Hampshire County Council is planning to double bus use by making journeys quicker and greener.

The updated Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) outlines a five-year strategy to secure government and private investment for upgrading facilities, creating priority lanes, and expanding timetables, with more services in the evenings and on Sundays.

The aim is to increase bus use to 42 million journeys annually by 2038.

The plan was first developed in 2021 by Hampshire County Council, Stagecoach, First Bus, and Go South Coast/Bluestar, in collaboration with Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council, and local district councils.

The partnership has already achieved significant milestones, including securing £7.2 million from the Department for Transport to extend existing bus services.

This has resulted in more evening services on the Bluestar 1 route between Winchester and Southampton, which now operates 24 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

Hampshire County Council leader, councillor Nick Adams-King, said: "The plan sets aspirations for a high quality, efficient and dependable network of bus services across the county which will work well in more urban areas of the county where commercial services thrive.

"However, this is less easy to achieve in rural areas where we subsidise some bus services and where demand still has not recovered from the impact of the pandemic. With lower demand, the value for money we can get from supporting buses worsens and in some cases drops below what is viable.

"So, while we have set an ambitious plan, we want also to encourage those who don’t regularly use a bus to ‘get on board’ and help keep rural services running, particularly for those who can’t drive, including the young, more elderly and those on lower incomes."

Other improved services include a newly added Sunday service for Basingstoke and Newbury routes, and increased daytime and evening services for the Stagecoach 6 in Farnborough.

The plan also benefited from the Transforming Cities Fund, enhancing bus interchange facilities.

A new fleet of 62 electric buses in Fareham, Gosport, and parts of Portsmouth, funded by the Department for Transport's Zero Emission Bus Regional Area fund, has also supported the goal of carbon emission-free travel.