Announcing MYFIRSTMILE

On Tuesday, 15th May 2018 we launched MYFIRSTMILE in partnership with First West of England. Our launch event attracted in the words of a reporter who came “The great and the good of the West transport scene” including Tim Bowles (WECA Metro Mayor), Giles Fearnley (MD of First Bus UK), and James Freeman (MD of First West of England) among others.

The great and good of the West transport scene are here, below holding up leaflets (which we can’t read but look great) pic.twitter.com/OKW5MkmyS5

— Pete Simson (@SimsonPete) May 15, 2018

This trial service provides regular links from places with few or no bus services to rapid bus network, for a single all-inclusive, affordable price.

The customer facing app is lightweight and the service is simple – passengers prepay and then catch scheduled routes in the morning to a bus stop served by high-frequency routes; in the afternoon, they travel to the ‘hub’ where a waiting taxi takes them to their door, along with other passengers.

However, below the surface, we (Esoterix) bring new rigour to the service design with our end-to-end process of

• identifying gaps,
• analysing travel patterns,
• virtually designing and comparing potential services, and finally,
• simulating operational factors.

We’ll be bringing you more about the process over the next few weeks. For now, having had our heads buried deep-in-data processing for quite a while, it’s thrilling to have vehicles on the road and be testing in the field.

Our thanks to City Fox Group for their help in managing day-to-day operations and to our wonderful drivers – Frank, Shabbir and Jameel.

MYFIRSTMILE is part of the Innovate UK supported Mobility on Demand Laboratory Environment. We are grateful to our partners Bristol City Council, First Bus, Transport Systems Catapult and University of the West of England for their ongoing collaboration.