Labour's Plan for buses

[yorksrob]

That will be the same regardless who operates it.
Reading buses is run by the council, the actual buses are the same as Stagecoach or Arriva. They are a mixed bag of brand new, 5 years old or 15 years old, the fares were expensive before the £2 cap.

Routes have still been cut after Covid, some have gone down from every 6 minutes to every 10, every 20 from every 15 minutes etc.

They cut the Park and Ride too, which I find hilarious as millions was spent extending it. The council is complaining there are too many cars and people should use the P&R.

I'm not convinced it will change anything if there's no government funding.
Arguably the Tories have made the biggest difference to buses with the £2 fares.

We were sold that de-regulation would be the cure to all ills. It wasn't, so why should we cling to it ?

 

[johncrossley]

This will be harder to achieve in Tory ran areas as this does not follow the Tories idea on buses.

Franchising is a large part of the "Tory idea on buses". The Tory government has facilitated franchising, whilst the previous Labour government didn't, and franchising already looks set to be rolled out across most of the major metropolitan areas before long. Basically the only difference between the Labour and Tory approaches is whether there needs to be a mayor.

 

[The Ham]

I couldn't agree more . . . but if a journey runs empty every day, then why continue with it?
If the journey carries 2-3 passengers every day, then evaluate that journey in some way . . . be it profit/loss; passenger numbers; cost per passenger . . . any way you like, but at least evaluate it. If value for money is poor, then decide on a priority for funding (social care; meals on wheels, whatever) and apply it.

Around my way, a rural route runs 5 times a day, using one bus and 1.5 drivers (it's a 0700-1900 day). Both ends of the route are covered by other routes, so it's only the middle that counts. On schooldays, the bus carries 5 scholars on the appropriate trips; on non-schooldays the bus runs empty. At one end of the route, maximum loadings are 2-3 passengers on a couple of trips; at commuter times the bus carries either 1 or 0 passengers. I don't see the other end of the route, but let's assume it's much the same.

At a rough estimate: one bus; 150 miles (including garage run); 1.5 drivers; it must cost over £100K per year to run.

With the best will in the world, I can't come above 15 pax/day (25 pax/day on schooldays). On 10 single trips, that's an average of 1.5-2.5 pax/trip. Pretty much all passengers are either "entitled" scholars, or ENCTS passholders. This revenue comes from two council budgets, so Peter IS paying Paul . . . there's probably no cash revenue at all.

Should this route survive? In an ideal world . . . why not? In today's world . . . why? I'll tell you why . . . the route survives because for political reasons. Nobody on the local Council can bear to be saddled with "Bus Route Murderer" as an epitaph. Sometimes unpopular decisions need to be taken . . .



And so the circle starts again . . . been there, seen it, done that, got the t-shirt . . . glad I won't be involved again; 45 years was enough!!

School bus travel can rack up some fairly big bills fairly quickly, the cheapest way to do it can pay the parents 45p/mile. At that rate with about 190 school days (and the minimum distance being 6 miles a day) that's about £500 per child*.

While that's a long way short of £100,000, if the parents can't drive their kids then the costs can increase rapidly. Taxis don't come cheap. 10 school users could otherwise cost the council £10,000 (maybe more), that's 1/10th of the cost but with wider benefits to the local population.

Also you write off the ends of the routes as they are served by other services. However, you don't specify how they are served, if the other routes are hourly, the through route may well make it a half hourly bus service (roughly every other hour). Reducing that to hourly would make bus travel a lot less attractive, and so at least some of the cost would be covered by the extra users generated by the more frequent service.

Whilst the total may not reach £100,000, it's likely that the extra cost would be quite a lot less than this. Therefore, as the saving may not be that great, it's potentially politically a bad move.

* I live somewhere where there's about 600 children bused to school (i.e. the dedicated buses running between the settlement where they live and the school are very full and each bus runs twice each way so about as effective as you can get), the council were looking to make savings and they were talking numbers which broadly equated to 30p/mile (assuming they could have cut all the buses, which they couldn't do the per mile rate would be higher than that) that was about 5 years ago - costs have only gone up since then.

