Passenger transport in isolated communities - Transport Committee Contents


4  Alternative provision

Community transport

32. 'Community transport' describes passenger transport schemes owned and operated by local community groups. Community transport is provided on a not-for-profit basis and is run by volunteers. Community transport schemes serve people who do not have access to conventional public transport or who are unable to use it. Particular schemes may set their own conditions for who can be carried, according to local priorities.

33. Community transport encompasses a range of transport services:

·  Voluntary car schemes. An organised form of lift giving where volunteer drivers use their own cars to provide door to door journeys for people without transport. Passengers are charged a rate per mile for their journeys to cover drivers' costs.

·  Community bus services. Minibuses operated by volunteers serve regular routes to a published timetable. They are available to all members of the general public.

·  Minibus hire. Vehicles owned by community groups are made available to other local organisations for low-cost hire. This service can be useful for a number of different purposes, including leisure, education and sport. Some vehicles are wheelchair accessible.

·  Dial a ride. This service provides door-to-door journeys for people who are unable to use conventional public transport. Potential passengers need to register as members to use the service. Journey bookings are usually made in advance.

34. The DfT "sees community transport as key to addressing the needs of passengers in rural areas and isolated communities in England."[57] Baroness Kramer told us that "between 2011 and 2012, we provided £20 million to local authorities in rural areas to help community transport initiatives."[58] Community transport has an important role to play in all isolated communities. The DfT must extend its financial support for community transport to all isolated communities rather than only supporting such services in rural areas.

35. Other witnesses were more cautious than the DfT about how significant a role community transport might play in addressing the needs of isolated communities. In particular, they doubted whether community transport can fill gaps in provision caused by decreased subsidies for buses. The Campaign for Better Transport told us that "community transport can only fill between 10% and 15% of former supported transport provision."[59]

36. ATCO pointed out that in practice community transport schemes served particular groups of people rather than the whole community:

    They are very small—often one, two or five minibuses only—relying upon declining numbers of volunteers and primarily looking after the needs of the elderly, or the frail elderly, and people going to hospital appointments. To look after the needs of the young and people seeking employment is a very long way from their focus. While we have had those conversations with them, to expect unpaid volunteers to get up at six in the morning to drive people to work, who are going to earn a wage, often does not fit comfortably with some of those models.[60]

37. Central Government and local authorities are being unrealistic if they expect voluntary community transport projects to compensate for decreased bus services. Although community transport has an important role to play, in practice it does not serve all sections of the community and therefore cannot substitute for bus services.

Total transport

38. Total transport involves integrating transport services that are currently commissioned by different central and local government agencies and provided by different operators. Such integrated services might deliver improved passenger transport in isolated communities by allocating existing resources more efficiently. That might entail, for example, combining conventional bus services with hospital transport. pteg argued that

    instead of the Department for Education commissioning transportation services, or the health service using ambulances with paramedics purely to transfer people to and from hospital, those things can be done in a total way with better use of existing funding. It is not a requirement for new money; effectively, it is better use of existing resources.[61]

The total transport concept is especially applicable to isolated communities where transport resources are scarce and where the scale of the administration in relation to budgets and vehicle fleets is relatively manageable.

39. Several small-scale total transport projects have been implemented in England. For example, Norfolk County Council and the East of England Ambulance Service have piloted an integrated transport project.[62] In addition, a taxi-bus service has been trialled in Devon and NHS transport has been integrated with local transport authority services in Greater Manchester.[63] No large-scale total transport trial has taken place in the UK, but large-scale total transport has been successfully implemented in the Netherlands.[64]

40. pteg highlighted

    the wider difficulties that can be associated with convincing agencies at national, but also local level, to release some control and to work at breaking down silos of responsibility for the greater good. Often, agencies can be willing to collaborate, provided this does not involve a financial commitment.[65]

There are structural barriers to implementing the total transport approach, which is contingent on providers collaborating and sharing their current powers and resources. Those barriers will only be overcome by leadership and co-ordination from central Government. Baroness Kramer appeared to accept that point when she told us that "central Government can lead the way by working more closely together."[66]

41. Baroness Kramer explained why she supported the concept of total transport:

    We very much encourage the kind of integrated thinking that you were talking about. You have local authorities and others providing services for schools and hospitals and for a whole variety of reasons. Rather than thinking in silos, in pulling that together one could potentially come up with a different integrated profile.[67]

We also believe that total transport could hugely benefit isolated communities. However, we do not have clear evidence on the benefits and costs, because no large-scale trials have yet been carried out in this country. It is important that such trials are carried out in the near future, because we heard that decreased local authority budgets may result in core services being reduced to such a level that full-scale trials of total transport will become impossible.[68]

42. We welcome the DfT's support for total transport, which has the potential to revolutionise transport provision in isolated communities by making more efficient use of existing resources. The DfT must work with local government to co-ordinate large-scale total transport pilot schemes in a range of urban and rural communities. We expect the DfT to report back to us with an interim evaluation of progress on such trials by July 2015.


57   DfT (TIC 098) para 25 Back

58   Q175 Back

59   Campaign for Better Transport (TIC 045) para 4.3 Back

60   Q160 Back

61   Q164 Back

62   pteg Total transport event report Back

63   Q182 Back

64   Q159 Back

65   pteg, Total Transport: Working across sectors to achieve better outcomes, p8 Back

66   Q182 Back

67   Q180 Back

68   Q165 Back


 
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Prepared 22 July 2014