APPENDIX 40
Memorandum submitted by Oxfordshire County
Council
Evidence presented by Dick Helling, County Council
Public Transport Officer. Dick has headed the County Council's
Public Transport Team since 1986.
GENERAL STRATEGY
Oxfordshire County Council has over a period
of many years pursued a policy of seeking to create the conditions
in which commercial bus services can thrive. This has been achieved
both through the stick of discouraging car use, through restricting
car parking in quantity and price and restrictions on the movement
of general traffic in key locations, and the carrot of bus priorities
to provide, as far as possible, reliable and reasonably fast bus
services, plus ensuring good bus access to key destinations. Within
this framework we have experienced sustained competition between
two major bus companies on principal corridors since the late
1980s. This has increasingly been waged on the basis of offering
customers the best quality, rather than the cheapest service.
During the period there has been a sustained growth in bus patronage;
the share of person-journeys entering central Oxford (excluding
rail and walking) has risen from 27% bus/54% car in 1991 to 48%
bus/35% car in 2004, and there are, on average, 54 bus journeys
per year by each person in Oxfordshire. Whilst growth has levelled
off since 2001, it remains higher than national trends outside
London.
Informal partnership agreements have played
a major role in past successes in encouraging bus use in Oxfordshire.
Unwritten, but clearly understood, agreements which have existed
since the early 1970s, led to a written (albeit not legally binding)
agreement covering services to, from and within, central Oxford
being introduced in 1998. There are regular Director-level meetings
with the county's two principal operators.
Over the last two years, detailed discussion
and consultation has been held with bus operators on development
beyond the existing limited agreements to a formal structure of
Quality Partnerships covering all principal routes, and potentially
certain other services. A Core Partnership Agreement was signed
in April 2006 and this is expected to be followed by detailed
route-based Quality Partnerships.
To meet the objective of encouraging bus use
in the future, it is Oxfordshire County Council's view that the
main priority is to further encourage development of attractive
bus services, in partnership with commercial operators, on the
busiest movement corridors—these being the ones where the
bus is best placed to provide an attractive alternative as well
as being the ones where traffic congestion is likely to be greatest.
ENSURING FREE
MOVEMENT OF
BUSES
The key challenge is to ensure fast and consistent
journey times for buses. This can provide faster and more attractive
journeys for passengers on the bus; reduced waiting times for
passengers at bus stops; the ability to plan interconnecting journeys
with confidence; the ability to provide a more frequent service
and carry more passengers for any given number of buses and drivers;
and reduced waiting time for buses at termini if journey times
are more predictable. The obstacles to bus priority are often
as much political as financial; there is frequently public opposition
from other road users to reserving sections of the highway for
buses. Whilst we have developed successful partnerships with bus
operators locally, there are some obstacles to progress largely
at national level:
— Objectors frequently say that they
are unwilling to give up road space "just to swell bus companies'
profits"; to overcome such resistance there is a need to
be able to demonstrate that benefits to buses will be ploughed
back into a guarantee of improved service for the public. The
ability to include undertakings to provide a minimum frequency
of service within Quality Partnerships (presently explicitly outlawed)
is the most important element in this.
— Giving priority access to buses often
includes permitting them in areas where pedestrian and cycle traffic
is heavy; there is a need for a greater routine training for bus
drivers in pedestrian and cycle awareness and appropriate speed
in such areas, also for 20 mile an hour zones which can be enforced
by the police or by camera without the need for physical traffic
calming.
— Giving priority to buses often includes
giving them privileged access to environmentally sensitive areas;
the "Euro" standards for improving emissions of diesel
engines have greatly reduced concern about providing bus priority
in these circumstances, but there remains a need for a properly
funded national programme of development of other low emission
alternatives; to make their commercial development attractive
these need to apply to goods vehicles as well as buses.
— Around 25% of the journey time of
buses on high density urban routes is spent standing at stops
loading passengers and taking fares. As well as slowing passengers'
journeys this raises concerns about congestion by and emissions
from stationary buses. Greater incentives are needed for faster
ticketing and boarding arrangements; the introduction of free
fares for elderly and disabled people represents a major opportunity
which must not be squandered through requiring a destination to
be stated and a ticket to be issued for fares-free journeys.
— Enforcement of bus priority has been
a major problem. The Council has been concerned that it has taken
five years for the Transport Act 2000 powers permitting camera
enforcement by Councils to be brought into effect; we welcome
the availability of these powers now but would wish to see them
extended also to cover camera enforcement of parking offences.