 

[greenline712]

So . . . to put some more detail in: the route I'm referring to is Route 352 (Watford-Hemel Hempstead).

https://passenger-line-assets.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/intalink/service/fda5f120-7550-48e6-89e2-6f2a221aa6b4-timetable-20230326-0100b7d3.pdf

You can see how the route fits in with other routes at each end. There used to be a school movement at the Hemel end, but that has been gone for several years now . . . that would've helped the overall financials.

I've never heard of parents of "entitled" children being paid as an official "Mum's taxi" . . . whilst not impossible, I doubt that it would fit in with the Council's need to provide free transport . . . bear in mind that the entitlement is where the journey exceeds 3 miles or there is no safe walking route; and that's if the school is the nearest appropriate school . . . scholars who have chosen their own school are not so entitled, whatever the journey.

As far as costs go . . . I haven't done the full sums, but at a per-driver cost of c£40k pa (including pension and NI contribution and so on), and 1.5 drivers, that's around £60K pa staff costs . . . as a rule of thumb, staff costs were about 55% of total costs, so my £100k pa might actually be a bit light.
I don't know what the actual revenue is, and Herts CC don't publish that detail, so any cost/revenue comparisons are pretty useless. I can only reiterate that, to my (45-year experienced eye), the usage is very poor, which means that the communities (Sarratt; Belsize and Chipperfield) don't see the route as "vital".

Surely any savings, if used wisely elsewhere (increasing a 2 BPH town route to 3 BPH for example) would be better than running near-empty buses around the countryside . . . that's my only point here.

 

[Eyersey468]

Precisely this. There has to be some emphasis if taken into local government control that (atleast a high % proportion) of services make a profit. However I do agree the more lucrative routes should subsidise a degree of borderline of services. After all what a bus company should be selling is a network which provides good value; not just a particular route. This enables connectivity and makes bus travel a more viable option against the car. Currently some operators fail to recognise this!

There also has to be a degree of being willing to change - you can’t just keep services indefinitely running to a set route just because that’s how they’ve always been. Adapt, re-route and try new revenue streams before then withdrawing.

What worries me is buses becoming a bottomless pit which are run by individuals with little/no experience. What a waste of valued talent in the industry who thrive to provide a quality service that makes a profit… rather than running routes which may not serve any value/purpose just because they can. For any cost at that!

The bus operators also can't keep something running at a loss indefinitely, there comes a point the plug has to be pulled

 

[HullRailMan]

So, I see there have been some good discussions in this thread along with the usual ‘state run = ideal’ and ‘Tories are evil’ type tropes thrown in for good measure.

However, I’ve yet to see how this would be paid for or understand how Labour would tackle the practical implications. Franchising is currently proposed for areas with a devolution deal that comes with additional funding and covers a wide area. Outside of that, with no additional finding, who pays? Is the plan delivered at district or county council level? How are cross-border services managed and paid for? How are sparse services in very rural districts paid for? Delivering it in West Yorkshire would be vastly different to rural North Yorkshire, for example, with a very different cost and revenue base.

There may well be some merit it franchising, but frankly it’s barely started in Manchester yet so it feels a little premature to roll it out everywhere so soon without long term evaluation. It’s an easy line to spin (local control good, private companies evil) but much harder to deliver - see ‘rail nationalisation is a magic solution’. Plus, as has been pointed out, the list of industries that have improved after politicians got involved is remarkably short.

 

[johncrossley]

However, I’ve yet to see how this would be paid for or understand how Labour would tackle the practical implications. Franchising is currently proposed for areas with a devolution deal that comes with additional funding and covers a wide area. Outside of that, with no additional finding, who pays? Is the plan delivered at district or county council level? How are cross-border services managed and paid for? How are sparse services in very rural districts paid for? Delivering it in West Yorkshire would be vastly different to rural North Yorkshire, for example, with a very different cost and revenue base.

