Hertfordshire County Council proposed bus priority measures

Slightly OT, but Hertfordshire County Council are consulting on new proposals for bus priority measures; including new bus lanes, improved waiting facilities and new services; in the Hitchin, St Albans and Stevenage areas, where Arriva have a presence.

Over 1.5 million bus journeys are made in Hertfordshire every month. We want to make our buses more convenient, more reliable and easier to use.

We've already made a range of improvements to make travelling by bus more attractive, including more frequent services, lower fares and simplified ticketing.

We're now proposing to give buses greater priority in ways which improve bus journey times and make services more reliable.

The consultation closes at the end of 17 March 2024.

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LUYMun said:

Slightly OT, but Hertfordshire County Council are consulting on new proposals for bus priority measures; including new bus lanes, improved waiting facilities and new services; in the Hitchin, St Albans and Stevenage areas, where Arriva have a presence.

Bus service improvements

We want to make our buses more convenient, more reliable and easier to use.

www.hertfordshire.gov.uk

Click to expand...

Herts County Council seem to be fairly adept at wasting their BSIP funding. So far it's gone on setting up new routes which already shadow existing commercially run routes.

Now they're proposing to cause chaos in Hitchin and St Albans - both place I know fairly well. The changes to the stops in Queen Street aka St Mary's Square are fairly innocuous, that's been changed many times over the years. The bus lane on the A600 is nuts. If you want to deal with the congestion on there they need to address the half arsed "Priory Bypass" which was built in the late 1970s. It needs to be rerouted north west of Charlton to meet the A505 to he west of Hitchin then continue north, running west of Westmill Estate to rejoin the A600 at Ickleford. The problem us the traffic isn't heading "to" Hitchin, it's trying to get past Hitchin and onto the A505 for Luton or A602 towards Stevenage. And it's going to get worse along there because Central Beds Council are merrily granting planning permission for loads of houses around Henlow Camp / Stondon knowing full well the traffic is heading south into Herts.

As for St Albans - every time the County Council has meddled with the road network in St Albans they've managed to make things worse - I'm.old enough to remember the disasterous one way system they implemented in the 80s or 90s in the city centre only to have to remove it because of the chaos it caused.

A0wen said:

Herts County Council seem to be fairly adept at wasting their BSIP funding. So far it's gone on setting up new routes which already shadow existing commercially run routes.

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That's before we look at the 'simpliying fares' which has made the fare system more complex as rather than just reducing the fares, they have introduced loads of saver cards (same thing as railcard, pay £20 and get some discounts).

I'm not sure why the comments from AOwen and markymark2000 are so denegrating about the Herts CC BSIP funding . . . the new Herts Connect network is designed to do two things.
1. To provide new direct "round-the-corner" links around the County; not just for longer journeys, but sometimes cross-town links as well.
2. To enhance frequencies on major corridors, and at the same time to try to come closer to turn-up-and-go timings. Many links are now at 4 BPH, and at clock-face frequencies as well.
I was surprised at Route 907 (Stevenage-Brookfield), as this does duplicate Route 390 through a rural area, but having ridden on the route, there are a surprising number of passengers travelling . . . Stevenage-Ware doesn't sound like a useful route, but there ARE passengers making that journey!
I'm not sure how Route 721 will fare; Route 725 is already becoming useful; again from riding the route and listening to passengers comments.
I daresay that not all of the routes will work perfectly, but at least they're being tried. It is early days, though . . . wait and see how the routes perform during the summer . . .

Concerning the SaverCards . . . the concept dates back to the early-1990s, when commercial bus companies were charging adult fares during peak periods, and Herts CC devised the Savercard to enable scholars to access discounted fares. It has been expanded since then, with Savercards now being available for 11-19; 20-25; 26-59; 60-65 age ranges, with varying discounts. One of the comments often heard from rail travellers is that there is no help for travellers between 30 and 59 . . . it's full fare or nothing. The Adult Savercard (26-59) fills that gap nicely. Similarly, the 60-65 Savercard enables the not-quite-yet ENCTS generation to access cheaper fares.
Reimbursement to the operators comes from the Savercard fees being totalled up and divvied out by usage . . . each Savercard journey is captured by the ETM, so accurate ridership is known. Herts CC has form here . . . their ENCTS reimbursement is not driven by the DfT RAT (Reimbursement Attribution Tool), but by a scheme that is both easier and fairer to administer.
The continuing extension of the £2 single fare has muddied the waters here . . . but when fares return to normal levels, these new Savercards will come into their own.

