Serving the community
Group Membership is available to organisations, clubs, and community groups who wish to arrange group journeys or excursions to joint events or places of common interest to their members. An annual membership fee is payable by the organisation, and the specified charge for each journey is invoiced by Cambridge Dial-a-Ride to the organisation after completion of each journey. Group members are not required to pay an individual fare.
Cambridge Dial-a-Ride operates minibuses up to a maximum of 15 seats. The number of passengers in each travel group will need to be specified for each journey in order to ensure that your requirements can be matched with Cambridge Dial-a-Ride’s available resources on the date in question. However, the extent of available seating will also be determined by the number of passengers in your travel group who use mobility aids. This will relate particularly to users of manual and electric wheelchairs, since the space allocated in each bus to wheelchairs will necessarily reduce the number of fixed seats available.
Other mobility equipment, such as walking frames, also occupies space in the buses when stored for the journey, and it is vital that such aids are not allowed to compromise doors or gangways or to block emergency exits. Cambridge Dial-a-Ride will ask that the extent of such mobility equipment likely to be brought on board by each group be specified in advance in order to avoid problems relating to storage space during the journey. Guide dogs and other help dogs may be carried by Cambridge Dial-a-Ride but other animals are not conveyed.
Your organisation should note that Cambridge Dial-a-Ride does not provide escorts or assistance other than the help normally offered by drivers to their passengers while boarding or leaving the bus, or while securing wheelchairs or fastening seat-belts. If individuals require extra or specific support, this must be supplied by escorts organised by your organisation. Your organisation or your group organiser on the day remains responsible for the care and conduct of its members at all times during journeys. A designated group organiser on the day is responsible for ensuring that all members are present as planned for the outward and particularly that all have re-joined the bus for the return journey.
Passengers will be embarked at the boarding point specified at the time of making a booking for group travel. This can be from the address for the organisation or from another, designated location. It is important that our minibuses can legally and safely stop both to collect and to disembark passengers in a location that offers no risk to passengers or to staff of Cambridge Dial-a-Ride.
Passengers in your travel group can be collected individually from private addresses, but in such cases the time required for individual pick-ups must be planned into your arrangements so that the group can begin its journey at the time required for a safe and timely arrival at the planned destination. Drivers are not responsible for delays caused by group members. Collecting passengers individually will also have an impact on the mileage travelled by our buses, which will be reflected in the charge calculated for the booking. Passengers are returned to the point of original embarkation unless alternative arrangements have been agreed with your organisation in advance and consequentially costed for the booking.
You can apply for individual membership of Cambridge Dial-a-Ride using the individual membership application form. Click the link below to download the form, print, complete and then return to us by post or e-mail. Alternatively you can contact us by telephone or post to request an application form.