In an area of mostly or exclusively tendered services, it shouldn't be much different to now. How are cross-boundary routes managed in other regions of the world where they have franchising in neighbouring areas? Greater Manchester borders West Yorkshire and the Liverpool City Region, areas soon to be franchised, so we will be able to see what happens there before long.

There may well be some merit it franchising, but frankly it’s barely started in Manchester yet so it feels a little premature to roll it out everywhere so soon without long term evaluation.

What about the nearly 40 years experience in London? What about the experience in parts of Dublin and other regions of the world where they have franchising?

 

[Stan Drews]

What about the nearly 40 years experience in London? What about the experience in parts of Dublin and other regions of the world where they have franchising funding?

Funding is the key, not the framework in which it is delivered.
Any party that radically alters the funding available should see the benefits.

 

[buslad1988]

Funding is the key, not the framework in which it is delivered.
Any party that radically alters the funding available should see the benefits.

What I don’t understand is why any government would want to burden themselves with having the responsibility and cost of bus services.

Haven’t they got enough on their plate already that they cannot afford?

Like other posters have said buses would not be immune from cuts like all other council services. Be it libraries, refuse collection, sports centres etc over stretched councils are already cutting so much and many bus subsidy cuts were some of the first to happen as they’re an easy target. Even the NHS is looking for savings and value for money for the tax payer.

It just seems like a bizarre thing to do saddle yourself with yet another issue voters can throw at you come next election time.

 

[johncrossley]

What I don’t understand is why any government would want to burden themselves with having the responsibility and cost of bus services.

The government has been bankrolling buses for four years now. This is a Tory government we are talking about. They introduced a nationwide £2 fare cap. They have funded long term fare caps in the various city regions. They have allowed bus franchising and funded the implementation in Greater Manchester.

If you had predicted any of that 10 years ago you would have been considered barking mad. There is now a general political consensus that buses have to be funded.

 

[Eyersey468]

The government has been bankrolling buses for four years now. This is a Tory government we are talking about. They introduced a nationwide £2 fare cap. They have funded long term fare caps in the various city regions. They have allowed bus franchising and funded the implementation in Greater Manchester.

If you had predicted any of that 10 years ago you would have been considered barking mad. There is now a general political consensus that buses have to be funded.

The initial bankrolling had to happen though given the situation, the bus industry would have collapsed without the funding in 2020. Our passenger numbers fell to about 8-9% of pre Covid levels overnight

 

[johncrossley]

The initial bankrolling had to happen though given the situation, the bus industry would have collapsed without the funding in 2020. Our passenger numbers fell to about 8-9% of pre Covid levels overnight

They could have stopped it long time ago. Yes, there may have been severe cuts to services, but politicians didn't care about that in the past.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is now a general political consensus that buses have to be funded.

Indeed. While the £2 is likely in due course to increase with inflation or a bit above it, and some long distance routes might come out, it's now been established, and because removing it will hit the poorest hardest it's going to be very hard to go back on it completely. Certainly the London principle of a lowish flat fare in urban areas is now established - and that's probably good, as it means "tap in" can be implemented and so things sped up considerably.

 

[Cesarcollie]

Indeed. While the £2 is likely in due course to increase with inflation or a bit above it, and some long distance routes might come out, it's now been established, and because removing it will hit the poorest hardest it's going to be very hard to go back on it completely. Certainly the London principle of a lowish flat fare in urban areas is now established - and that's probably good, as it means "tap in" can be implemented and so things sped up considerably.

But the £2 fare doesn’t ‘fund’ buses - it merely pays for passengers to have lower fares.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But the £2 fare doesn’t ‘fund’ buses - it merely pays for passengers to have lower fares.

It's a subsidy for bus travel. It's just structured based on discounting the fare per passenger rather on funding the service itself.

It's similar in concept to state-funded concessionary fares.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The government has been bankrolling buses for four years now. This is a Tory government we are talking about. They introduced a nationwide £2 fare cap. They have funded long term fare caps in the various city regions. They have allowed bus franchising and funded the implementation in Greater Manchester.

If you had predicted any of that 10 years ago you would have been considered barking mad. There is now a general political consensus that buses have to be funded.

