Nottingham City Council in partnership with Nottingham City Transport (NCT) and Trentbarton buses has won the Colin Buchanan Infrastructure Award at the UK Bus Awards for the Derby Road bus demonstration project.

The Derby Road bus demonstration project co-ordinates investment on one road to try and encourage people to use public transport. The project uses measures from introducing new buses and bus lanes to offering travellers personalised journey plans, electronic/real time information and better ticketing.

The City Council and its partners have introduced the following improvements:

• NCT have bought new buses for route 36  from the City Centre to Chilwell and along with the City Council have introduced a new University bus service - route 34 from the City Centre to Nottingham University main campus
• Electronic displays at many bus stops from the City Centre to Chilwell and multi route departure boards at the Queens Medical Centre
• Electronic departure boards at Broadmarsh bus station
• Citycard and personalised journey plans for City residents living on Derby Road
• NCT Easyrider integrated into Nottingham University Student Union cards to make it easier to access discounted travel

Nottingham City Council in partnership with Nottingham City Transport also won the Integration Award for its Unilink bus services connecting the city and University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University. The partnership was also runner-up in the Winning New Customers Award for its Easyrider and Citycard scheme.

Cllr Jane Urquhart Portfolio holder for Transport and Area Working said: “We are delighted that our partnership working with local bus operators has been recognised with this prestigious national award. Passengers have benefited greatly from the changes which are shown in the 5% increase in bus users over the last 5 years which equates to over 16m trips between April 2006 and April 2007 since the improvements were made. We are confident that we will see further rises of between 1 and 2 % per annum in the future and due to the success of this demonstration corridor the City Council is looking to mirror these improvements on other bus corridors in the city.”

Mark Fowles, Managing Director for Nottingham City Transport stated “Our success at the recent bus awards reflects the benefits of working in partnership to tackle complex public transport challenges, all 3 projects which were recognized by BIA have provided passengers with a far better service which would not have been possible without joint working”

The East Midlands Development Agency provided £430k of funding for the Derby Road demonstration corridor.