I'm encouraged by this usage of BSIP funds . . . not just on "capital" projects, but by directly improving passenger journeys and fares; this seems to be what BSIP funding is intended for.

And I'm also old enough to remember the St Albans Gyratory of ?1987? or thereabouts. For those who don't know, St Albans has a couple of road junctions that are extraordinarily difficult to negotiate with even mid-sized vehicles, and one careless car can gridlock the town in seconds. The Gyratory was intended to remove the myriad of conflicting car movements, and created a one-way system that should've improved traffic flow considerably. Unfortunately, the job was only half-done, and chaos ensued, such that it was summarily stopped after about 3 days! As is the way with these changes, it needed to be run for at least two weeks, to give drivers a chance to see the benefits, but the City Council capitulated. If only . . .

LUYMun said:

Slightly OT, but Hertfordshire County Council are consulting on new proposals for bus priority measures; including new bus lanes, improved waiting facilities and new services; in the Hitchin, St Albans and Stevenage areas, where Arriva have a presence.

Bus service improvements

We want to make our buses more convenient, more reliable and easier to use.

www.hertfordshire.gov.uk

Click to expand...

Seems like an utter waste of money to me. The council in this area claims not to have the money to do even basic maintenance tasks of their assets, yet appear to have money to spend on this - hardly a priority.

bramling said:

Seems like an utter waste of money to me. The council in this area claims not to have the money to do even basic maintenance tasks of their assets, yet appear to have money to spend on this - hardly a priority.

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This is money they've applied for which will be ringfenced for the projects it's been applied for.

A0wen said:

Now they're proposing to cause chaos in Hitchin and St Albans - both place I know fairly well. The changes to the stops in Queen Street aka St Mary's Square are fairly innocuous, that's been changed many times over the years. The bus lane on the A600 is nuts. If you want to deal with the congestion on there they need to address the half arsed "Priory Bypass" which was built in the late 1970s. It needs to be rerouted north west of Charlton to meet the A505 to he west of Hitchin then continue north, running west of Westmill Estate to rejoin the A600 at Ickleford.

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Why not a short bypass from the A505 just west of Hitchin to the Priory bypass you mention, then a full eastern bypass from Ashbrook (where the A602 dual carriageway towards the A1(M) begins), past Great Wymondley, roundabout interchange with A505, then cross the River Purwell and join the A600 north of Ickleford.
You can't build your proposed western bypass near the Westmill estate because there's a nature reserve in the way, and there's also a crematorium near where your bypass would join at Ickleford. So you'd have to take a westerly line passing east of Pirton and north west of Holwell.

If you built my proposed route, you'd remove a lot of traffic that you said was a growing flow (A600 southbound) from Hitchin entirely, and also it incorporates the A505 - A602 link from your proposal that would allow A505 traffic to avoid Hitchin town centre and head straight for the rest of the A505/A1(M)/Stevenage.

greenline712 said:

1. To provide new direct "round-the-corner" links around the County; not just for longer journeys, but sometimes cross-town links as well.
2. To enhance frequencies on major corridors, and at the same time to try to come closer to turn-up-and-go timings. Many links are now at 4 BPH, and at clock-face frequencies as well.

Click to expand...

