East Midlands Trains and Kinchbus have teamed up to launch a special ticket for students at Loughborough University.

From today (Monday 9 September), students and university staff travelling from Loughborough station to the university will be able to buy a combined bus and rail ticket valid for travel on East Midlands Trains and the Kinchbus ‘sprint’ route.

Neil Micklethwaite, Customer Service and Commercial Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “This is a great example of two local transport operators working together to deliver a better solution for customers in Loughborough, which is at the heart of our operation.

“We have a wonderful station at Loughborough now after all of the recent redevelopment work. It is a great interchange and the launch of this new ticketing initiative provides the final piece in the integration jigsaw here. This ticket will make it so much easier for our customers and the community to make an integrated rail and bus journey to and from the station.  It’s great to be working with Kinchbus again to launch an innovative new product for our customers.”
 
Alex Hornby, Commercial Director of Kinchbus, said: “We’ve been running the main bus route from the station to town and university for many years now, but have been keen to improve the link for customers making part of their journey by rail. This new partnership between Kinchbus and East Midlands Trains, and the new all-in-one ticket, will really improve usability across both modes of transport.”

Bus add-on tickets are priced at just £1.30 for an adult day single fare and are available when buying tickets online or at the station. Kinchbus runs the ‘sprint’ route every 10 minutes between the station, town centre and university, with buses running until as late as 4:30am from the end of September.

East Midlands Trains has also recently installed a ticket-collection machine at Loughborough University, allowing students to book their tickets online and collect them before catching the bus to get to the station.