Memorandum submitted by Rosamund Weatherall
Transport Select Committee inquiry into Bus Services
across the UK
I moved to Oxford 6 years ago, from London. The city
of Oxford is small enough to cycle across within a half hour,
but has major congestion, due to overuse of cars for personal
transport, and possibly to the high numbers of enormous buses
clogging the city centre. Oxford has a reputation for increasing
its bus patronage, maybe because the Park and Ride buses are so
well used. Other buses seem to be running about half empty.
The city's cyclists feel the bus companies are driving
them off the road - certainly one meets many people who used to
ride bikes but find it 'too dangerous', many cite the buses. Modern
buses are huge, too wide and too long for narrow streets, especially
in a historic city like Oxford.
Not in Oxford. There are two bus companies running
most of the routes: Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach. They tell
us they are not allowed by competition law to co-operate in almost
any way, resulting in the following deterrents to ordinary people:
1. Both run services along the popular routes
but don't co-ordinate timetables so this means, for example, you
get two buses each half hour rather than a quarterly hourly service.
2. Tickets (eg return tickets and multiride tickets)
are not valid on other companies' buses. There is a one day pass
that covers all bus companies but it is too expensive for a simple
return trip.
3. There is no overall map of bus routes in Oxford.
It is very difficult for visitors and newcomers to Oxford to learn
about the bus network.
4. The 'bus enquiry office' in the centre of
town has one desk for each company, who won't tell you of the
other company's services, nor about minor bus company services
eg Thames Travel who run a few routes. Another example of non
co-operation: notices appeared last week on lamp posts locally
informing us of a route's 'withdrawal' but informing us that
the rival company would run a service instead, but giving us no
detail about timetable, instead inviting us to contact that company.
5. The bus companies appear to be able to change
a route or withdraw a service at very short notice. This is offputting
to occasional bus users and undermines confidence.
6. Each bus company appears to decide where it
runs services. It means they prefer the busy routes, and no-one
is making sure the gaps are filled, As a result not enough services
run across the city, and not enough services meet each other,
co-ordinate with services going out of Oxford or reach the railway
station. The transport network is not integrated.
- Concessionary fares - problems with the current
approach? Does the Government's proposal to introduce free local
bus travel across the UK for disabled people and the over 60s
stand up to scrutiny?
Because each district council makes its own rules
about concessionary travel, in Oxford this is confined to within
the city boundary, while residents of the other districts can
travel free into and sometimes within Oxford, eg to the hospitals.
So Oxford residents can't use free travel to go to Kidlington,
but Kidlington residents can travel free into central Oxford.
Each of the five Oxfordshire districts has a different set of
rules. I am not sure how the bus drivers of routes crossing district
boundaries cope. It has created a strong sense of unfairness.
Public transport is expensive, compared with a car.
A nationwide Senior Rail and Bus card would be easy to use. It
would make sense to have a single scheme covering all public transport,
easy to understand, easy to use if one card covers it all, and
it would probably raise the profile of bus travel, which is an
essential link in the transport network for those not driving
cars.
Yes. Most bus users don't care who runs the buses,
but want an easily understood network, where one can use any bus,
with frequent services, into the evening and at weekends. London
has integrated ticketing, comprehensive bus maps, and a clear
image.
- What is the future for the bus?
1. Bus services need to be much better organised.
What happened to the notion of 'intergrated' transport? Why do
so many Oxford buses not go to the railway station? Why do so
many services stop in the early evening or on Sunday? Bus companies
need to work together, or the local authority needs the power
to tell them what to do, or to franchise out the routes as in
London. We, the passengers, don't benefit at all from the type
of competition we now have.
2. The design of buses must be passenger friendly.
Most buses in use in Britain accelerate and brake so sharply that
you are in danger if you haven't found a seat quickly. Driver
training may be partly to blame, and as there is reputedly a very
fast turnover of drivers, training presumably is skimpy. City
buses must be driven with empathy for passengers - especially
those who are slow to move or carrying children or shopping and
find it difficult to get seated or move within the bus without
being thrown about. The Routemaster bus was far from perfect but
at least one wasn't thrown about inside.
3. Modern buses are far too large for city use.
They are too wide -squeezing people on bikes into the gutter or
off the road altogether, and intimidating people on foot as the
bus sides come so close to the pavement. They now have rear engines
which means that people on bikes can't hear the bus coming - a
student was killed by a bus in Oxford recently, possibly she didn't
hear it come up behind. The speed at which buses travel in towns,
combined with the size, displaces a great rush of air, which is
also people-unfriendly. They are also too long: both major bus
companies here run extra long buses to London which have difficulty
turning corners in central Oxford. Yet the bus companies are hoping
to introduce these super buses on city services as well. Why are
the Europeans able to run much smaller buses on some routes?
4. Bus stops should meet an acceptable modern
standard. All stops need current timetables; seats; shelter; lighting
at night if the bus is to be an acceptable equivalent to car travel.
Many people don't have the choice of a car (too young, no longer
able or confident to drive, banned from driving, etc) - why should
they not be treated with the respect given by the nation to motorists?
But the bus is adaptable, can be comfortable and
friendly and easy to use, and the status of bus travel could be
raised considerably.
The bus is an essential link in the public transport
network, but only if such transport is properly integrated and
respected.
16 May 2006
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