Funds should have been spent on improving existing routes rather than creating a completely separate network. The whole separate network thing seems to come from a place of 'ooh look at us, we fund this bus' rather than it being a normal bus and no one knows where the funds came from to enhance it.

greenline712 said:

Concerning the SaverCards . . . the concept dates back to the early-1990s, when commercial bus companies were charging adult fares during peak periods, and Herts CC devised the Savercard to enable scholars to access discounted fares. It has been expanded since then, with Savercards now being available for 11-19; 20-25; 26-59; 60-65 age ranges, with varying discounts. One of the comments often heard from rail travellers is that there is no help for travellers between 30 and 59 . . . it's full fare or nothing. The Adult Savercard (26-59) fills that gap nicely. Similarly, the 60-65 Savercard enables the not-quite-yet ENCTS generation to access cheaper fares.
Reimbursement to the operators comes from the Savercard fees being totalled up and divvied out by usage . . . each Savercard journey is captured by the ETM, so accurate ridership is known. Herts CC has form here . . . their ENCTS reimbursement is not driven by the DfT RAT (Reimbursement Attribution Tool), but by a scheme that is both easier and fairer to administer.
The continuing extension of the £2 single fare has muddied the waters here . . . but when fares return to normal levels, these new Savercards will come into their own.

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Rail tickets are often much larger purchases than bus tickets and you can make savings extremely quickly. Buses less so, even based on normal bus fares (not the £2 cap), the savings will be minimal. There is a good reason why there are so few saver cards around. 11-19 savercard should just be replaced by making child fare available up to 19. 20-65s should be accommodated by having lower fares for all (see Stoke as a great example). Savercards, and not just in Herts, make fares more complex. It's the same rebelling that is coming up against Tesco Clubcard. 1 price for those who can't get a card/don't want to be tracked and 1 price for those who are willing to have all of their data analysed, potentially for money to be made from you using that data. Before BSIP, saver cards weren't very common and now you need a card for this, a card for that. This ticket can only be issued onto this card, you need proof of age cards issued by different authorities depending on where you get on the bus and god knows what else. Bus travel should be made simple and give everyone the lower price, not make it difficult with so many different fare structures.

markymark2000 said:

Funds should have been spent on improving existing routes rather than creating a completely separate network. The whole separate network thing seems to come from a place of 'ooh look at us, we fund this bus' rather than it being a normal bus and no one knows where the funds came from to enhance it.

Rail tickets are often much larger purchases than bus tickets and you can make savings extremely quickly. Buses less so, even based on normal bus fares (not the £2 cap), the savings will be minimal. There is a good reason why there are so few saver cards around. 11-19 savercard should just be replaced by making child fare available up to 19. 20-65s should be accommodated by having lower fares for all (see Stoke as a great example). Savercards, and not just in Herts, make fares more complex. It's the same rebelling that is coming up against Tesco Clubcard. 1 price for those who can't get a card/don't want to be tracked and 1 price for those who are willing to have all of their data analysed, potentially for money to be made from you using that data. Before BSIP, saver cards weren't very common and now you need a card for this, a card for that. This ticket can only be issued onto this card, you need proof of age cards issued by different authorities depending on where you get on the bus and god knows what else. Bus travel should be made simple and give everyone the lower price, not make it difficult with so many different fare structures.

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Hertfordshire give half fare via these cards until 25, covering the peak years for people to get used to using the car for everything. Like a railcard, it's a sunk cost that you want to make the most of during its validity. I'm not sure who's going to be making more money by tracking which buses you get or it this is even aggregated by user. Intalink Explorers can be used across several counties for many operators. I'd love there to be a national discount travel card, but who's going to manage that?

markymark2000 said:

Funds should have been spent on improving existing routes rather than creating a completely separate network. The whole separate network thing seems to come from a place of 'ooh look at us, we fund this bus' rather than it being a normal bus and no one knows where the funds came from to enhance it.

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I don't think BSIP funds can be spent on directly funding existing routes as such - a transport planner working for Oxon County Council had this issue when he had to replace the village route between Bicester and Oxford with a new differently routed version to qualify.

AlastairFraser said:

I don't think BSIP funds can be spent on directly funding existing routes as such - a transport planner working for Oxon County Council had this issue when he had to replace the village route between Bicester and Oxford with a new differently routed version to qualify.

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It was that initially, but the rules have been changed.

AlastairFraser said:

Why not a short bypass from the A505 just west of Hitchin to the Priory bypass you mention, then a full eastern bypass from Ashbrook (where the A602 dual carriageway towards the A1(M) begins), past Great Wymondley, roundabout interchange with A505, then cross the River Purwell and join the A600 north of Ickleford.
You can't build your proposed western bypass near the Westmill estate because there's a nature reserve in the way, and there's also a crematorium near where your bypass would join at Ickleford. So you'd have to take a westerly line passing east of Pirton and north west of Holwell.

