be implemented later this year”.

“ Proposed changes include the Sunday services to Bishopthorpe, South Bank, Dodsworth Avenue and Hamilton Drive, the daytime services to Skelton and Rawcliffe and the daytime week day services to Dodsworth Avenue”.

So little information has been made available so far that we doubt whether there will be much of a turn out.

NB. Usage of buses in York has been fairly stable over the last 5 years and reverses the trend seen in many other parts of the country.