APPENDIX 3
Memorandum submitted by Transport 2000,
Cambridge and West Suffolk Branch
1. INTRODUCTION
The primary question before this Inquiry is
why bus usage has continued to decline outside London. To this
I have a simple answer: people are fed up with being treated as
second class citizens, as untermenschen, as bus users generally
are. The bulk of this submission will be used to illustrate this
contention and to outline what I believe needs to be done about
it.
Let me start by placing the problem in the wider
context of postwar transport policy. This was largely set by the
1950s Buchanan Report, whose theme can be described as "the
means justifies the end": we needed to rebuild our towns
and cities—the ends of our journeys—to make them suitable
for a particular means of transport, the car.
The extent to which Buchanan's ideas were actually
implemented is arguable, but it is clear that much of the rebuilding
that has taken place has damaged our urban centres, with cars
dominating urban environments at the expense of pedestrians and
cyclists, congestion continually growing, small shops going out
of business, and food retailing, in particular, migrating to the
edges of towns so people can no longer pick up food during visits
to towns but have to make special journeys, usually by car.
The growth of traffic has had other side effects,
mostly ignored by Buchanan: greenhouse gas emissions, poor air
quality, noise, and casualties to an extent that would not be
tolerated in any other sector of the economy. And while Buchanan
recognised that the viability of our public transport network
would be undermined, neither he nor anyone else offered any solution
to this problem.
No doubt Buchanan thought that cars offered
such an improvement to the travel experience as to justify those
negative effects he couldn't find a way of mitigating, but I think
many people would now say that our overall quality of life would
have been much better had we chosen to promote the car as the
mode of last resort, to be used only when other modes failed.
2. HOW THINGS
WENT WRONG
In the '60s it started to be recognised that
public transport couldn't survive without subsidy, though not
until after damaging rail closures from which we are still suffering.
On the buses, while new legislation empowered local authorities
to give subsidies, generally these were used as a last ditch measure
to keep services going rather than an instrument of public policy.
The worst crisis came with the early '80s Market Analysis Project:
mass cuts to evening and Sunday services placed whole communities
(or at least those people who didn't own cars) under curfew; major
strategic links were severed; and not only were users unable to
object, often they didn't even know about the cuts till their
bus failed to turn up.
But South Yorkshire PTE showed how to buck this
trend by using cheap fares as an instrument of public policy;
after the 1981 elections other metropolitan authorities followed
suit. Sadly this initiative was quashed: the relevant Transport
Act was reinterpreted to deny the GLC the right to subsidise for
reasons of public policy; the tightening of local authority finance
led to cuts in revenue support (still a problem); the "offending"
councils were abolished in 1986; and, of course, buses were deregulated.
The last led to limited improvements, but they were more than
offset by the following negative effects:
(a) Bus timetables were seen as unstable,
so planning journeys beyond one's home area became highly risky.
Those who asked the tourist industry to publicise "how to
get there by bus" were told that there was no point when
information could become obsolete overnight.
(b) Bus operators "cherry picked"
profitable routes, and profitable parts of routes (as they are
still doing), throwing the burden of procuring the rest of the
network to hard pressed local authorities. And if, as a result,
people had to change buses en route, or to use different operators
in each direction, rarely were timetables, fares and ticketing
co-ordinated.
(c) The bus network, never integrated, became
the epitome of fragmentation. Not only was the network split between
commercial and supported sections, but the commercial network
was split between operators, and the supported network was split
between local authorities. The effects were similar to the fragmentation
of the rail network following privatisation: and there are two
clear examples which show how this has held back progress—the
failure of operators to introduce a National Railcard even though
it was projected to be profitable for the rail industry as a whole,
and the reluctance, only just overcome, of London train operators
to adopt the Oystercard system.
(d) Local authorities had a perfect excuse
for ignoring users who know well from their own experience how
the network needs to be improved. And, of course, if bus operators
declared that such proposals would not be profitable, users were
unable to elect managers who might think otherwise.
1998 saw the first significant initiative to
help bus users: Rural Bus Grant. Unfortunately, it wasn't followed
up by measures to encourage motorists to switch to buses—indeed,
after 2000, the freeze on fuel tax for several years while bus
fares continued to rocket has meant that any switch has been the
other way. In general, further initiatives, such as Rural and
Urban Bus Challenge, have not provided the stable long term funding
needed for local authorities to be able to develop integrated
networks.
