International forum members: are you in favour of UK-style bus deregulation?

[Goldfish62]

If you read the main Buses & Coaches section, many forum members don't consider integration very important. A common view is that integration is only worth doing if it can be done easily. For example, forum members would generally not advocate buses going to the railway station if the station is far from the town centre.

That prevailing attitude is one reason why public transport is in such a mess in the UK.

 

[JonasB]

Many Brits might be in favour of the current system because they are used to it, it's familiar and they understand it. Another reason might be that the UK outside London is very much a car based country. While not as bad as North America it is in general much worse than most of the rest of Europe, so my impression is that buses (and cycling infrastructure) are seen as low priority.

In addition there is an "it's too hard to do something about it"-attitude, and people often seem to think that everything works in the rest of Europe because the cities rebuilt with buses in mind after having been destroyed in the war. Ignoring the facts that it tend to work well in cities that hasn't been affected by the war, and that cities that rebuilt themself in the 1950s tended to focus on car infrastructure.

In Sweden it's in general seen as important that local buses go to the railway station, or at least close to it. In cities where the buses don't they are often trying to fix that to improve connections. If the road to the station is narrow and filled with parked cars, you can ban parking along it to make sure the buses can be to their destination. If there is no space for a bus terminal at the station, make sure that there are bus stops along the road so that the buses can stop there. And if the station is outside the centre, there need to be good connections between the station and the centre. And you should be able to use the same tickets for the local/regional trains and the buses.

 

[DanielB]

If the road to the station is narrow and filled with parked cars, you can ban parking along it to make sure the buses can be to their destination. If there is no space for a bus terminal at the station, make sure that there are bus stops along the road so that the buses can stop there.

And in addition to that: a bus obviously doesn't need to serve any station. When a route is somewhat parallel to the railway, the bus may well skip some hard to reach stations and serve the next one instead. As such a bus is usually a bit slower than the train, this helps to optimize connections as it can't offer a quick one at every station anyway.

 

[JonasB]

And in addition to that: a bus obviously doesn't need to serve any station. When a route is somewhat parallel to the railway, the bus may well skip some hard to reach stations and serve the next one instead. As such a bus is usually a bit slower than the train, this helps to optimize connections as it can't offer a quick one at every station anyway.

That might also happen. Here it tends more to be the case that a bus route serves most stations when it runs parallell to a railway, so it can be used by those that want to get to the train. But it depends a lot on how the road layouts are and how frequent the trains are.

 

[WideRanger]

In urban and suburban Japan, local buses are often run by the private railway company that is dominant in the area, and routes tend to centre on the railway stations (both the private ones and the JR ones). There is a strong assumption that people take the bus to get to the station, and carry on their route from there. Buses tend to be incredibly slow in urban and suburban areas.

In a lot of places, the same company also runs a fleet of taxis (alongside other companies and private individual cabs).

I have never seen any competition on bus routes. Perhaps everyone is too polite. Or, I suspect more likely, the bus routes run at a loss, and are subsidised by the train (which definitely don't run at a loss in the metropolises).

In rural areas, there generally is one bus company that runs both buses and taxis. Again, these seem to be focussed on routes to stations (or replacing closed lines) Routes are often infrequent, fares are relatively high, and I have never seen any competition.

Long distance coaches are a bit different. There is competition. But it rarely results in the sort of low fares you used to be able to get from Megabus or Flixbus.

Who runs the buses is something that people rarely think about.

 

[Struner]

perhaps the original question could be rephrased: “international members: why would you be in favour of uk-style bus regulation”?
there are quite a few local members here who suggest their own system should be changed to whatever they think should better &/or commenting on systems used in other nations

 

[RT4038]

Many Brits might be in favour of the current system because they are used to it, it's familiar and they understand it.

There will be some truth in this. Some industry people will feel threatened by any changed system. Some will have an aversion to public control and management as there are plenty of examples both now and in the past where this has not produced the results that others are looking for. Britain has a culture (for good or for bad) in the last 40+ years of low taxation and low level of public service, and there is not much appetite to increase taxation (which a regulated system to achieve similar results to some Northern European countries would require). Other countries achieve good public transport through much larger subsidies without individuals being poorer than us, but this probably requires other restructuring of society and economy, which the British pretty much rejected with the Brexit vote.

