Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the initial performance of the Demand Response Travel project funded in 2021 in the rural North East of Hertfordshire.

Our £20m Rural Mobility Fund is supporting 17 innovative, demand-led minibus trials in rural and suburban areas including in North East Hertfordshire. These pilots are exploring whether Demand Responsive Travel can serve these communities more effectively than traditional public transport solutions alone. While it is too early to assess the full impact of the pilots, early indications show Hertfordshire County Council have exceeded the journey target they had set for the first year after launch.