If you built my proposed route, you'd remove a lot of traffic that you said was a growing flow (A600 southbound) from Hitchin entirely, and also it incorporates the A505 - A602 link from your proposal that would allow A505 traffic to avoid Hitchin town centre and head straight for the rest of the A505/A1(M)/Stevenage.

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There would be *massive* local opposition to that, as this area is a very popular one for people taking walks locally. Whilst a bypass on that alignment is certainly very desirable, to make it palatable locally it would have to be at least part in tunnel.

bramling said:

There would be *massive* local opposition to that, as this area is a very popular one for people taking walks locally. Whilst a bypass on that alignment is certainly very desirable, to make it palatable locally it would have to be at least part in tunnel.

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Well, the other options aren't really viable, so I guess you'd have to bite the bullet and pay for a tunnel.
Although, you could deliver significant benefits with the A505 - A602 Priory Bypass link and the Ashbrook to Purwell roundabout section alone.

RT4038 said:

It was that initially, but the rules have been changed.

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Thanks for telling me - what do the new guidelines allow spending on?

markymark2000 said:

Funds should have been spent on improving existing routes rather than creating a completely separate network. The whole separate network thing seems to come from a place of 'ooh look at us, we fund this bus' rather than it being a normal bus and no one knows where the funds came from to enhance it.

Rail tickets are often much larger purchases than bus tickets and you can make savings extremely quickly. Buses less so, even based on normal bus fares (not the £2 cap), the savings will be minimal. There is a good reason why there are so few saver cards around. 11-19 savercard should just be replaced by making child fare available up to 19. 20-65s should be accommodated by having lower fares for all (see Stoke as a great example). Savercards, and not just in Herts, make fares more complex. It's the same rebelling that is coming up against Tesco Clubcard. 1 price for those who can't get a card/don't want to be tracked and 1 price for those who are willing to have all of their data analysed, potentially for money to be made from you using that data. Before BSIP, saver cards weren't very common and now you need a card for this, a card for that. This ticket can only be issued onto this card, you need proof of age cards issued by different authorities depending on where you get on the bus and god knows what else. Bus travel should be made simple and give everyone the lower price, not make it difficult with so many different fare structures.

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But the Connect Herts network isn't separate . . . it is new routes superimposed on, and complementary to, existing routes. Think of it as adding new links to the network, and enhancing existing frequencies. The money "could" have been spent on doubling frequencies on existing routes, but this goes further.

There are some clear problems with trying to reduce single fares in Hertfordshire . . . DfT have already reduced them to a maximum of £2 !! Bus operators have to claim the differences between "normal" and "reduced" fares via a complex mechanism, and attempting to further impose a reduction would be fraught with difficulties.
In practice, as has been noted above, Herts already had a range of Savercards (initially since the 1990s), and BSIP funding has allowed this range to be extended to all passengers if they wish. They will allow a discount to the £2 fare as well, so a 15% discount will give a discount of 30p on a £2 single . . . that sounds like a fare reduction to me.

I honestly don't get your comparison with a Tesco clubcard . . . apples and pears and so on. A Savercard simply permits a discount . . . nothing more. If I remember correctly (and it's 10 years ago now), a Savercard isn't tracked in that way . . . it simply enables the driver, via the ETM, to access cheaper fares. It's like the OAP half-fare was, pre-2008.

If your bus fare is £2 single, it's now £1.70 single. Over a full week, that might save £3 or more. After around 7 weeks, the holder is in profit against the £20 fee. And when the £2 fare ends, the savings will be higher.

AFAIK, BSIP+ monies can now be spent on retaining as well as enhancing services, and the latest 2025-2030 allocations permit considerable latitude in spendings, as long as DfT approves the basic ideals. The Oxon difficulties were recognised with the second tranche of monies. The whole industry is going through seismic changes at present, and not all LTAs will spend money wisely . . . West Berks giving free weekend travel (when there are pretty much no Sunday buses) before Xmas was one of the daftest.