Another reason might be that the UK outside London is very much a car based country. While not as bad as North America it is in general much worse than most of the rest of Europe, so my impression is that buses (and cycling infrastructure) are seen as low priority.

Yes, they are by and large seen as low priority, and if some money is available for improvements, the additional costs of connecting everywhere to railway station(s) would be seen as a fairly low priority and competing with, in no particular order, service frequency increases, lower fares, better school transport, improved coverage generally and to hospitals, out of town shopping and employment centres etc.

In addition there is an "it's too hard to do something about it"-attitude, and people often seem to think that everything works in the rest of Europe because the cities rebuilt with buses in mind after having been destroyed in the war. Ignoring the facts that it tend to work well in cities that hasn't been affected by the war, and that cities that rebuilt themself in the 1950s tended to focus on car infrastructure.

When car culture permeates through virtually every strand of society, administration and Government, it literally is too hard to do anything about it!

In Sweden it's in general seen as important that local buses go to the railway station, or at least close to it. In cities where the buses don't they are often trying to fix that to improve connections. If the road to the station is narrow and filled with parked cars, you can ban parking along it to make sure the buses can be to their destination. If there is no space for a bus terminal at the station, make sure that there are bus stops along the road so that the buses can stop there. And if the station is outside the centre, there need to be good connections between the station and the centre. And you should be able to use the same tickets for the local/regional trains and the buses.

In the UK every (main) railway station is served by local buses, just not every local bus service goes to a railway station. We live in a democracy and it is not possible to simply ban cars from parking in the street, especially those streets where there is not alternative car parking nearby. It is just not possible, due to house value considerations, and the inconvenience to existing residents. Unlike most of Europe, we have plenty of stations without space for bus terminals, and awkward road access. This doesn't prevent some bus service at the railway station but makes the provision of all services there difficult and expensive. Obviously it would be possible to deal with this by spending mega money on redevelopments etc, but that is unlikely to be seen as a priority anytime soon.
The only purpose of being able to use the same tickets on buses and trains is to effectively reduce fares to passengers. It is not clear where the money to make up the shortfall of current revenue is going to come from?

 

[johncrossley]

It's obvious Britain lags behind most of Europe in transport terms. On the other hand, things that seemed impossible have happened in recent years. 10 years ago, nobody would have predicted that somewhere other than London would have bus franchising. Even 5 years ago, nobody would have seriously thought that fares outside London would be capped. Integration still seems a distant dream, but arguably more unbelievable things have occurred in recent years.

 

[LesS]

A UK type system operates in the Newcastle; Sydney; Wollongong conurbation in NSW. It also operates in Melbourne; Adelaide, Perth, and Darwin. It also operates in Singapore; Hong Kong, and Wellington NZ.
As I understand the system; the government sets the fares and the timetables. It meets set expenses, which vary from franchise to franchise. The government also owns the buses.
The biggest problems are a shortage of drivers; which are hired directly by the franchisees; and disputes with the unions over pay rates.
In Sydney, as rail and tram services have expanded bus timetables have been altered to direct passengers to the rail.

Long distance bus services are mostly privately run and in NSW are usually more expensive than the alternative rail journey as well as having longer journey times for many destinations. A few weeks ago a Melbourne - Sydney overnight bus run into the back of a B-Double on the Hume Highway in the early hours of the morning. The driver did not survive.

 

[johncrossley]

A UK type system operates in the Newcastle; Sydney; Wollongong conurbation in NSW. It also operates in Melbourne; Adelaide, Perth, and Darwin. It also operates in Singapore; Hong Kong, and Wellington NZ.
As I understand the system; the government sets the fares and the timetables. It meets set expenses, which vary from franchise to franchise. The government also owns the buses.

This doesn't sound like UK-style bus deregulation. It sounds more like London and Manchester bus franchising.

 

[peterblue]

On the other hand, international visitors to this forum are even less representative of the average person, given that they have gone to the trouble of participating in a forum based in a foreign country, but the votes show a very strong disapproval of deregulation.

