Devon County Council's Cabinet has approved schemes in Exeter which they say will help to improve the reliability of bus services and cut journey times.

The aim of the schemes is to encourage more people to use bus services and at the meeting of our Cabinet on Wednesday councillors gave the schemes the go-ahead in Barnstaple, Exeter and Newton Abbott.

In Exeter the focus is on two main routes that service the City, the Exeter Eastern Bus Corridor (between Sidwell Street and Pinhoe Sainsbury’s) and the Exeter Central Bus Corridor (between Paris Street Roundabout to Middlemoor Roundabout, along Honiton Road and Heavitree Road).

On both routes a mixture of measures to improve bus priority are proposed; these include improvements to traffic signal efficiency and monitoring, and the coordination of signalised crossings and junctions.

And upgrades to the five Variable Message Signs (VMS) on the eastern and central corridors would show a greater range of messaging to road users to help improve traffic flow.

Infrastructure improvements include extending the bus lane at Livery Dole by introducing pre-signals and increasing bus lane operation times on all bus lanes. Investment will also be spent in improvements to bus stops, shelters and 'real time' information displays along both corridors.

The three schemes will cost in total approximately £2.8m and follows Devon County Council (DCC) being awarded £14.1m of Bus Service Improvement Plan funding by the Department for Transport in 2022.

The initial proposals were approved by cabinet in October 2023. Each scheme will include a mixture of infrastructure improvements and new technology.

The measures could save 3 minutes 20 seconds per bus on the eastern corridor and approximately 4 minutes per bus on the central corridor.

Both schemes were consulted on in February and a consultation was held in January. All schemes are subject to the resolution of the traffic regulation order and funding being confirmed.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council's cabinet member for Highway Management said: "The proposals before you are a great example of how Devon is modernising the way it manages its highway network on our busiest bus corridors. Technological upgrades to optimise our traffic signals on key bus routes in Exeter, Newton Abbot and Barnstaple will help improve bus journey times and fulfil our statutory network management duty.

"Wider upgrades to our traffic control system with cameras in Exeter and Newton Abbot will also help our network operations team better monitor and manage the signals when incidents occur which will benefit all road users. There will also be upgrades to variable message signing on the selected corridors in Exeter to influence driver behaviour. This may include positive messaging to encourage mode shift or alerting drivers of upcoming events or congestion.

"The proposals will allow us to manage our highway network more intelligently and keep people moving and so I fully support and move these recommendations."