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Carlink rural taxi service: West Lothian Council
Nature of case study, area and population served
A4.216 Carlink is a rural taxi service available to anyone travelling in West Lothian. Accessible vehicles are available on request.
A4.217 West Lothian Council's population of 162,800 is predominantly urban, but the Council also serves sizeable rural areas. When considering ways to provide travellers to/from rural areas an alternative to the private car, it the Council saw that rural bus services are not always the optimal solution since levels of demand are low and origins and destinations very dispersed. The result is that rural bus services are expensive to subsidise but do not serve people's needs very well because local authorities can only afford to run them very infrequently. An alternative that has been implemented by WLC is a subsidised taxi service, Carlink, which began in 1999 and has expanded since then to the services listed below.
Types of trip served and number of users
A4.218 Carlink provides a link between any point in defined rural areas of West Lothian with the nearest service centre (i.e. somewhere with shops, primary health care and connections with conventional bus services). Fares vary between £1 and £1.60, with a 60p flat fare for concessionary card holders (as the service is not a registered local bus service and therefore not subject to national legislation on concessionary fares). Users may not use Carlink to travel outwith the defined service areas. The services are as follows:
- Roman Camp/Drumshoreland areas to Broxburn or Uphall Station.
- Gowanbank to/from Linlithgow or Bathgate.
- Beecraigs to/from Linlithgow.
- Parkhead to/from West Calder.
- Newton and Woodend to/from Linlithgow and Winchburgh.
- Breich to/from West Calder.
- Around Blackridge.
A4.219 Most services operate 7 days a week, 0700 to 2300. Users must make a reservation no later than 40 minutes in advance of their desired travel time. Sometimes they will be asked to modify their travel time slightly to fit in with another user, with whom they then share. They can request an accessible taxi but this will only be one equipped with a manual wheelchair ramp, and drivers are not necessarily trained in assisting disabled people. Whilst most users are regulars (about 60-70 of them) who live in the rural areas in question, the service is available to anyone who wishes to travel into a rural area from one of the service centres, and it is occasionally used in this way. In 2004/05 there were 3,261 trips made, of which perhaps 5% were made by disabled people (precise records of which users are disabled people are not kept since there is no need to do so from an accounting viewpoint).
A4.220 Carlink is publicised through the Council's own publication, Outlook. It is also promoted through the Council website, by word of mouth and also by local businesses (pubs, holiday homes) for whose customers Carlink provides a possible means of access.
Parties involved
A4.221 Carlink is run by two local taxi companies operating under contract to West Lothian Council, but wholly funded from the Scottish Executive's Rural Transport fund.
Links to a Wider Strategy
A4.222 Carlink fits clearly into West Lothian Council's Local Transport Strategy ( LTS) and in this sense is very much part of a wider strategy, rather than being a one-off scheme. For example, it supports the following (proposed) objective in the Council's draft LTS:
"To widen accessibility & social inclusion by increasing the opportunities of remote and disadvantaged communities to reach more readily the transport network and lifeline services."
A4.223 It also supports the LTS' objective on integration, and its overall vision, which is to provide West Lothian residents' with a genuine choice of modes of transport. As noted above, Carlink was evaluated against other options for achieving these objectives and found to be particularly suitable for doing so in the context of remoter rural communities.
Costs and subsidy
A4.224 The annual subsidy for Carlink totals around £35,000 (roughly half of the Council's total annual Rural Transport Fund allocation) but this depends on the number of trips made which, in 2004/05, was 3,261. The average subsidy per trip was around £10.60 but there are variations within this: longer trips from the "deeper rural" areas receive a higher subsidy. This subsidy compares favourably with the lightly-used tendered bus services that were the predecessors of Carlink but of course the latter provides a more flexible service than the buses were able to do.
Outcomes and user feedback
A4.225 The service has been set up and modified in consultation with users. They are now overwhelmingly supportive of Carlink, since it has significantly increased their mobility compared with a situation where they were dependent on friends and relatives with cars, plus an infrequent bus service.
A4.226 The operator of the contract in the eastern part of West Lothian reports that there are 3 regular 'disabled' users, one with a fold up wheelchair (so not requiring special vehicle), and 2 with walking aids, all from the Roman camp area. All three make one to two trips per week - two of them to the local supermarket and back, and one to various locations. The service usually picks up people at designated pick up/drop off points, but these three users are picked/up dropped off at their homes, in recognition of their difficulties in walking about and waiting.
A4.227 The relatively low use by disabled people requires further investigation, since Carlink offers a much greater level of service than the three other types of service offered to all residents of West Lothian who have a disability (Dial-a-Bus, Dial-a-Ride and Taxicard), and is also cheaper than two of them. It may simply be that there are relatively few disabled people who live in, or wish to travel to, the areas served by Carlink.
Transferability and future developments
A4.228 If demand merits it, the scheme may be expanded to other parts of West Lothian, although at present it appears that there are no major rural areas that are without conventional bus services and therefore in scope for a possible Carlink service. As a simple and (by the standards of DRT) relatively cheap scheme, the experience of Carlink could be easily transferred to other rural areas.
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