Highlighting service changes to riders in advance

Bus operators regularly need to make changes to timetables such as arrival and departure times, available stops, or even cancelling a service. With the new network changes module, Passenger offers an improved rider experience for communicating planned changes. 

All Passenger operators and local authority customers will be able to publish notice of any planned revised timetables in advance and riders can view the detail of recent and planned changes to service timetables. This gives them advanced notice and ensures they do not miss important changes that affect their journey. 

The new feature allows them to display notices for planned network changes alongside each service on the line list and timetable views, as well as being summarised together on websites for easy reference.

Planned network change notices can either communicate an upcoming change to a schedule or that the service is due to be suspended at some point in the future. They are displayed to the customer when the change is due to come into effect and will remain visible for a period after the change has happened.

The launch comes as many operators across the UK have had to alter routes because of increased pressures facing the industry, including inflationary cost challenges and government support funding coming to an end. Research by the Campaign for Better Transport recently found that more than one in four bus services in England have been cut in the last decade.

Greg Hepworth, Head of Product at Passenger commented: “To help public transport riders make informed decisions about their journeys ahead of time, they need to be assured that they have the latest information available. The ability for operators to communicate timetable changes, beforehand and afterwards, is another tool designed to improve the customer experience.

“The update is an improvement on an existing feature on Passenger Cloud. We will continue reviewing and enhancing all our products to ensure we are providing the most relevant technology to our operator and local authority customers. This feature adds to our growing portfolio of passenger information innovations, such as journey cancellation tools and service disruption alerts. These all work together to achieve the same goal – of creating a seamless, high-quality customer experience that increases confidence in public transport.”