Think people need to wake up. The public finances are in a bad state. Neither of the two main parties are being honest about the tough decisions that will need to be faced into.

The Tories have been busy hollowing out the state for years with austerity and the "big society". All that's being done at the moment is the offloading of the responsibility to local politicians.

It's a subsidy for bus travel. It's just structured based on discounting the fare per passenger rather on funding the service itself.

It's similar in concept to state-funded concessionary fares.

It's a subsidy to the individual - we all know that. Whether it will continue past 2025 with politicians saying "tough decisions need to be made" is less clear cut.

So, I see there have been some good discussions in this thread along with the usual ‘state run = ideal’ and ‘Tories are evil’ type tropes thrown in for good measure.

However, I’ve yet to see how this would be paid for or understand how Labour would tackle the practical implications. Franchising is currently proposed for areas with a devolution deal that comes with additional funding and covers a wide area. Outside of that, with no additional finding, who pays? Is the plan delivered at district or county council level? How are cross-border services managed and paid for? How are sparse services in very rural districts paid for? Delivering it in West Yorkshire would be vastly different to rural North Yorkshire, for example, with a very different cost and revenue base.

There may well be some merit it franchising, but frankly it’s barely started in Manchester yet so it feels a little premature to roll it out everywhere so soon without long term evaluation. It’s an easy line to spin (local control good, private companies evil) but much harder to deliver - see ‘rail nationalisation is a magic solution’. Plus, as has been pointed out, the list of industries that have improved after politicians got involved is remarkably short.

This is exactly it. The operational practicalities of franchising are being established in Manchester (and it's markedly different from London in how it's being executed) but that ISN'T the real issue.

The real question is that if you're replacing commercial operators with a franchise, you get a benefit from lower margins. However, is that benefit enough to a) pay for the structure that you have to put in place to control it and b) deliver real tangible benefits in terms of service provision (and not just "network ticketing benefits" that actually benefit relatively few people)

Manchester has received a lump of cash to move to the new world (NOT revenue spending) so the proof does remain to be seen.

 

[RT4038]

This is exactly it. The operational practicalities of franchising are being established in Manchester (and it's markedly different from London in how it's being executed) but that ISN'T the real issue.

The real question is that if you're replacing commercial operators with a franchise, you get a benefit from lower margins. However, is that benefit enough to a) pay for the structure that you have to put in place to control it and b) deliver real tangible benefits in terms of service provision (and not just "network ticketing benefits" that actually benefit relatively few people)

Manchester has received a lump of cash to move to the new world (NOT revenue spending) so the proof does remain to be seen.

And of course what are the immediate financial effects of 'network ticketing benefits' (presumably a proportion of travellers had been paying for multiple tickets who now don't need to do so, and possibly other harmonisation of ticket prices and/or conditions) as building additional custom as a result may take time.

Other Authorities will require lumps of cash to move to the new world too; both in taking the initial risk and/or otherwise existing bus operators may well be in a monopoly or quasi monopoly position to be handsomely rewarded for the (reduced) services that can be afforded.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

And of course what are the immediate financial effects of 'network ticketing benefits' (presumably a proportion of travellers had been paying for multiple tickets who now don't need to do so, and possibly other harmonisation of ticket prices and/or conditions) as building additional custom as a result may take time.

Other Authorities will require lumps of cash to move to the new world too; both in taking the initial risk and/or otherwise existing bus operators may well be in a monopoly or quasi monopoly position to be handsomely rewarded for the (reduced) services that can be afforded.

That un-costed time lag was where Nexus came unstuck

 

[TheManOnThe172]

... the usage is very poor, which means that the communities (Sarratt; Belsize and Chipperfield) don't see the route as "vital".

Communities do not see routes as vital or not-vital - there is no mechanism for a community to express a collective view.

If you did a survey, I suspect many non-bus-users would nevertheless value having a service there, rather like BBC research many years back identified that few people watched "One Man and his Dog" but many more wanted it still to be shown.

