The Trial Scheme for the Development of Public Transport. An Overall Summary of 1991 to 1994 Projects

The Ministry of Transport's Trial Scheme for public transport lasted from 1991 to 1995. Experiments with fares, service routes/small buses, increased frequencies, local express services/high standard services and terminuses show that it is possible to get more travellers to use public transport services. The small bus services, in particular, have attracted new passengers. On average the experiments attracted 42% new passengers. There is still a job to be done with the information campaigns that promote special offers from the bus companies. There is some variation between the different types of experiments, but as many as 22% of the passengers were not aware of the reduced fares on the route they were currently travelling on. In the 1991-95 period 438 mill NOK was allocated to a total of 511 experiments, which the Ministry of the Environment also supported. The working report presents an overall analysis of projects reported on from 1991 to January 1997.