Fife Council is starting a long-term engagement process in order to increase public participation in designing core services and deciding how a significant portion of its budget is spent.

We’re asking residents to find out more about the passenger transport services we provide, which help people travel around Fife for a variety of reasons. We invest £22 million each year in these services.

Over the year ahead, we want Fifers to help us explore whether resources could be used differently, for better results. This is about working together to design the best solutions for the future.

We’ve published a range of information to help people understand what we invest in at the moment, and why we think it’s important

http://our.fife.scot/transportingpeople

This includes supported local bus services, rail concessions, school transport and demand responsive transport.

• Right now, people have a chance to understand the impact these services have on Fifer’s lives, how much they cost and to tell the council what they think already works well, or to ask questions about the services.
• In October and November, we’ll ask what solutions people would like to see in an ideal world. This will involve an interactive online conversation where residents will be able to rate and comment on each other’s ideas, as well as face to face conversations with transport users.
• Early in 2020, we’ll start to consider how ‘the dream’ matches up with policy, legislation, existing contracts and other practicalities, so that we can refine ideas and gather some more specific feedback.
• Later in 2020, we’ll put some concrete options up for a vote.

This is not a traditional consultation process. Several phases of engagement, including opportunities to get involved offline as well as online, will explore a complex set of services, which are inextricably linked to other public services and wider aspects of community life.  This is one of the ways in which we are taking forward participatory budgeting (PB) in Fife.  This is a new approach for councils and we will be learning from it as we go.  You can find out more about PB, and what we’re aiming to achieve through https://pbscotland.scot/charter

Please encourage your family, friends and local communities to look out for information and get involved.

The first phase of the exercise is live now, with information available at http://our.fife.scot/transportingpeople

To join online debates and submit feedback Fifers need to register with a new citizen participation platform, ‘Let’s Talk about our Fife’. This online platform is being developed by COSLA for Scottish councils to use. It will increasingly allow councils to open up debates and gather feedback, as well as letting residents share ideas and submit proposals, comment on other people’s input and participate in votes and polls. Through the various sections of the system, citizen-generated ideas can lead to actions by Fife Council and partners.

Bus travel in East Fife is as easy as ABC

• Multi-operator bus ticket comes to Fife
• New travel zone for North East Fife, including Glenrothes and Levenmouth
• Partnership approach provides new smart ticket options

The ABC bus ticket scheme, already available in Dundee, is coming to Fife this week, providing new ticket options for less.

Bus operators have once again joined forces to offer an unlimited travel, smart bus ticket to people who need to use more than one bus company to make their journey. The existing ABC bus scheme is already available in Dundee and offers adult and child versions of the multi-operator ticket, which is accepted on any Moffat & Williamson, Stagecoach or Xplore Dundee bus.

The three bus operators have now extended the scheme into Fife, offering two new ticket zones for passengers in Dundee and East Fife. The three zones available from 3 June will be the existing Dundee zone, a new East Fife zone and a third area which combines Dundee and East Fife. The development means that bus users can connect up their journeys using more than one operator, or continue onward journeys using another service, without paying for separate tickets.

The new East Fife zone covers travel from the Tay Road bridge, south to include St Andrews and the East Neuk, Leven and as far east as Glenrothes, Strathmiglo, Auchtermuchty and Newburgh.
The ABC ticket scheme is making smart bus travel even easier. Tickets are loaded onto a smartcard – a durable card which is ‘read’ by the ticket machine on the bus and can be used time and time again.

ABC, which stands for All Bus Companies, has already facilitated almost 100k passenger journeys since it was launched in Dundee in 2016. The expansion into Fife, now provides even more journey opportunities, making bus travel more affordable and even easier with just one ticket required.
ABC tickets are valid for 1 day or 7 days and can be purchased for an adult or a child. Most tickets can be bought from the driver by loading an existing smartcard with the product, or customers can buy ABC tickets at Seagate bus station in Dundee, the Xplore Dundee travel shop on Commercial St Dundee, or at St Andrews bus station.

The partnership also involves Dundee City Council and Fife council, and is supported by Transport Scotland and Smarter Choices, Smarter Places programme funding.