Park and ride bus services in the United Kingdom

An exception is Northern Ireland, where the state concern Translink promotes and operates all public transport park and ride schemes.

Schemes are often specially marketed with a specific brand separately from other standard local bus services.

Public transport schemes mostly operate at a net loss, with the budgetary cost justified by the reduction in traffic congestion and reduced need for central parking spaces.

Implementation of public transport park and ride bus services in the UK accelerated through the 1980s and 1990s, although some schemes have failed or been scaled back due to lack of use.

In larger cities, space permitting, sites may also be located at transport hubs or interchange stations further inside the urban area.

Some sites utilise football stadium car parks, as they are not usually in use on working daytimes, as happens in Brighton, Reading, Dorchester and Derby; and also horse racecourses as in Leicester and Cheltenham, although these services may not be available on match/race days.

In 2005 the Campaign to Protect Rural England called for a review of park and ride development expressing concern too many sites were being built on green belt land.

[6] In 2008 in Truro, Cornwall, a scheme was launched aiming to be complementary and integrated with the rural environment, marketed as a "park for cars" rather than a car park, with features such as natural building materials, solar power and waste water management[7] To comply with UK competition legislation, contracts for the bus operation aspect of schemes supported by local authority finance must be put out to commercial tender, although minimum quality conditions are often stipulated as part of the contract.

Some municipal bus companies operate their town's service, such as Edinburgh (Lothian Buses), Nottingham (Nottingham City Transport), Swindon (Thamesdown Transport), Reading (Reading Buses), although the November 2008 transfer of the Ipswich operation from Ipswich Buses to First Eastern Counties demonstrated that council owned bus companies are not necessarily given favourable status in the awarding of council park and ride contracts.

Fleets are often purchased new in whole or in part for the award of a new contract, meaning low floor buses are increasingly common.

[9][10] While most schemes are hailed as a success, and see additions to site/spaces or increase in vehicle size over time, some encounter lower than anticipated passenger numbers and need to be withdrawn/modified.

[13] In 2008 Sefton Council considered rerouting the bus service of Southport's third scheme after initial passenger projections were not met, although comparison was made to the slow start but eventual success of the first site.

In November 2009, Sefton Council announced the third site would be 'mothballed' for an indefinite period of time due to poor usuage.

[16] A service operated by Go North East from the MetroCentre shopping centre coach park non-stop to Newcastle upon Tyne which operated on a model of pre-booked parking was abandoned after a year in September 2008 due to lack of use, replaced by a conventional service with more intermediate stops.

[17] Both Park & Ride sites in Worcester were closed in September 2014 as part of the wider local authority budget cuts at the time.

These services may also operate as limited stop express services, stopping also at any important intermediate locations such as hospitals, railway stations, transport interchanges, out of town shopping centres, suburban retail parks and other places that are likely to see a high number of prospective passengers.

Authority involvement can be singular, or is often jointly between a borough and county council, such as in Bedford,[21] or even as a cooperation between multiple public institutions as part of a wider regional transport initiative.

In the Chester scheme, a 2008 proposal to move from a bus based to a car park based charging system was dropped due to public opposition[25] As well as serving as general public transport to central areas, specialist permanent park and ride services also exist, catering for a more specific user travel need.

NHS Trust supported routes link public park and ride sites to hospitals, such as in Nottingham (Medlink), Reading and Cheltenham, for the benefit of passengers and staff.

These ad-hoc services may not feature a dedicated bus fleet, but rather are provided by drawing on buses from other duties.

[28] Temporary or seasonal services often use free buses, such as Weymouth, which uses existing public pay and display car parks.

[31] Examples of services for specific events are Southampton (for the Boat Show)[26] and Whitby (for the Whitby Regatta)[32] Some high-profile public authority backed schemes employ a common "park and ride" brand identity for their park and ride scheme, and project this brand commonly across a website, printed material, and even extending to the colour of the bus in an all-over livery.

Smaller schemes may not necessarily employ specific marketing or dedicated all-over liveries where the passenger revenue does not justify this, such as in Stoke and Scarborough, although the term "park and ride" is a near-universally accepted term that is still applied to these smaller schemes on timetables and/or non-overall livery route branding.

Schemes will often be promoted in terms of being high quality, with bus drivers undergoing customer service training, and schemes attaining the government Charter Mark for excellence in public service quality, or the Park Mark award for implementing enhanced car park security features.

Other schemes use a bold overall colour scheme to reinforce the brand with publicity material, such as the Chelmsford (jet-black), Maidstone (yellow), Canterbury (Silver base with green piping and decals), York (All-over silver with large red City crests), Basingstoke (purple) and Ipswich (pink), coordinated with the colours used in a website/publications.

At peak times, standard liveried buses from the operator's main fleet may also supplement the service, or as replacement cover in the event of a dedicated vehicle's failure.