LibertyBus services reduced

From this Saturday, 28 March, LibertyBus is introducing a revised timetable in response to the reduced demand caused by coronavirus.

To ensure that critical workers and vulnerable people can continue to travel they will still be operating a core service, but many routes will start later and finish earlier and will run less frequently.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Deputy Kevin Lewis, said: “We are working closely with LibertyBus to adapt our services to the Island’s needs. Islanders are acting responsibly by practising social distancing and working from home where possible, and that has resulted in a significant fall in demand for bus services.

“It makes financial and operational sense to adapt the service, and LibertyBus will be sensitive to the needs of Islanders, particularly our critical workers, who are needed to keep the Island running.”

The main changes to the timetable include:

• Weekday services will start later and finish earlier with reduced frequency at peak times.
• Saturday services will be the same as the Sunday timetables, with many services running less frequently, and no early and late services.
• Routes 1 and 15 will be reduced to half hourly service rather than every 15 minutes.
• Routes 1a, 2, 5, 7, 12, 13 and 19 will have a reduced timetable
• Routes 6, 11 and 28 will not operate as these are largely covered by other routes.
• Route 4a will run instead of Route 4 on Saturdays: this means there will be no buses to Bouley Bay, Bonne Nuit Bay, and areas north of Trinity Church at weekends.

The new timetable balances the need to follow the latest social distancing advice, with the needs of essential workers with no other travel options.

Kevin Hart, Director of LibertyBus said: “We’ve looked closely at our service and developed a timetable that we hope meets the needs of those still having to travel for essential purposes. In the extreme cases where key workers cannot get a bus within an hour of the normal scheduled time they should contact our customer service team and we will do our very best to get them where they need to be, either with scheduled services or with minibuses if necessary.

“We’ll be reviewing the schedules constantly over the coming days and weeks and have ensured we have a strong business continuity plan in place meaning we can quickly re-build the service when it’s called for.”

The latest version of the timetable is available on the LibertyBus website. Any critical workers needing an alternative service should contact LibertyBus on 01534 828555 by 12:00 the day before they need to travel.

Critical workers currently include those focused on health and care, formal emergency responses, public protection, social work and residential childcare.