Bus companies blame rising costs and fewer passengers, while councils say they can't afford to subsidise every route.
Gabriel Morris reports.
Gabriel Morris reports.
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00:00It's just gone 11 a.m. on the Queensway estate in Sheerness.
00:04These pensioners waiting for the 362 to take them into town for shopping. They all rely on the bus.
00:11Because of the means of transport, I don't drive and I can't walk because I've got bad legs.
00:16So it's just I have to catch the bus, but yeah, you're restricted.
00:21The last service into town is at 1.20 in the afternoon.
00:25Sylvia, in her 90s, takes the bus once a week. It drops her at Tesco.
00:31By the time she's finished shopping in town, there's no bus home and she has to take a taxi.
00:39Nothing's helping people on the island. It's just going downhill.
00:45And they're not looking after what the people want, you know.
00:50With fears growing that services could worsen in the coming years, is there any hope for public transport?
00:57Devolution will happen at some point.
01:01The Promise is a TFL for Kent. The Promise is an integrated transport service that isn't just about, you know,
01:09there is a bus company that can deal with this small part of a county where you don't get economies of scale,
01:14where you're essentially allowing private companies to call the shots.
01:17Instead, you can have a system controlled by the democratically elected representatives who do the franchising,
01:24who choose the routes, and then just find a contractor to carry it out, just as happens in London.
01:29The bus operators are sceptical that copying the Transport for London model in Kent will work.
01:35And when you get politicians controlling something, sometimes the commerciality can be taken out of situations.
01:42I don't believe that the TFL model is financially sustainable above all.
01:49Yet there is broad agreement that local government reorganisation could lead to better coordination when it comes to buses.
01:57I think devolution could unlock lots of current logjams in the bus system.
02:03The big thing with all of this, now or in the future, is going to be funding.
02:07It's going to be difficult without seed funding, without some subsidies in places, to actually really transform our public transport network.
02:14But I think devolution does that, both in the immediate term with having a mayor right at the top table,
02:19being able to bang the drum for these improvements.
02:21With no quick fix in sight, the question does remain.
02:25Can Kent keep its buses running long enough for devolution to make any difference?