Councils should reinvest car parking profits in backing buses to combat congestions

[Gingerbus1991]

Because its about time politicians had more say on how buses are run, especially with their many well-thought sensible ideas

Just look at London - constantly major changes as the Mayor decides he wants something. Boris doesn't like bendies? Withdraws them all despite being relatively new. Mayor wants a new bus? Loads of money spent on the New Routemaster (incidentally a good bus imo, but it has proved costly). Mayor wants to please the voters? Freeze the fares putting TfL's finances under huge strain.

And most councils are struggling financially, and generally focusing their money on the most important things, e.g. health and education, NOT buses. Do we really want cash-strapped councils in charge of buses? In some cases, some commercial operators have in fact taken over supported-routes and are operating them commercially (albeit, in many cases a reduced timetable), saving taxpayers money through efficiencies.

hindsight of what I’ve said isnt exactly what I should have said, but certainly “re-regulation” of many areas where competing amongst many operators is fierce, all this will set to do is starve each respective operator of revenue whilst they desperately waste money and resourses fighting for supremecy, of course, this is something that is never guaranteed but is actually a theory that could help share revenue generated on a competeing route amongst operators.

Offering operators more money isnt going to solve or improve much.

 

[alex397]

hindsight of what I’ve said isnt exactly what I should have said, but certainly “re-regulation” of many areas where competing amongst many operators is fierce, all this will set to do is starve each respective operator of revenue whilst they desperately waste money and resourses fighting for supremecy, of course, this is something that is never guaranteed but is actually a theory that could help share revenue generated on a competeing route amongst operators.

Offering operators more money isnt going to solve or improve much.

I do see your point, but it doesn't necessarily mean handing bus operators money on a plate. "Backing buses" could mean improving bus priority, replacing manky bus shelters, increasing real-time information. Things like this isn't giving money to operators, but will indirectly help them. It would help all other bus operators in that particular area too.

To be honest, I was under the impression that some councils already use car parking 'profits' on public transport - I have heard of this, but can't think of any examples at the moment.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Offering operators more money isnt going to solve or improve much.

That isn't what they are saying. They want better bus priority - traffic light priority, bus lanes etc. It's about capital investment and not surprisingly, it is those places where they are already investing that are seeing bus patronage increase rather than fall.

 

[GusB]

They also miss the point that most councils are using the car park revenues, which are legally ringfenced to spend on transport, to meet the shortfall on ENCTS funding. Which gets paid directly to, er, Stagecoach, for buses it would already run.

To be honest, I was under the impression that some councils already use car parking 'profits' on public transport

Is the ring-fencing of car park revenues something that happens in all parts of the UK, or do councils which fall under devolved administrations have their own rules?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Is the ring-fencing of car park revenues something that happens in all parts of the UK, or do councils which fall under devolved administrations have their own rules?

Car parking cannot be used to be a revenue generator - the 1984 Road Traffic Regulation Act provides for this and legal precedents have been made.

Car parking does not fund ENCTS

 

[deltic]

Car parking cannot be used to be a revenue generator - the 1984 Road Traffic Regulation Act provides for this and legal precedents have been made.

Car parking does not fund ENCTS

On street parking charges can not be used as a revenue generator and any profits made must be reinvested in transport with many authorities using it to support ENCTS. Off street parking can be used as a revenue generator and profits used for anything the council is allowed to spend on.

 

[Jordan Adam]

Perhaps not fully on topic but at the same time it is...

While having buses back in the "public hands" sounds all well and good, certain local authorities cough cough Aberdeen City Council would be disastrous at operating buses, and even if they applied for an operators license the TC would likely reject it!

As far as Aberdeen is concerned the major issue is journey time and congestion round the city centre. 10 years ago it used to take about a minute to go from the last stop on Union Street down to the Bus Station. Now you're lucky if you manage to do it in under 10 minutes. The council rather foolishly offering free parking in the city centre in the evening doesn't exactly help the case either. Another issue is the sheer lack of bus priority and how useless bits of it are. From many areas of the city it's faster to drive in to town than it is to use public transport, the simple reason is that buses and cars get stuck in the same bottlenecks and the centre lacks good bus priority.

Around the turn of the century there was a real focus in Aberdeen to target high use car areas, then the council decided in 2001 to cut most of the subsidised for buses, thus meaning First had to revamp it's network. The best example was the service 7/7A (see map below), it operated limited stop Every 7/8 Minutes until it hit the outskirts of Bridge Of Don, from then it then split in two loops (every 15 minutes). The service specifically targeted the high car use residential streets and was even Hail & Ride. The fleet used were brand new Gold Service SLF Darts, and as was standard with First Aberdeen/Grampian at the time the service was very reliable and proved popular. In the last 2 decades the number of buses going in to Bridge Of Don has dropped from 26 per hour to just 14 per hour and there is nowhere near the coverage. Valentine Road for example has dropped from 12 Buses Per hour (to the city) to just 1 bus per hour, on the other hand Danestone has seen a increase (4BPH to 8BPH).

Spoiler: Maps

November 1997 Route map.

May 2018 route map.