Meanwhile, new regulatory burdens, such as requirements
to provide for disabled people and restrictions on driving hours,
have increased the cost of providing services. It should go without
saying that there's no point in requiring buses to accept wheelchairs
if one can't then afford to procure a service, and shorter driving
hours will not improve safety if they lead to the loss of services
and therefore more cars on the roads.
3. A 10 POINT
ACTION PLAN
We must move away from deregulation if we are
to make progress, but this isn't enough. The next section will
propose an alternative regulatory system which I believe would
give better results. But first I wish to outline a 10 point plan
showing the results I'm after. This was designed with rural areas
in mind, though some of the proposals are equally applicable to
urban areas.
3.1 Develop car clubs
Many people who might be reluctant to dispense
with car use altogether may nevertheless be willing to use it
only as the mode of last resort. A key strategy towards achieving
this is the Car Club, which enables people to combine lower overall
transport costs (through not owning a car) with much higher marginal
costs (similar to standard car hire costs) for using a car for
a specific journey.
The London and South-East city region has strong
development pressure and major traffic problems. It therefore
offers good opportunities for car-free housing, ie developments
without garaging facilities where access to cars would be through
a car club. Many people would welcome the chance to live in areas
not dominated by cars, while others would accept this as a price
worth paying for affordable homes. This should be seen as one
of the key advantages of car-free housing at a time when affordable
housing is a major political issue. It would of course be essential,
in non-central areas, to provide legally binding guarantees of
high quality public transport: given that they would be many people's
first choice for transport they would surely be viable.
Car clubs should also be set up in existing
developments, with fiscal incentives for people who use cars only
through a car club (or not at all).
3.2 Catch 'em young
Journey planning is a skill that needs to be
taught, and it should be in the National Curriculum. Teenagers
should be given a sense of pride in their ability to get around
on their own, and encouraged to associate public transport with
the pleasurable experience of discovering their local environment.
This would lessen the attraction of the car when they reach driving
age. (I developed a lifelong attachment to public transport at
about the age of 16, though I was self taught.)
Where possible, school trips should be planned
around public transport rather than coach hire. As well as helping
to keep the bus network going (at little cost, since the education
authorities that would have to pay the fares are the same as the
transport authorities whose need for subsidies would thereby be
reduced), this would have educational value by showing pupils
how public transport worked.
3.3 Introduce a parking tax
Several years ago Transport 2000 called for
a flat rate tax on all private non-residential parking. This needs
to be looked at again. Its main aims would be to encourage developers
to site facilities where they could be accessed other than by
car, and to improve the competitive position of local and town
centre shops (and other facilities) as against out of town sites.
3.4 Introduce a Transport Discrimination Act
Governments have successfully used legislation
to change people's attitudes so that most people now recognise
that discrimination on the basis of race or disability, drink
driving, and exposing people to tobacco fumes are anti-social.
I believe it should be possible to inculcate a sense of obligation
to cater for non-motorists in a similar way.
I would expect a Transport Discrimination Act
to require service providers to take all reasonable steps—the
meaning of "reasonable" should be the subject of a public
debate—to ensure that people could access facilities without
cars; that their opening times were correlated with public transport
operating times; and that people should have adequate information
about how to get there without a car.
3.5 Use everything available
At present there are many operations in rural
areas, such as school buses, works buses, postal collections,
and all the positioning workings associated with these movements,
which are sometimes also public bus services. I believe this could
be extended a lot further. Indeed, it should be considered the
default that where no other public facilities are available such
journeys should be open to all.
For example, "school interchanges"
could be created. Because of local authorities' statutory duties,
most communities within the catchment area of a secondary school
will have a service thereto, all arriving at about the same time.
These buses will then disperse in different directions, either
to their depots or to their next service working. I see no reason
why people shouldn't be enabled to change from one of these buses
to another (not necessarily at a point within the school grounds),
returning the same way in the afternoon, to gain new day trip
facilities to a variety of destinations.
