Ring & Ride – 25 years serving the people of Greater Manchester

Councillor John Dillon with Mrs Pat O’ Donnell from Chadderton, Oldham.

Aimed at providing door-to-door transport for people of all ages who find it difficult to use public transport, Ring & Ride began in July of 1985 as a project within the Community Transport charity. The then GMCC (Greater Manchester County Council) provided capital and revenue funding to supplement job creation funding from the Manpower Services Commission for the new “dial-a-ride” community transport service. GMITA (Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority) has continued to fund and support the service since then.

The service initially began with an office at Fairfield Street in Manchester and operated with just two vehicles, covering north east Manchester.

As more resources became available Ring & Ride expanded, both within Manchester and further afield with new depots in other districts. After Manchester came Leigh, Atherton and Tylesldey (Wigan) then Bury and so on with the experienced Manchester staff working to support the opening of the new depots. Today the service covers all of Greater Manchester with depots in Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Oldham/Rochdale, Tameside, Stockport, Manchester, Salford and Trafford.

One of the vital aspects of the new service when it launched in 1985 was that potential passengers did not have to meet any very strict criteria – the service was open to anyone who found it difficult or impossible to use public transport for whatever reason.

There have, of course, been vast improvements to accessibility across the public transport network in the past 25 years, for example low floor buses, however; Ring & Ride continues to provide a door-to-door transport service for people of all ages who find it difficult to use public transport. This ensures that Ring & Ride’s passengers have access to:

• Fresh food shopping
• Religious services
• Leisure facilities
• Education
• Primary health services

When it began in 1985, the service was operated by the Community Transport charity with funding from the then GMPTA. In 1991, a charitable organisation GMATL (Greater Manchester Accessible Transport Ltd) was set up and it took over the operation of Ring & Ride with GMITA continuing to provide funding and support.

Today Ring & Ride has over 300 staff, 81 buses and more than 40,000 registered users. In the year 2009/10 Ring & Ride provided 1,087,971 passenger journeys.

One of the areas that marked Ring & Ride as cutting edge in the 1980s was the use of computers to record passenger details and trip information. This was a key research tool in helping to prove the need for and help develop and expand the service as it is today.

Whilst ensuring key service elements such as attentive, reliable drivers and modern, accessible vehicles are guaranteed, GMATL is also committed to improving the service for passengers. This can be seen with the introduction of new Trapeze booking system, which will be rolled out across all the call centres.

Councillor Doreen Dickinson is the current Chair of GMATL.

Ring & Ride operates throughout the ten districts of Greater Manchester. Passengers should register and book their journeys through the local depot. For more information on Ring & Ride, including how to register, where passengers can travel to, fares and how to contact their local depot please visit www.ringandride.info