Note that if you purchase something via one of our links, including Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
By offering a community bus service, the First and Last Mile provides a low-carbon lifeline for residents in rural England.
The minibus pulled up in the market square and lowered its ramp. A couple of teenagers and some elderly people pushing shopping trolleys joined us onboard, and the bus pulled away.
I turned to the people next to me, raising my voice to make myself heard above the chatter. “Does anyone get on this bus regularly? I’m writing an article about the First and Last Mile. I was wondering if someone would talk to me about this.” The bus went quiet. “You should talk to Jill,” said someone at the back. “She’ll tell you everything.”
The chatting resumed and I followed outstretched arms pointing at Jill. I settled next to her and introduced myself. Then I asked if she’d tell me about her experience with the bus service, including what it was like before the First and Last Mile existed.
“Terrible,” she said, without hesitation. Jill doesn’t drive, and her village had no bus service at all. “We couldn’t get into Witney [the closest town] at all without a taxi, and those fares have gone up drastically. We had to rely on friends to take us backwards and forwards, and it's not always easy, because they’re not always going where you want to go.” Jill relies on the First and Last Mile’s “Wednesday shopper” service, which takes her to Witney to do her shopping and meet with friends for tea and coffee.
It’s an idea borne of necessity and community care. In 2016, Oxfordshire County Council removed subsidies for rural bus routes. Thousands of people in the area (about 50 miles west of London) who’d relied on public transit — largely seniors and students — suddenly lost their transportation. “What people really needed was a connecting bus to get them to the main bus services,” said David Miles. A parish councilor, Miles worked with a group of bus drivers to create the community-owned, volunteer-run First and Last Mile, which uses minibuses to move people. The county council, he said, “liked the idea and were prepared to provide new funding for it.” The rest of the funding comes from fares and donations.
David and the other founding members began by running a bus service from a regional high school out to villages that, without a school bus, mostly relied on parents to drive the kids. Local community members — often older people who see the job as community service — drive the First and Last Mile minibuses. Many are volunteers, but some receive a small stipend that comes out of the bus fares.
There were a few hiccups. “People were completely out of the habit of using the bus,” David said. “Some parents were saying, we don’t really want amateurs to drive the buses.” He and the other founding members of the First and Last Mile worked hard to win the public’s trust. They are adamant about reliability and have never cancelled a single bus in the 16 months they’ve been operating. They invited children in the schools to participate in naming the buses and designing a logo, and the three minibuses are now called Rumble, Hop-on, and Hop-off.
Their PR campaign worked. “We became victims of our own success, because we ended up carrying many more children than we intended,” David said. The number of children the buses transport grew from eight to more than 50, which, David said, translates to 35–40 fewer cars waiting outside the school.
Founder David Miles is hopeful about the future of the First and Last Mile bus service. ‘We really try to push the boundaries of what is possible.'
David is considering electric minibuses to further reduce carbon emissions, as well as new docking premises where they could install charging infrastructure.
Despite its success, the program continues to face challenges. David often struggles to recruit volunteer drivers. Many of them are retired, and the volunteer pool is aging. Also, since 1997, the UK has required people with regular driver’s licenses to undergo extra training to drive a minibus. The UK government could address this easily by removing or adjusting that restriction, said Tim Schwanen, Professor of Transport Geography at the University of Oxford, adding, “and there also needs to be more financial resources for service providers that can be passed on to drivers as a stipend, or some other financial recognition of the work they’re doing, because this is work and should be treated as such.”
But David is hopeful about the future of the First and Last Mile. “We really try to push the boundaries of what is possible,” he said. “Sometimes that means we’ll do things, and they will work. Sometimes we’ll do things, and they won’t work. We’re not ashamed to fail.”
For Jill and others, the First and Last Mile has become a low-carbon lifeline. “It’s our dream come true, really,” she told me. “Because if you live on your own and you want to go out for a cup of coffee, you meet everybody on the bus, and we just have a good time. I don’t want it to stop. The more people who get on the bus, the better.”