The licensing system should be reformed so that
no extra burdens are imposed on operators who carry the general
public, as against those who carry specific groups such as schoolchildren
and workers, or those who provide dial a ride services targeted
at elderly and disabled people. (The last need not offer door
to door services for fit adults, but they should be empowered
to take them where the vehicle is going anyway, if the journey
is not covered by the mainstream public transport network.)
3.6 Make proper use of demand responsive transport
(DRT)
In recent years, demand responsive services
have mushroomed. Certainly they have an important part to play
in an integrated public transport network, but in many cases they
are currently being used inappropriately: I feel that local authorities
may be using DRT as a mantra and as a means of evading their responsibility
to provide services which would really be attractive to users.
Here is an example:
Recently the mainstream bus service in the Jurassic
Coast World Heritage Site area around Lulworth Cove in Dorset
was replaced by a DRT service which is completely "open",
so that visitors would have difficulty in planning a trip involving
a coastal walk from Lulworth to West Chaldon (given that they
don't know how much time to allow) or a boat trip from Lulworth
(especially as this might end up being cancelled due to bad weather).
Furthermore, the service is not shown on the Traveline website
which is many people's first point of access to bus information.
Here are some principles for DRT schemes to
aim for:
(a) The need for the hassle of pre-booking
should be minimised by having departures from town centres and
other key interchange points at fixed times. People needing to
board at such points should not need to pre-book, though in exceptional
circumstances, where their destination required a detour, they
might have to await the next run before the bus was able to go
there. Publicity for DRT services should make it clear exactly
when pre-booking is required.
(b) People who need to book for a DRT service
should be able to do so while the vehicle was on the road, rather
than having to call well in advance. Publicity should stipulate
exactly how much notice is needed.
(c) DRT should be available to all, without
residential or other qualifications, and without the need to pre-register
(though operators may wish to encourage registration for regular
users).
(d) An important role for DRT is in the provision
of evening journeys connecting with incoming trains or buses to
enable people to get home from distant destinations.
(e) Another important role could be "right
to work" buses. People living in the catchment area (as defined
for secondary school purposes) of a town should be entitled to
get to "office hours" jobs in that town. During termtime
they would use the school bus to get into work; the return journey,
and the outward journey at holiday times, would be provided by
a DRT vehicle. This would also be available to other users, including
tourists wishing to stay at local farmhouse accommodation.
3.7 Develop a network hierarchy
In a manner analogous to the road network, inter-urban
and rural public transport should be organised on a hierarchical
basis. The following is suggested:
(a) There should be a network of regional
and national routes, roughly co-extensive with the trunk and primary
road network, covering most of the rail network and some inter-urban
buses. These should be financed regionally or nationally, rail
tickets should be available on the buses, and all services should
aim to run seven days a week at regular intervals.
(b) A network of county routes would provide
links to major regional centres for towns and larger villages
not on the national network. Again, these would normally be at
regular intervals, and the network should aim to connect every
town and larger village to the regional and national network.
(c) Residual routes—the type of services
proposed in 3.5 and 3.6, and other less frequent routes such as
market day services for shoppers.
The Highways Agency and local authorities should
also be required to take steps to make the highway network more
suitable for buses. Examples could include the provision of stops
and interchange facilities on major roads; improvement of narrow
lanes so that buses could use them to provide a more efficient
network; and creation or improvement of footpaths (and, in some
cases, cycle routes) to enable people to walk or cycle from their
home villages to stops on the national, regional or county networks,
or from such stops to visitor attractions.
3.8 Inform the public
This is a key issue. For a long time bus users
have often been made to that timetables are an official secret.
In particular, when rural services catering for people's recreational
needs are introduced rarely does this become known to people outside
the area. A recent example: in 2005 the Lake District operator
Mountain Goat reintroduced its "over the passes" service,
which last ran many years ago and follows perhaps the most spectacular
route in England (serving the steep Hard Knott and Wrynose passes).
However this was too late to go in the book which Cumbria County
Council produce twice a year, and which anyway people from other
parts of the country won't see. This year it is in the book, but
wrongly so as the council have told me that it won't be running.
Here are some recommendations to improve information:
(a) No changes should be introduced until
several weeks after new timetables have been circulated and posted
on the Internet. Could the Traffic Commissioners be made responsible
for Internet timetables?
