Councillor shares Brighton park and ride trial usage data

Trial Park and Ride Service in Brighton and Hove

A trial park and ride service ran for seven days in the summer. It was used by more than 200 people a day and cost £52,000 to operate.

Brighton and Hove City Council trialled the service as an experiment over the first three weekends of August and on the Sunday and Monday of the bank holiday weekend. The service operated from Sussex University’s campus in Falmer.

The busiest day was Monday, 25 August, the bank holiday. On that day, 347 people used the dedicated bus service, which ran four buses an hour from 9 am to 9 pm.

Costs and Usage

In a written answer to Green councillor Pete West, Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport, stated that the scheme took £3,829.

Councillor Muten noted, “From my site visit with (council) officers to Portsmouth as part of the research for our scheme, any permanent facility would take three to four years to become established in terms of patronage and it would see significant growth over this period as awareness of it grew.”

He added, “The summer park and ride was priced competitively, with a car full of people being able to park all day and travel to and from the city for £7. Parking for blue badge holders was free.”

Criticism and Feedback

Councillor West has criticized Labour’s park and ride plans. He stated that Brighton and Hove is served by three railway lines and several bus and coach routes. He argued that any drivers using a park and ride would likely have driven in anyway.

Market research, with responses from a third of users, found that more than three-quarters of responders would have driven into Brighton anyway. However, 5 percent of respondents said they would not have come to Brighton and Hove at all without the park and ride.

Future Considerations

Councillor Muten said, “The summer park and ride has provided key learnings for taking forward park and ride in the city, ensuring value for money is offered in terms of learning more about demand, journey origins of users and operational considerations prior to implementing a permanent site.”

He also mentioned, “This trial has value beyond the financial and, given the city environment is precious, determining whether to proceed with a scheme solely on profit seems not to value the city’s residents or its environment.”

Councillor Muten concluded, “After some two decades without a dedicated official park and ride and the lack of political will or leadership to enable this, it is about time we got started.”