The main issue is cost, really.

TfL is receiving billions/millions in subsidy to support the network and it operates at a loss.

Regulated services are better in smaller countries (such as the Netherlands) as it's smaller and more densely populated. The geography of the UK is more complex, with urban areas, rural areas, and places in between.

Currently, less profitable essential links can be funded as contracts from local government to fill in the gaps on the commercial privatised network. This allows nearly all villages to have at least an hourly or 2 hourly service. That's not something you will see in many European countries of a similar size and population density.

The money has to come from somewhere and I don't want to have to be paying excess tax for a bus system that may not even be better in the long run.

Deregulation may not be the most ideal, but it's the system that works best for the UK.

The main issue is a lack of integration, outside some key cities/counties. For example I would be able to buy a ticket from Manchester-London by train, but if I wanted to include a bus from my house to Manchester station I would need a separate fare.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Here in Oxford, UK we had two different bus companies competing on the main urban routes, but with no integration on fares or timetables. I never bought a return ticket because there was a 50% chance that the bus back would not accept my "foreign" ticket. Fortunately there is now proper co-ordination and such anomalies no longer apply.

 

[johncrossley]

TfL is receiving billions/millions in subsidy to support the network and it operates at a loss.

Transport in London is one of the most expensive and least subsidised in the world.

 

[jamesontheroad]

In Sweden it's in general seen as important that local buses go to the railway station, or at least close to it. In cities where the buses don't they are often trying to fix that to improve connections. If the road to the station is narrow and filled with parked cars, you can ban parking along it to make sure the buses can be to their destination. If there is no space for a bus terminal at the station, make sure that there are bus stops along the road so that the buses can stop there. And if the station is outside the centre, there need to be good connections between the station and the centre. And you should be able to use the same tickets for the local/regional trains and the buses.

A big "no" from me on the original poll, in part because I've emigrated from the UK to Sweden and adapted to the way things are done here.

Local transport authorities manage local and regional bus services at a regional level. These are often collaborations between counties and municipalities so that the competing interests of counties, villages and cities are represented.

Everything is tendered competitively, but it is the local transport authority that determines the routes, schedules, levels of services, and fare structures.

Private operators tender to bid for the right to operate routes or packages of routes. Criteria include cost (most heavily weighted), service quality, environmental performance, and sometimes innovation.

Here in Västerbotten county, which is almost the same size as Croatia Länstrafiken Västerbotten "Västerbotten country traffic" manage a city bus system in Umeå called Ultra which is currently tendered in almost its entirety to Transdev. Regional and rural bus lines are tendered separately. As @JonasB has pointed out, it's notable that most regional bus routes that connect with the bigger towns and cities follow routes that all touch the major hospitals because patient traffic is an important part of the bus system. Länstrafiken Västerbotten also collaborates with neighbouring counties for longer-distance regional traffic, like the impressive north-south 45 bus line (PDF), which takes more than 11 hours to follow 700km along the E45 highway between Östersund in Jämtland with Gällivare in Norrbotten.

Swedish YouTube bus enthusiast Fredskronk recently travelled from Sweden's southernmost bus stop to it's northernmost only on local buses, and line 45 featured, starting from this bookmark (31:38). Check out his channel for the whole trip to see what different counties have procured and different private bus companies delivered. YouTube can offer you subtitles in your language.

 

[RT4038]

It's obvious Britain lags behind most of Europe in transport terms.

Is it obvious? - an alternative view - perhaps Britain is ahead of the curve in realising that pumping taxpayers money into conventional bus services is throwing good money after bad - most people just don't want to use them because no matter the 'quality' they will never realistically match the convenience and ambience of the private vehicle, except for certain fairly niche activities where the downsides exceed the up. (taking the kids to school, airside buses, park & ride on some locations, big(ger) city inner suburb transport, certain longer distance express interurban etc)?