(b) All printed information (including at
bus stops) should be definitive, ie\ people should be able to
rely on it as a correct description of the current situation.
(c) All areas should have published comprehensive
timetables. A network of national, regional and local information
points should be set up, with stickers saying something like "public
transport information available here", where timetables could
be consulted or picked up in advance of an intended visit to an
area.
(d) Maps and updates should be provided,
both in printed form and on the Internet, to give potential users
an overview of the network. Publicity for services designed for
access to the countryside is particularly important, and there
should be a specific web page to tell people about new initiatives
and to ensure that they had access to information from the very
start of the tourist season.
(e) Full printed information should be available
about the exact availability of any special ticketing arrangements.
3.9 Provide an attractive range of tickets
This is particularly important if rural buses
are to attract city dwellers. I would like to see an all operator
"day out" tickets for every area. An important factor
is that people going out from cities during the morning peak are
not subjected to peak pricing arrangements (it's only the trains
into the cities that are likely to be overcrowded): otherwise
people are unable to get to the countryside at a reasonable price
before half the day is gone.
3.10 Set up a control network
There should be a network of control centres
which can be contacted directly by passengers using mobile or
other phones and which have contact with drivers. Here are some
of the functions they couldfulfil:
(a) Arrange bookings for DRT.
(b) Tell passengers what was going on in
times of disruption.
(c) Hold or divert services to maintain connections
or cover for cancelled services.
(d) Arrange substitute taxis for passengers
who are in difficulties due to operational deficiencies.
(e) Arrange for the conveyance of lost property
to where passengers can pick it up.
(f) Arrange for taxi drivers with passenger
vehicle licences to be "bought in", like agency teachers
or nurses, where operators are unable to provide services.
4. PROPOSED REGULATORY
SYSTEM
I now outline my proposals for changing the
regulatory system for buses so that proposals 3.5-3.10 above can
be achieved (3.1-3.4 being dependent on other factors like national
legislation).
(A) Local transport partnerships should
be set up with executive powers to deliver local bus networks.
These would be led by the relevant local transport authority,
but would have representation from neighbouring transport authorities,
relevant district and regional authorities, and transport operators
and users—giving ordinary people a statutory voice for the
first time. The wider representation would reduce cross-boundary
problems and help ensure that communities weren't held back by
uncaring or unenterprising local authorities.
(B) Bus operators would have powers to provide
extra services over and above the level specified by the partnership,
unless the partnership could prove that this would jeopardise
the function of the network.
(C) There would be certain deadlines (perhaps
three a year) for registration of service changes, and the Traffic
Commissioners would be responsible for ensuring that the new timetables
found their way onto the Internet and local authority publicity.
(D) Local authorities would be required
to provide public transport information to the standards laid
down in 3.6 above. This would of course be eased by (C) above,
as well as by the fact that most changes would be made on the
initiative of the partnerships which they would be leading.
(E) Local authorities, as head of their
partnerships, would be required to lay down minimum service standards
in their LTPs, adhering to the guidelines suggested in 3.5-3.10
above. The acceptance of their LTPs would commit the Government
to ensuring that adequate finance to support this level of service.
Standards could only be revised downwards after the local transport
partnership had consulted people on the issue and the local authority
had included the revision in an LTP update document.
5. ANSWERS TO
THE QUESTIONS
A list of issues to be looked at by the Committee
was given in the press notice announcing the Inquiry. Here are
my answers to the relevant questions.
Has deregulation worked? If not, can it be made
to work?
No—see the foregoing.
Is statutory regulation compromising the provision
of high quality bus services?
To some extent, when operators are faced with
new and unresourced responsibilities (disability provision and
driving hours were mentioned above). It is unfair for the cost
of disability provision to have to be met by bus passengers (who
will be the ultimate source of finance for commercial services)
rather than by the community as a whole; and it seems likely that
with the pressures on local authority finance, the cost of disability
provision on supported services is being provided at the expense
of mainstream bus support.
Bus priorities
The financial assessment of these is compromised
by the fact that the cost savings and extra revenue they generate
go not to the local authority but to the operator (in the case
of commercial services). My proposed new regulatory system would
solve this problem. It should be noted that priority measures—of
a different sort—are also needed in rural areas, hence my
recommendation that the Highways Agency and local authorities
should be required to consider the needs of bus users when planning
highway schemes.
