Memorandum by the National Federation
of Bus Users (Bus 08)
THE BUS INDUSTRY
1. SUBSIDIES
IN THE
UNITED KINGDOM
BUS INDUSTRY,
AND THE
RESULT OF
"BUS CHALLENGE"
INITIATIVES IN
RURAL AND
URBAN COMMUNITIES.
1. The Transport Act of 1985 replaced blanket
bus network subsidies with a more transparent system to target
subsidies on routes and specific journeys.
2. This means that unlike the railways where
the Strategic Rail Authority dispenses subsidies centrally for
groups of services, bus services which are not commercial but
meet essential transport needs are funded by local authorities
from non-specific non-ring-fenced allocations from individual
local authority budgets. As a result, in spite of the good practice
now encouraged by the requirement to develop bus strategies, the
level and quality of supported services can vary considerably
from one area to another depending on the policies for supported
services adopted by each PTE, shire county and unitary authority.
In our view the only way to ensure that bus users get the level
and quality of service they have a right to expect, regardless
of who controls their local council and where they live, is to
impose some form of statutory minimum standards. But this must
be backed up by the provision of adequate and targeted funding.
3. In general terms there is clearly a need
for more revenue to be supplied for funding of services. As major
operators focus their attention and resources more and more on
busy urban areas where they can most easily attract higher usage
by laying on high quality networks, other services particularly
in rural areas have become more vulnerable to withdrawal. Many
local authorities are struggling now to keep their existing supported
networks. For shire authorities, this is not helped by the requirement
for most of the Rural Bus Grant to be spent on providing new or
enhanced services. This restriction should be further eased so
that additional funding can be provided to keep existing services
going rather than to buy in new services for which demand is inevitably
less.
4. Turning to challenge schemes, the NFBU
has concerns about these. Again we suggest that some of the funds
could be better applied to help existing actual passengers rather
than notional potential passengers.
5. There seems to be little consistency
in what is expected from challenge-funded projects in terms of
outcomes, nor has much work been done to quantify the actual passenger
benefits. Submissions are time-consuming for local authority staff:
time and energy spent on such bids, whether successful or not,
divert officers from the more mundane but very important tasks
of their day-to-day work. It appears to us that funds seem to
be awarded on the basis of how much new technology is involved,
or promised, rather than proven benefits to the passenger.
6. Even where a scheme is delivering a level
of practical benefit there are doubts as to how this can be sustained
once the initial challenge funding has dried up. For example,
the Wiltshire Wiggly Bus scheme has now been running for nearly
three years but still requires heavy subsidy. How are such schemes
to continue once challenge funds stop? Demand responsive schemes
linked into existing services eg the Lincolnshire Connect scheme,
do seem to be more sustainable.
7. Fuel duty rebate is a significant source
of subsidy within the bus industry. There has been some discussion
about its abolition on the grounds that it does not always directly
benefit the passenger. Any change to this funding mechanism must
see this money kept within the bus industry to deliver better
services for passengers, possibly by rewarding operators meeting
agreed targets on passenger growth or reliability. However, the
NFBU eagerly awaits the implementation of last year's promised
extension of FDR to long distance coaches as a quid pro quo for
the introduction of concession fares on those services.
8. The Transport Act 2000 has now set concessionary
fares, and hence reimbursement for those fares, on a statutory
footing. This is good news and the NFBU welcomes this change.
2. RELATIVE MERITS
OF BUS
QUALITY PARTNERSHIPS
AND BUS
QUALITY CONTRACTS
1. Bus Quality Partnerships. Even
though buses are run by commercial bus companies, local authorities
have an important part to play in the provision of quality bus
networks. This is because of their responsibility both for the
operating environment for bus operation and support for uncommercial
but socially necessary services. The development of BQPs in recent
years constitutes a recognition of the importance of partnerships
between bus operators and local authorities which we very much
welcome. The problem however, is that so many local authorities
set off with excellent declarations of intent which get delayed
and watered down in delivery. This is because councillors have
to face an electorate, which is dominated by car users who can
be very vociferous and determined in their opposition to attempts
to give buses real priority over other traffic and have very little
interest in improving bus infrastructure. The attempt to provide
a statutory framework for BQPs in the Transport Act 2000 should
ensure that these partnerships are not just declarations of intent.
Our concern is that both operators and local authorities seem
to be wary of taking on partnerships which are legally binding.
2. Bus Quality Contracts. We do
not see any great advantage in Quality Contracts in urban areas
where bus operators have made substantial investment in the provision
of high frequency services operated with low floor buses. Anxieties
about operators focussing on busy routes to the detriment of others
could perhaps be addressed by BQPs including a requirement for
operators to run some less profitable services where substantial
improvements have been made to the operating environment. We do
not believe that in general local councils have the resources
and expertise to do a better job in the planning and design of
what are primarily commercial networks. On the other hand, in
rural areas where bus use is thin and many services are already
operated under contract to the local authority, often by small
independent companies, Quality Contracts may well prove a more
efficient way of providing better service networks, especially
if local authorities actually work in partnership with each other
where services cross over LA boundaries.
