I think you are putting your finger on the issue here AT.
There is an acknowledgement on all sides; that any major expansion in bus services outside London will require substantial investment - both by public agencies, and by the bus operators. But the bus operators in the current dergulated environment do not have the incentive to undertake investment on this scale; as it requries them to abandon the standard business model that they have developed over the past 30 years in order to protect their markets and maximise their profit.
the point was made in the report that Steer Davies Gleave prepared 18 months ago for HS2 Ltd, and the DfT.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...and_opportunities_in_the_North_of_England.pdf
The context here is that the attractiveness of private car transport, for business and commuter use, is rapidly shrinking; but that the private car still remains far the predominant commuter mode. So a substantial proportion - variously estimated, but likely between 15% and 25% of current car commuters - would be keen to stop doing so if they could. This proportion of 'reluctant drivers' is highly variable though, younger commuters are less likely to prefer private car travel than older commuters; more affluent commuters are less likely to prefer private cars than less affluent commuters; and employers/entrepeneurs are much less likely to drive themselves about than are low-ranking employees. And on top of all this, there is a geographical pattern; obviously car commuting is very rare now in central London, but it is also shrinking across the whole of the south of England, while in the North (outside the big cities) car commuting often remains the social norm. But long-term, the factors that are leading to shrinking commuter car use are all growing; hence the proportion of reluctant drivers may be everywhere expected to increase.
So car commuting long term may be expected to decline, and any reasonable alternative may be expected to show rapid increase. But the problem here is that the groups that are most likely to want to switch out of car commuting are generally those least likely to regard bus travel (as currently provided) as an alternative.
Which creates a real dilemma in public policy. Spatial planning policies and market pressures have long favoured low-density, dispersed, out-of-town patterns of employment, economic activity, retail, recreation and residential location; so restoring or reproviding transport access networks for trains, light rail, or cycleways (the modes favoured by reluctant drivers) can be involve high cost for limited scale of delivery. To yield real scale improvments in transport provision in line with public aspirations, public agencies really need to prioritise some form of enhanced bus offer. But the existing bus offers are almost all unfit for this purpose.
This is not news to commercial bus operators; who have long sought to create forms of 'premium' bus services - Sapphire, Max, Gold - tailored to an aspirational bus travel market. But the problem is that they are mostly investing in the wrong things - leather seats, charging points, WiFI, exterior rebranding. But aspirational users are not chiefly motivated by these (although some degree of distinct branding does seem to help).
The factors that most strongly motivate aspirational public transport users are different;
- smart, through, ticketing - knowing that your ticket/card will always default to the best value offer available for each sequence of trips across any day,
- inter-operator ticketing - knowing that once you have bought a ticket, you can always take the first service that comes along, without penalty,
- zonal pricing and multimodal provsion - knowing that your fare will be the same between any two zones irrespective of which public transport mode you use to get there; but also providing facilities for switch-mode trips (park-and-ride, cycle-and-bus),
- clock-face timetabling with reliable punctuality; ideally with no reduction in reliability for travel at peak periods.
- faster travel, bypassing queues of general traffic at congestion points.
- central business district penetration,
- high frequency service throughout the day; not just at peak periods,
- late evening running,
- on-line and TVM pre-paid ticketing; without on-board payment or other interruption to boarding or alighting times,
- high value and reliable PIDs at all stops,
- llimited stopping,
- adequate seats; for all but very short trips (<2 km),
- adequate standing for short trips; with grab-poles,
Which geneates three particular sets of problems:
- the service preferences of aspirational bus users cut across the business models of most commercial operators - as they prevent use of sole-provider season tickets to protect market share; and stop competition on price. If commercial operators are to participate in the scale of investment required, they have to be convinced that they will gain more benefit from growing passenger demand, than they will lose through not protecting their monopoly market positions.
- equally, the service preferences of aspirational bus users cut across the preferences of existing bus users; who generally value frequent stops, cheap fare offers, and on-board payment; and are less bothered by timetabling reliability or service speed.
- and trickiest of all perhaps, these aspirations cut across the expectations of those who remain tied to their cars, that their particular road use should enjoy priority access to the limited stock of road space. In the future, anyone under 50 who still drives to work may be seen as 'a failure in life'; but they won't thank you for rubbing their noses in the fact.
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