Demand responsive transport in rural areas

Dealing with a dispersed population is a major challenge for rural transport – could demand responsive services, rather than regular routes, be part of the answer? Unlike cities, where the population clusters in neighbourhoods and high rises, rural dwellers are spread among small villages and outlying farms. Keeping everyone connected to a regular bus route and for their ‘first and last mile’ is often simply not viable. But, this can make it difficult for rural people to access the services they need – especially when health and social services are increasingly centralised in larger towns and cities. Demand responsive transport (DRT) models can help get people where they need to go, by responsively designing daily routes around those destinations, rather than maintaining costly, inflexible timetables.