The "use it or lose it" approach for buses may be OK for nice-to-have services above the essential minimum. But that approach isn't universally appropriate. Even in areas where they are few in number and scattered sparsely, those without use of a car do need some help in getting around - at a minimum to access education and work, for buying things that you need to try on, and to go to medical appointments.

In rural areas, some councils tend to think of bus services as they do fire engines - a necessary provision that we provide for people to use (or not) as they need. We don't apply the "use it or lose it" test to fire engines.

Others treat rural bus services as if they were a theatre - fine to provide if it can be self-financing, and perhaps worth subsidising a bit as long as there are enough users, but something vulnerable to closure if usage isn't sufficient.

I reckon that we need to think of rural non-car transport as we think of the provision of nursing. We should provide it where society judges it necessary, and we should deliver it either individually (nursing: district nurse at home, transport: subsidised taxi) or in bulk (nursing: on a ward in a hospital, transport: timetabled bus) depending on what is most cost-effective.

To extend the analogy, Demand Responsive Transport - DRT - is like kitting out an HGV truck as a field hospital, and parking this outside the patient's house so that a district nurse (trained also in HGV driving) can change a dressing.

 

[greenline712]

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with @TheManOnThe172 : if usage is as poor as I've outlined, then the service is not valued by the community. The "fire engine" or "nurse" analogy really isn't relevant, IMHO.

If the villages mentioned wish to see the service retained, then they should support it, either by using it or financially supporting it from local funds.

I have no problem with bus routes being operated with next to no passengers . . . but if that prevents another service, which actually performs a useful function, being operated .... then that cannot be right. Where finance is finite, then difficult decisions must be taken.
 

 

[RT4038]

Communities do not see routes as vital or not-vital - there is no mechanism for a community to express a collective view.

If you did a survey, I suspect many non-bus-users would nevertheless value having a service there, rather like BBC research many years back identified that few people watched "One Man and his Dog" but many more wanted it still to be shown.

Especially if it is other communities who are footing the bill.

The "use it or lose it" approach for buses may be OK for nice-to-have services above the essential minimum. But that approach isn't universally appropriate. Even in areas where they are few in number and scattered sparsely, those without use of a car do need some help in getting around - at a minimum to access education and work, for buying things that you need to try on, and to go to medical appointments.

We have never seen those minimums applied across the country - even in the golden years of buses many villages and hamlets only got buses (and then only for shopping journeys) once or twice a week, and some not at all.

In rural areas, some councils tend to think of bus services as they do fire engines - a necessary provision that we provide for people to use (or not) as they need. We don't apply the "use it or lose it" test to fire engines.

Others treat rural bus services as if they were a theatre - fine to provide if it can be self-financing, and perhaps worth subsidising a bit as long as there are enough users, but something vulnerable to closure if usage isn't sufficient.

I reckon that we need to think of rural non-car transport as we think of the provision of nursing. We should provide it where society judges it necessary, and we should deliver it either individually (nursing: district nurse at home, transport: subsidised taxi) or in bulk (nursing: on a ward in a hospital, transport: timetabled bus) depending on what is most cost-effective.

To extend the analogy, Demand Responsive Transport - DRT - is like kitting out an HGV truck as a field hospital, and parking this outside the patient's house so that a district nurse (trained also in HGV driving) can change a dressing.

Society may well think that, in some cases, the cost of providing such 'essential' service is just too much, and people affected should move into town, or somewhere else where the service can be provided at a sensible cost. It may well be possible to provide some semblance of service through a Demand Responsive system, but this is never going to be economically viable for anything but a minimum provision.

 

[Eyersey468]

Especially if it is other communities who are footing the bill.


We have never seen those minimums applied across the country - even in the golden years of buses many villages and hamlets only got buses (and then only for shopping journeys) once or twice a week, and some not at all.

Society may well think that, in some cases, the cost of providing such 'essential' service is just too much, and people affected should move into town, or somewhere else where the service can be provided at a sensible cost. It may well be possible to provide some semblance of service through a Demand Responsive system, but this is never going to be economically viable for anything but a minimum provision.