Is financing for local community services adequate
and targeted right?
No. In many cases such services are unavailable
to visitors, either because of licensing restrictions or because
outsiders have difficulty in getting the relevant information.
Concessionary fares
The current situation has thrown up many anomalies—eg
in Cambridgeshire—where pensioners have actually found themselves
worse off than under the former "half fare" regime.
Free countrywide travel, as promised for 2008, should eliminate
most of these (though according to my understanding it won't provide
"free local bus travel across the UK" as there will
be separate schemes for London, England outside London, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland). One problem one has to look out
for is whether commercial operators are using the system to jack
up fares in the knowledge that local authorities will be paying
much of the cost. This problem would of course go away if services
were planned by partnerships as I propose.
Why are there no Quality Contracts?
Because the relevant Transport Act put the emphasis
on voluntary co-operation with operators—and it should by
now be clear that this isn't going to work.
Are the powers of the Traffic Commissioners relevant?
Certainly it doesn't do any good when they debar
operators from providing services (as nearly happened in the Cambridge
area some time ago). In addition to their role as regulators for
operators, they should, as suggested above, have a new role as
providers of definitive timetable information for Traveline.
Is London a sound model?
Insofar as it has Quality Contracts, yes. But
I believe it can be improved further by adopting my partnership
proposals.
What is the future of the bus? Should buses be
in the business of carting fresh air around the country?
The bus has a bright future if the Government
would grasp the nettle that excessive car use is damaging not
only our environment but also the economic underpinning of facilities
we value, such as local and town centre shops, and adopt policies
whose initial aim would be to give the incentives required for
motorists to switch to buses whenever this option was available—which
should be for an increasing proportion of journeys as the network
developed. The idea that just because some people choose to use
their cars those who don't have that choice should be deprived
of the means of getting around, whether by train or by bus, is
offensive and should be removed from Government rhetoric.
6. A VISION FOR
THE FUTURE
Last year the Council to Protect Rural England
issued a report "Our Countryside Our Choice" which can
be seen on their website http://www.cpre.org.uk. This outlined
a very negative vision for 2035. Following this, I produced a
counter-vision which came out in Transport 2000 Cambs and West
Suffolk's November 2005 newsletter http://www.t2000cam.org.uk/newsletter91.html,
which shows from a 2035 perspective how the problems identified
in the CPRE report had been overcome, and looks back to 2005 with
incredulity that we had allowed these problems to develop. I would
like to reproduce the newsletter article, but for reasons of space
I confine myself here to summarising it.
The most plausible scenario I was able to think
of for forcing the policy changes I was seeking was as a side
effect of an American economic crisis when other nations were
no longer willing to finance their current account deficit with
the continually rising price of oil. However, I hope that it would
not take such a crisis to move us along the path of sustainability,
which, I believe, will not only relieve our environmental problems
but also improve our quality of life.
The key is that our attitudes need to change
from "we need our cars because there's no other way to get
around" to "give us another way and we won't use them".
I hypothesised that organisations like the CPRE would be able
to argue that cheap motoring had been one of the main driving
forces behind the destruction of the rural economy as identified
in their 2005 report.
In 1997, there was cross party agreement on
the need to reduce road traffic, leading to the Road Traffic Reduction
Bill, though this was destroyed by a series of wrecking amendments.
I hoped that similar cross party agreement would emerge in the
run up to and after the next general elections, leading to the
adoption of my proposed 10 point plan.
I then described how, by 2035, public transport
had become a realistic option for the vast majority of journeys,
and how those who had prophesied economic doom for the countryside
had been confounded as most rural enterprises found themselves
able to adapt to a decline in the role of the car.
I concluded by describing how a reduction in
provision for cars had enabled us to restore the traditional building
styles which give our villages character. And how, with the advantages
of denser developments for non car based transport provision,
we were gradually reclaiming countryside from what had been sprawl.
And how, by moving to a low carbon economy as part of a worldwide
policy shift, we had managed to avert the disaster of runaway
global warming and buy ourselves time to safeguard permanently
the biodiversity of our countryside.
19 May 2006
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