3. REGULATION
AND THE
BUS INDUSTRY
1. There is no doubt that the upheaval of
deregulation undermined passenger confidence in local bus services
during the 1980s. But during the last decade the system has largely
settled down with bus networks in urban areas undergoing dramatic
improvements, in spite of current difficulties with driver shortages
and occasional outbreaks of destructive head to head competition.
There are problems however, with the existing limited regulation
of the bus industry.
2. Competition Rules and the Office of Fair
Trading. We are worried about the restrictions, real and perceived,
resulting from the OFT's enforcement of competition legislation
eg the prevention of route sharing, joint timetabling and extensive
coordination of all types of ticketing by different operators.
All this is stifling integration of bus services so necessary
to the development of a coordinated network, which is what all
passengers want and which is essential to increase bus usage in
line with government long term aims. NFBU would like to point
out that voluntary coordination would not prevent—indeed
it could encourage—further operators from entering the industry
and that an integrated network of individual enterprises could
still compete in the quality areas of customer care, vehicle standards
and punctuality—thus fulfilling government aspirations to
preserve competition—but only where it makes sense and is
complementary to other official policies. NFBU believes that OFT
strangulation of voluntary operator cooperation inhibits coordinated
bus service provision and is not in the public interest. NFBU
further believes that bus services should be regarded by the competition
authorities as competing within an overall transport mix, in which
there is considerable competition from other modes, car in particular.
3. Passenger Representation Complaints—Bus
Appeals Body. Statutory consumer representation has been in place
in the railway industry for half a century. In the case of the
bus industry, even though two thirds of journeys on public transport
are made by bus, nothing has been provided for the bus passengers
outside London. The statutory arrangements for London may not
be appropriate to the more complex system, which exists in the
rest of the country, but we feel more needs to be done to encourage
bus user representation.
4. Monitoring of registered bus timetable
performance outside London and vehicle mechanical fitness have
long been the responsibility of the Traffic Commissioners and
Vehicle Inspectorate but they do not have any specific remit for
dealing with passengers' concerns. We at the NFBU worked with
the Confederation of Passenger Transport to set up the Bus Appeals
Body (BAB), an independent review body, in 1998 to deal with complaints
about bus operation where the passenger has failed to obtain what
they regard as satisfactory reply from the operator. Bus operators
have almost always accepted the decisions of the BAB even though
they are not legally enforceable and we do need to work more closely
with the Traffic Commissioners.
5. The BAB however has no remit to consider
consumer complaints about operators' commercial decisions about
routes and timetables. These need to be addressed to the local
authority whose responsibility it is to decide what uncommercial
services need to be operated with a subsidy to meet essential
local transport needs. We help bus users make representations
to local councils about these complaints but would like to see
more consumer involvement in decisions taken both about subsidised
services and infrastructure for which local councils are also
responsible. Currently more and more councils have set up transport
forums to provide an input from the community but we have always
been sceptical about the extent to which these really engage bus
users at the bus stop.
6. Bus Users' Surgeries. That is why in
recent years we have developed a scheme whereby we have enlisted
the support both of local government officers and local bus operator
managers in the holding of bus users' surgeries. The surgeries
are held on a bus/buses parked in town centres to provide bus
users with an opportunity to talk individually and face to face
with those responsible for local bus services. We do a follow
up to ensure that the points raised have been addressed and invite
all those who attended the surgery to a special meeting where
they can continue their discussions with service providers. This
now includes the playing of a special video we have made to help
bus users understand how the bus system works. We are currently
working on a special project to adapt the scheme for rural areas.
7. The DTLR has supported this work and
we are currently preparing guidance for local authorities and
bus operators on bus passenger representation. We would like to
see surgeries form part of the arrangements for both BQPs and
QBCs to ensure that consumer complaints and suggestions are addressed,
but even better we would like to see our scheme accepted as an
essential way of involving consumers in efforts to develop attractive
and better used bus networks whether commercial or supported,
especially where important decisions are being taken about routes
and services. We could do a great deal more if the support we
receive from the bus industry was balanced by more substantial
support from the Government.
4. IMPORTANCE
OF BUS
PRIORITY MEASURES
AND ENFORCEMENT
1. The bus industry has invested heavily
in new accessible vehicles over the last five years; the age profile
of the bus fleet has been transformed from unacceptable into one
which is now very favourable. The attendant benefits are lower
emissions and improved accessibility for less able-bodied passengers.
These effects can only be maximised by effecting a modal switch
away from car, which can be achieved by making the bus an economic
and convenient alternative. Good bus priorities, properly enforced,
are essential to give the bus the advantage it needs over the
car in terms of journey times in urban centres. These need to
be adequately enforced; bus priorities installed at a cost of
some thousands of pounds and giving potential cost benefits of
many times that investment are frequently rendered useless by
a single illegally parked vehicle in a bus lane.
2. Passenger concerns about the effects
of congestion and abuse of bus priorities and facilities inspired
us to launch the Congestion Busters campaign in October 2001.