Apologies to the mods for going off topic, in my opinion DRT is a more cost effective option for a lot of rural villages to be honest

 

[RT4038]

Apologies to the mods for going off topic, in my opinion DRT is a more cost effective option for a lot of rural villages to be honest

It may or may not be depending on what is trying to be achieved, and what it is being compared to.

 

[YorkRailFan]

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with @TheManOnThe172 : if usage is as poor as I've outlined, then the service is not valued by the community

What about if it is a small community?

Communities do not see routes as vital or not-vital - there is no mechanism for a community to express a collective view.

If you did a survey, I suspect many non-bus-users would nevertheless value having a service there, rather like BBC research many years back identified that few people watched "One Man and his Dog" but many more wanted it still to be shown.

The "use it or lose it" approach for buses may be OK for nice-to-have services above the essential minimum. But that approach isn't universally appropriate. Even in areas where they are few in number and scattered sparsely, those without use of a car do need some help in getting around - at a minimum to access education and work, for buying things that you need to try on, and to go to medical appointments.

In rural areas, some councils tend to think of bus services as they do fire engines - a necessary provision that we provide for people to use (or not) as they need. We don't apply the "use it or lose it" test to fire engines.

Others treat rural bus services as if they were a theatre - fine to provide if it can be self-financing, and perhaps worth subsidising a bit as long as there are enough users, but something vulnerable to closure if usage isn't sufficient.

I reckon that we need to think of rural non-car transport as we think of the provision of nursing. We should provide it where society judges it necessary, and we should deliver it either individually (nursing: district nurse at home, transport: subsidised taxi) or in bulk (nursing: on a ward in a hospital, transport: timetabled bus) depending on what is most cost-effective.

Completely agree, a vital service is a vital service. Communities would be cut off without these bus services. These services are not meant to make a return go the investor, they are there to connect communities.

Especially if it is other communities who are footing the bill.


We have never seen those minimums applied across the country - even in the golden years of buses many villages and hamlets only got buses (and then only for shopping journeys) once or twice a week, and some not at all.

Society may well think that, in some cases, the cost of providing such 'essential' service is just too much, and people affected should move into town, or somewhere else where the service can be provided at a sensible cost. It may well be possible to provide some semblance of service through a Demand Responsive system, but this is never going to be economically viable for anything but a minimum provision.

True, DRT is used in some communities by extending existing services if requested.

Apologies to the mods for going off topic, in my opinion DRT is a more cost effective option for a lot of rural villages to be honest

Completely agree.

 

[dm1]

The key benefit of franchising, aside from the ticketing, is that it allows network-level planning to be done in a way that isn't really practical for a commercial operator looking to maximise short-term revenues. If you actively design a bus network to encourage modal shift, then you can provide a significantly better service to passengers without it necessarily costing more to run than the deregulated subsidies currently in place.

A few examples:
- Regular and frequent evening or night services may not be 'profitable' in their own right, but lead to significantly increased patronage during the day for all sorts of trips where people would not risk making them by bus otherwise, for fear of missing the last bus.
- Controlling the entire network means you can actively segregate your route network for different purposes - you can run a slow 'all round the houses' bus route A for connectivity around a housing estate to the nearest centre/suburban hub, with connections to a faster bus route B (or tram B) that gets you across an urban area quickly. Running A or B on their own would likely be unprofitable, but together and with flexible integrated ticketing, they easily attract enough passengers to be viable.
- You can run buses or routes with a broader view than just raw operating costs vs ticket revenues - e.g. ensuring every part of your region is reachable without a car at some minimum frequency (e.g. every two hours), enabling a significant amount of economic activity both directly from the not insignificant proportion of the population who do not drive (e.g. children, people with disabilities, the elderly) and the time and money saved by those who would otherwise be driving these demographics around. Or you can consider the road safety and environmental benefits of fewer cars on the road when those people can use public transport to get around instead - which lowers healthcare costs and reduces disruption caused by the emergency services responding to accidents.

