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 smalloften
one, two or five minibuses onlyrelying 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
|