We visited Newcastle, Bradford, York, Nottingham, Birmingham,
Bristol, Cardiff, Southampton and Brighton as a representative
selection of urban centres, and in nearly every case we found
that bus priorities were too little to have a meaningful effect
on bus journey times and that abuse of bus priorities and of bus
stops, by other vehicles negated the effects of providing the
facilities in the first place. Of the towns visited, only Brighton,
where a pro-active bus company and a local authority faced with
more difficult traffic problems than most, had achieved a great
deal in getting in good priorities. Decriminalised parking there
has reduced the related problem of cars parked in bus stops. Similar
powers applied to moving vehicle offences could deliver a similar
improvement in enforcement of bus priorities.
3. In addition to our concerns about enforcement,
we are concerned about the scarcity of priorities in centres like
York and Southampton—we subsequently found the same in Salisbury,
which urgently needs a modal shift to public transport—and
all too often priorities are confined to locations where there
is plenty of road space and do not give the bus a useful means
of getting through pinch points. Lanes are sometimes too narrow
too to accommodate the width of a bus on corners—Bristol
for one has a number of such instances in its bus lanes. The whole-route
approach to bus priorities and other infrastructure improvements
brings definite benefits, but there still needs to be more boldness
in ensuring that bus priorities continue through pinch points,
where they are really needed. These invariably are on routes with
a major throughput of passengers, though further creation of bus
lanes on routes which carry fewer passengers could lead to a beneficial
modal shift on routes with unrealistic growth potential.
4. Bus priorities are of greatest benefit
when they are not applied piecemeal and much stronger enforcement
is necessary to ensure their effectiveness in securing bus journey
times which are more akin to car journey times in urban centres.
They are also essential if bus operators are to meet the more
stringent reliability requirements now being applied by the Traffic
Commissioners.
5. THE CONTRIBUTION
OF BUS
SERVICES TO
REDUCING SOCIAL
EXCLUSION
1. It is apparent that there is a conflict
at present between government bus related objectives and this
also applies in the area of social exclusion. The Ten Year Transport
Plan envisages a (modest) growth in bus usage of 10 per cent in
the period 2000 to 2010 but success in doing this on commercial
routes may be achieved at the expense of provision on services
which meet essential community needs but where usage will always
be limited.
2. Metro networks. Many of the larger bus
operators (and others, eg Blackpool Transport) have introduced,
or are in the process of introducing, simplified Metro style networks.
These see more frequent and standardised operation on groups of
corridors and have been shown in most cases to grow use by more
than the government target. The other side of this coin however,
is that this has meant that some areas in those towns and cities,
away from these main corridors, have lost a bus service.
3. Government seems unsure as to whether
to welcome the growth in use, or to attack the operators for these
initiatives as failing to meet the tests on their social exclusion
agenda.
4. Shepperton Case Study. While many areas
outside the Southeast demonstrate this dilemma it is worth noting
that similar, although different, problems can be found nearer
to London. For example, Shepperton is a small town in the Borough
of Spelthorne, Surrey, close to the London boundary. It has a
population of 11,150, which, though largely prosperous, includes
three substantial estates of former local-authority housing, plus
other pockets thereof. One, next to the Studios, had opportunity
for shared ownership and was also used to rehouse people from
a problem area of London overspill housing at Stanwell.
5. Being outside the London area, and in
a largely prosperous area, it has neither London-type fares nor
a comprehensive bus service, other than a route to Heathrow, which
has been substantially and successfully augmented through the
Freeflow Heathrow initiative, with funding also from Surrey County
Council. This provides a comprehensive service and a link to the
local hospital, Ashford, though serves only one of the three areas
of former local authority housing. Inside London, fares on such
a service would be flat fare of 70p single. The return fare to
Ashford Hospital is punitive, £4.30, with half fare for Surrey
County Council concessionary pass holders. It also provides a
service to the other local hospital, St Peters at Chertsey, though
there is no service there after about 19.00hrs.
6. The other trunk service links Shepperton
with Kingston (though this is better served by rail half hourly
or better for 17 hours a day) and provides the only public transport
to Staines, the regional centre for Spelthorne, some five miles
distant. This is a commercial service, which has been progressively
reduced and is now basically hourly. However it is on its fourth
operator in less than two years, two of which failed and services
were interrupted each time. Each change of operator has brought
a new timetable, and at one time there was no service from Staines
after 17.00, denying any opportunity for people to take retail
employment in Staines. Although Surrey County Council provided
some additional evening services, which have now been withdrawn,
the frequent timetable changes have also made it difficult for
people to rely on the service for work. The lack of service in
the evening also makes it impossible for young people to get to
Staines for entertainment or employment after normal shopping
hours.
7. Both the general comments about Metro
type networks and the Shepperton case history illustrate the,
not surprising, limitation of commercial objectives in delivering
social inclusion solutions. It is a fact that parts of most bus
networks are not and will not be "commercial". If government
wishes operators to provide social networks, whether spatially
or temporally defined, then under the current arrangements these
will have to be paid for with subsidy. The only argument is how
that should be applied (links to question 1).
Dr Caroline Cahm, MBE MCIT
Chairman
12 April 2002
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