In more rural areas, an hourly or two-hourly bus which runs reliably throughout the week can work wonders in preventing villages from dying out as wel as attracting day trippers for outdoor activites like hiking or birdwatching.

Going further, I would suggest that properly funding and investing in a countrywide, integrated, clean and reliable bus network (administered and operated at a local level) with good connections to trains and other public transport would be one of the single most effective measures you could take to rapidly boost the economy and turn stagnating productivity around, without costing the earth and while directly impacting people's lives for the better. Of course the devil is in the detail, but setting high level strategic goals (x% modal shift, minimum connectivity) and actively supporting their implementation would already go a very long way.

 

[Cesarcollie]

It's a subsidy for bus travel. It's just structured based on discounting the fare per passenger rather on funding the service itself.

It's similar in concept to state-funded concessionary fares.

Er…. Yes. That’s what I said in different words

 

[158756]

It's a subsidy for bus travel. It's just structured based on discounting the fare per passenger rather on funding the service itself.

It's similar in concept to state-funded concessionary fares.

And like concessionary fares whether it actually functions as a subsidy for the service depends on how well funded it is. Does any increase in passengers* as a result of the £2 scheme actually improve the financial situation for the operator?

*This might be getting off topic a bit, but I think it's relevant to a thread about future government policy on buses. Is there any research being done on how much the £2 fares affect patronage? I can find reports of it having a significant effect on some very long routes, but evidence of any wider effect seems limited. This is also complicated by when the scheme launched in the aftermath of Covid - and overall, despite the £2 fares, passenger numbers have not recovered to their pre-Covid level.

Here https://nottstv.com/almost-three-qu...-made-on-nct-buses-as-passenger-numbers-rise/ for example we have Nottingham City Transport saying the £2 scheme has not increased passenger numbers, but has led to people switching from period tickets to singles.

 

[WAB]

Aside from a few notable exceptions, there is little growth in bus service provision. If current trends continue, it will become increasingly impossible to live anything resembling a modern life if relying on the bus, particularly in the towns and villages.

 

[RT4038]

Aside from a few notable exceptions, there is little growth in bus service provision. If current trends continue, it will become increasingly impossible to live anything resembling a modern life if relying on the bus, particularly in the towns and villages.

I think that divergence happened, in most towns and villages, very many years ago. (depending on your interpretation of 'modern life' of course)

 

[TheManOnThe172]

When people talk about improving bus services, they tend to ignore the extra emissions, both tail-pipe emissions from diesel, and Non-Exhaust Emissions such as tyre particulates.

"Better" services almost always means new routes or more frequent services, so many more bus-km. And while there may be some voluntary modal shift, where are the case studies showing that the extra emissions from the buses will be less than the emissions from car journeys saved? Even if a better frequency did bring a big increase in passenger numbers, experience elsewhere suggests that most "new" usage is either abstraction from other routes, or modal shift from walking or bike, or new journeys that people wouldn't otherwise have made (which might be good for society, but it doesn't offer any reduced emissions to balance the extra emissions from the additional bus-km). It is only those shifting from their car who count if you are looking at emissions.

Making anything like the necessary reductions in emissions from ground transportation is going to need the large majority of people-km travelled on trains or well-loaded electric buses.

Outside the densest urban centres, achieving high loadings across the whole of the miles travelled by buses is a big challenge. You are stuck with tidal flows, which at their most extreme mean that a bus can't carry more than 50% of its crush capacity across the whole round trip. You will have to be readier to run part-route journeys (because the outer parts of a route can't achieve the necessary loadings if you simply run every trip end to end). And you are going to have to space out off-peak runs way thinner than the turn-up-and-go service that would be the starting point for achieving voluntary modal shift.

I am yet to hear anybody with the faintest idea of how voluntary modal shift can be achieved whilst achieving a useful reduction in emissions. The recent Arup report of a conference looking at the issues in Wales is long on challenges and concerns, and depressingly short on viable steps that have any hope of getting more than a tiny number of current car users to leave their vehicle on the drive and head for the bus stop (let alone contemplate ditching their car altogether).