Creating travel choices in our cities

Cardiff Bus’ customers will be able to seamlessly travel around the city thanks to a collaboration between leading bike-share operator nextbike, Cardiff Bus and Passenger. This journey planning addition allows essential workers travelling around the city now – and the passengers of the future, post-lockdown – more options for planning their essential journeys.

Bus operators across the country are beginning to reintroduce services as lockdown rules begin to ease. Social distancing and capacity planning remain crucial to success – both in keeping people safe and giving those passengers that rely on public transport, the confidence to return.

Passenger wanted to move quickly to make this happen. “Anticipating the challenges the UK would have trying to social distance on public transport, we immediately knew that cycle hire schemes could make a difference. Having already worked with a bike share company in Bournemouth, we contacted nextbike to help get their bike and bay locations featured on the Cardiff Bus app and website” explains CEO Tom Quay. “Key workers can now see the locations of nextbike bikes across Cardiff, providing them with travel options that support social distancing recommendations.”

Gareth Stevens, Operations and Commercial Director at Cardiff Bus said: “Cardiff Bus are thrilled to be able to integrate nextbike locations into our app and website. Not only does it give people travelling in Cardiff more options when planning their essential journeys right now, but it also helps to bridge the first mile last mile gaps, which will ultimately help to keep our city greener and cleaner in the future.”

Bus and bike-share providers are aware of the challenges the next months hold, but are working to alleviate concerns and make travelling as safe as possible.

nextbike MD Krysia Solheim said: “This collaboration allows us to empower Cardiff citizens to make more choices about the way they travel, which is going to be even more important moving forward post-lockdown. Cycling is going to be a huge part of transport in the future, and the more options we can give people to cycle thanks to collaborations like this one with Cardiff Bus and Passenger, can only be a good thing”.