THE SANDY Point Bus Management Committee (SPBMC) is getting ready to launch a scheduled service for ‘Sandy,’ their new Community E - Bus. 

Sandy is a shuttle service that transports residents and visitors from Sandy Point, Waratah Bay and the surrounding areas to where they need to be. 

The vehicle is a fully electric 10 seater bus with wheelchair lifting and carrying capabilities.

On Friday March 1 the first official drive of Sandy on its newly scheduled service will run. 

A scheduled service will be in place for Mondays and Tuesdays, with volunteer drivers available for the rest of the week, however services on these days may depend on bookings.   

La Trobe University are also undertaking a two year pilot program of the service and are asking bus users to fill out a survey to help understand who will be using the bus, why, where they want to go and when, in order to help develop longer term schedules and services.

La Trobe will help SPBMC to manage results, data and information from the trial and will then be helping to manage the best possible outcome for the community. 

The bus has been running over the past couple of weeks and Danny Milton, a member of SPBMC and Project Engagement Officer for La Trobe University said that it had so far been used for a variety of purposes. 

They had taken ad hoc bookings and had also had requests for transport to places such as bowls in Fish Creek, shopping in Foster, medical appointments and socialising in Leongatha and to the V/Line connection as well as to and from private social functions in various places. 

There won’t be any standard fees for the bus service, but the SPBMC, who are a non-profit organisation are looking to see that bus users becomes non-executive members of the committee and then make a donation.  

Sandy is fully electric but she hasn’t yet been run too low and drivers have never had to charge the bus for more than two and a quarter hours, when they dropped down to about 39 per cent charge.

To find out more about Sandy and inquire about a booking go to sandypointebus.wixsite.com/ebus.