Thank you for the invitation to CAPITAL transport
campaign to submit evidence to the above enquiry. CAPITAL is
no longer funded but members remain in e-mail contact and the
following response is based on a draft circulated by e-mail and
the comments it provoked. In accordance with your request the
final version will not be published in advance of your report.
Please let us know when that report is published so that we can
inform our members. As always we are happy for our comments to
be put in the public domain.
Has deregulation worked? Are services better, more
frequent, meeting passenger need? Are bus services sufficiently
co-ordinated with other forms of public transport; are buses clean,
safe, efficient? If not, can deregulation be made to work? How?
Services are worse and less frequent. In smaller
cities, like Wolverhampton or Bradford, or large seaside towns
such as Eastbourne or Hastings (there are many more examples across
England) the level is unacceptably low in the evenings and young
people, already deprived of youth facilities by local council
cutbacks, are unable to travel to places of entertainment. In
more rural areas, the situation is far worse.
For people visiting these places, the continued
lack of co-ordination with trains is deeply disappointing. Although
there are leaflets detailing bus connections, add on fares are
often not available in practice or else involve no saving of money.
We contend that there should be a small financial incentive given
to those who travel by train and then use the bus, so that there
is a saving on the sum of the two individual fares.
In cities like Leeds and Manchester, the existence
of competition between rival bus companies has led to a lack of
suitable tickets for journeys involving two buses. There are
travelcards for journeys across the region involving a mixture
of tram, train and bus, but for the more usual requirement of
two buses out and back from different companies, there is nothing
suitable. One effect is that rail travel can be significantly
cheaper than the bus, as well as a lot quicker.
Outside London, there are too many elderly
vehicles, often cascaded down from London as a result of contract
specifications there, to replace even more elderly vehicles.
Where new buses are purchased, there have been instances of unwise
buys. The articulated buses in Leeds, for example, are notorious
for their high failure rate.
Where there have been improvements, since
1985 but not since 1995, it reflects previous poor practice rather
than a pointer to how deregulation could be made to work. Places
like York, Oxford and even Bristol are sometimes cited as examples
of where deregulation has seen improvements. These cities all
had significantly worse services than comparable places prior
to deregulation. This arose from different priorities of different
Local Authorities: a necessary consequence of delegating local
decisions to local authorities.
Is statutory regulation compromising the provision
of high quality bus services?
London demonstrates that regulation can work in favour
of the passenger, although it is not a perfect system (see below).
The operation of route 38 between August 2002 and October 2005
demonstrated how it is possible to have a bus service more reliable
and frequent than the tube, despite the lack of control over traffic
conditions.
Are priority measures having a beneficial effect?
What is best practice?
The guided busway in Leeds, the contra-flow bus lanes
throughout the country, have undoubtedly had a beneficial effect.
There are however competing and conflicting interests in road
use and one way streets militate against the interests of bus
passengers when they alight and become pedestrians and shoppers.
The Shoreditch scheme in London showed how if you pull out all
the stops you can produce a solution which gives some benefit
to all, but other more half-hearted solutions have had a mixed
result.
Is financing and funding for local community services
sufficient and targeted in the right way?
As indicated above, we would like consideration to
be given to the needs of younger people who would use public transport
in the evenings and at night.
Concessionary fares - what are the problems with
the current approach? Does the Governments proposal to introduce
free local bus travel across the UK for disabled people and the
over 60s from 2008 stand up to scrutiny? Should there be a nation-wide
version of London's Freedom Pass - giving free or discounted travel
on all forms of public transport?
We regard the detail of how this is implemented as
crucial. At present, elderly relatives visiting London are expected
to pay the full fare and being occasional visitors may have difficulty
in obtaining the benefits of the Oystercard. People who live
just outside London, say Dartford, will rely on London transport
for all their needs but are currently ineligible for the freedom
pass. We support the proposal that everyone should be entitled
to a National travelcard or freedom pass. Those of working age
and unimpaired mobility would pay for it and enjoy discounted
off-peak travel; those entitled to a freedom pass would travel
free, except in the peak periods. The distinction between rail
and bus is unnecessary and can be divisive, since the existence
of a good rail link will reduce the level of bus provision in
the area (as happened when the Jubilee line extension opened).
Why are there no Quality Contracts?
We welcome the question being posed, but suspect
that the cost of checking that the criteria have been met would
be prohibitive outside London, where the high density of bus operation
reduces the cost of data collection per bus operated. Even so,
the amount of data flowing between TfL and the bus operators is
quite staggering.
Are the powers of the Traffic Commissioners relevant;
are they adequately deploying the powers and resources that they
currently have? Do they have enough support from Government and
local authorities?
Is London a sound model for the rest of the UK?
The London set up is not perfect, but it has certainly
demonstrated how a regulated service can attract more custom,
even allowing for the insatiable demand and the captive market.
The main weakness, as outlined by the present commissioner when
he was in charge of a bus operator, is the control exercised by
TfL over the operators in matters which would more properly fall
to the operator. The mix of net price and gross price contracts
had some advantage over the current arrangement, in that there
was more incentive to attract passengers. Operators are financially
rewarded in London, but their influence is limited to maintenance
standards and staff recruitment, and even maintenance is not entirely
under their control because TfL vehicle specifications may prevent
the purchase of the most low maintenance vehicles.
What is the future for the bus? Should metropolitan
areas outside London be able to develop their own form of regulated
competition? Would this boost passenger numbers? If not, what
would? Does the bus have a future? In addressing rural railways,
the Secretary of State has said that we "cannot be in the
business of carting fresh air around the country"; is the
same true for buses?
We would encourage the reintroduction of regulation
in some form outside London. We don't agree that the solution
to "not carting fresh air around the country" is to
cease operation. It is to make public transport attractive.
When the Cambrian Railways had a 50 pence evening fare, so many
people used the trains that the conductor was unable to collect
all the fares. If public transport ceases to exist in rural areas,
not only will they become no-go areas for the young, the elderly
and people whose mobility impairment prevents use of the private
car; it will mean that anyone from London seeking to visit will
be likely to retain a car for that reason, and having paid the
up front cost of car ownership will then be more inclined to use
it for local journeys as well.
Andrew Bosi, Chair, Friends of Capital Transport
Campaign
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