— Effective provision of bus priority
often depends upon selective detection of buses by electronic
means—a common standard for the necessary on-bus equipment
for all buses throughout the country would greatly facilitate
this.
— There are a limited number of cases
where several relatively low frequency services could potential
combine to provide an attractive common headway; however transport
authorities have no power to make this happen and indeed competition
legislation currently outlaws it.
— There may be a case for a greater
presumption in favour of priority for buses in guidance issued
to highway authority staff on traffic management, traffic signal
design etc; for example, where traffic lights are set to turn
red when a gap in traffic is detected, routine inclusion of an
"inhibit" if a bus is detected at the end of the gap
would be valuable.
PROVISION OF
SERVICES TO
MEET SOCIAL
NEED ON
LOWER DENSITY
CORRIDORS
The paragraph above has concentrated on steps
that can be taken to increase the attractiveness of buses on the
main corridors; in the view of Oxfordshire County Council these
are the most important services to encourage bus use as an alternative
to the private car and make the biggest impact on total bus patronage.
However, there will remain many journeys for which commercial
bus services cannot be expected to be provided because of the
low volume of movement. The incidence of these can be minimised
through planning policies, as well as policies for development
of health and other facilities, which focus new developments in
places which can readily be served by trunk bus services. Interchange
between trunk services (and rail) can help deal with some of the
remaining low volume journeys, and there may be a case for limited
powers for transport authorities to intervene to amend commercial
services slightly where this might improve interchange opportunities.
There will, however, remain many services which
require subsidy. Subsidy costs have risen very steeply since 2000,
and despite a threefold increase in this Council's bus subsidy
budget it has barely been possible to maintain existing service
levels. There is no doubt some limited scope for improving the
performance of some services through better information, better
bus stop facilities at key points plus, in places, use of bus
priority primarily provided for more frequent services. The Council
has strong, longstanding arrangements in place to encourage and
assist provision of community transport, but the scope for this
is limited by the availability of volunteers. Our experience has
been that alternatives such as flexibly routed buses and bespoke
feeder buses are less cost effective in most circumstances than
conventional services.
There thus appears to be little alternative
to long term sustained bus subsidy to maintain services in less
densely populated areas. The Council's experience has been that
time limited funding, such as that previously provided through
the Rural Transport Partnership, and Challenge Funds, is often
positively unhelpful in that it creates an expectation of improved
services which cannot be sustained in the long term. The Council's
policy now is only to seek such short term funding where there
is a genuine prospect of a service becoming commercial in the
long term.
Another type of time limited funding, which
has also given rise to longer term problems has been funding to
provide bus services to new developments. The lump sums which
the law presently allows run out after a few years. Ideally, the
development will have been designed and located such that a commercial
service is possible after that. However, in many cases this is
not achieved and if the service is to continue funding is needed
from the Council's own budget. The ability to require a developer
to ensure provision of a service (either through direct funding
or through themselves creating the conditions in which commercial
services can thrive) in perpetuity would provide a valuable incentive
to ensure that development is designed and located with bus use
in mind.
Whilst there are a number of detailed changes—such
as the ability to have longer subsidy contracts than five years—which
might secure better value for money in certain cases, this Council
does not believe that there are any potential changes which would
avoid the need for a long-term funding commitment to maintain
services in lower density areas.
CONCLUSION
In Oxfordshire County Council's experience,
the essential element in providing attractive bus services, which
can encourage people to use buses rather than the private car,
is ensuring that the appropriate transport planning framework
is in place. This needs to consist both of measures to ensure
that buses are given priority in traffic and protected as far
as possible from the adverse effects of traffic congestion, plus
policies which make car use a less attractive option for these
journeys. Whilst there is scope for some detailed improvements
in related legislation, if this essential transport framework
is in place, our experience demonstrates that partnership with
the private sector, within a deregulated bus environment, can
ensure provision of very attractive services on principal corridors
of movement. Even in a relatively rural county such as Oxfordshire,
these commercial corridors can cater for the majority of bus journeys;
in Oxfordshire around 90% of passenger journeys are on commercial
services, whilst 88% of population live in settlements served
by bus services running hourly or better.
Outside these principal areas of population,
bus services are already almost entirely run under subsidy contracts.
Bus operating costs have risen rapidly in recent years, and maintaining
services has put increasing pressure on the council's revenue
budgets. In the council's view, there are no alternative means
of provision, or changes to the bus operating framework, which
would have a significant impact upon this situation; maintaining
good levels of rural bus services requires a commitment to continuing
revenue funding.
20 June 2006
|
