11/09/2025
Did you know ..... when our team has been out and about recently, a concern made by potential users of the door to door service is that they don't "feel right" about booking journeys and a large minibus turn up when a smaller taxi sized MPV would do for them and a carer.
We'd like to let everyone know that we've trialled taxi sized MPV's and smaller minibuses over the years, but they're not versatile enough for the work we're currently doing.
Some of the reasons are that they are often limited to carrying one (or at most 2) wheelchairs, and with mobility equipment getting larger by the year, often the lifts on the smaller vehicles are to small to take large power chairs on safely.
As well as catering for individual passengers, we regularly carry groups of up to 16 passengers, and while the same bus has turned up for you, earlier in the day, it may have may have taken a group to a choir session or lunch club. We configure the seats and wheelchar carrying capacity each day to match the work we have by adding or removing seats.
So, we're making the best use of the buses we have and are reducing the numbers of smaller less versatile minibuses that often sit doing nothing.
Another misconception is that the smaller vehicles are cheaper to operate, but the only saving might be in the cost of the fuel used. The driver is paid the same whatever they drive, the insurance and maintenance costs are still the same as the larger vehicles. Individual door to door customers are charged the same fare whatever vehicle turns up at your door - so don't worry that you might be charged more because of the size of the bus that turns up.
We hope that you find this information helpful and gives you an insight to how we try our best to make the minibuses work as hard as we can. So don't be concerned if a bus thats larger than you need turn up - its all sorted!