Maybe most conventional (passengers waiting beside a pole for a fixed time, fixed route) bus services in Britain have had their day, save in certain circumstances? Certainly (if this forum is any barometer) people do not see value for money in the product (only seeing value if the fare is well below the cost of providing it at present usage, and no realistic prospect of that usage substantially increasing [even with fare cuts] without further cost increases). Normally a product in this circumstance will just whither and die, or hang on in a minimal state where there is still a worthwhile number of distressed purchasers. Oh... sounds like British conventional bus services, and even the 'worthwhile' numbers are diminishing to a handful of core routes only (in my county of residence, anyway)

Is achieving modal shift from cars to buses/public transport in any significant number about as easy as trying to convince people to go back from electricity to candles, with much the same result?

Perhaps it is time to take stock:

• Most people own or have access, to private transport, certainly for local journeys. Many of these are unused to using the complexity of buses (and probably public transport in general) and it will be difficult and possibly near impossible to voluntarily get this large group to engage. Of those that don't most aspire to owning/using a private vehicle, even if that is out of reach at present.
• Of those who have to use buses, the largest single group will be schoolchildren, for whom the provision of transport by bus is going to be a priority to reduce unnecessary car journeys, probably a more efficient and inclusive system than at present. Of course, this country permits choice of schools (and thereby generating diffuse travel) much more than the case in many other countries.
• The next largest single group is the elderly - increasingly the majority of this group is infirm elderly, for whom fixed route, fixed stop, fixed time services are usually inconvenient and often unsuitable. Their requirement is generally to go to the nearest and/or nearby shopping and medical facilities, or to an interchange for longer distance services.
• There are then several smaller groups - those who are younger but are disabled from being able to use private transport. Their requirements are more complex than the infirm elderly, but the numbers are relatively few and
• Those who have chosen not to drive, and those who are unable to afford to own/run private transport, but aspire to doing so.

The taxi industry, also with shared taxis (somewhere between a taxi and a full blown DRT) with doorstep service, ( together with cycling and walking where possible), already operating on a commercial basis, could be being used to cater for these demands, with full size buses being the exception rather than the rule for all apart from School buses and the main trunk/ interurban routes. Those who cannot use private transport should be given assistance with the cost of the provided transport. Those who chose not to use private transport would pay the full cost of taxi/shared taxi provision (to encourage them towards 'do-it-yourself' transport provision) in the same way that those who choose not to cook or launder have to pay the full cost of any service rendered by others.

It should be questioned whether paying increasing amounts of taxpayers money to run empty or near empty fixed route/stop/time buses, by and large catering for small numbers of passengers except in certain specific circumstances, with the vain hope of inducing modal shift by giving away the tickets and incurring even more costs by running more frequently or increased coverage of area and timebands, is a sensible use of resources going forwards. The majority of the population has voted with its feet, literally, in not travelling by bus. Let us be honest as to why this has happened, is still happening and why they won't be reboarding unless there is some kind (not merely a threat) of armageddon which would fundamentally affect society and life as we know it.

I appreciate that Switzerland and some other (northern) European countries have a higher public transport modal share than Britain, but they have spent fortunes of subsidy money over the last 50 years or more so as to have never got to the low levels that Britain is at now. And still these countries run plenty of empty or near empty buses. I do not know of any country that has got to our level and then brought bus modal share back up. Once the genie has been released of virtually universal private transport it appears it is well nigh impossible to reverse in any substantial way (except in certain specific circumstances which cannot be replicated willy nilly).

 

[johncrossley]

Pretty much all European countries were focussed almost exclusively on car travel until the 1960s or 1970s. Underground metro systems were constructed in many European cities around then but they were often opposed by residents. Part of the justification for metro systems was to increase space for car traffic on the surface. Since then, most countries and especially big cities have, to a greater or lesser extent, made efforts to make the alternatives to car use.

The UK came late to the party but by the 90s things started to change with new tram systems coming online and then heavy investment in the railways and the creation of TfL under the Blair government. There have been numerous BRT schemes. There has been a renaissance in urban living with huge numbers of apartment blocks built in previous ghetto areas in London, Manchester and other cities, much of it with limited or no parking. Anti-car measures which would have been unthinkable in the 1980s have become politically acceptable, such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, lower speed limits and removing traffic lanes in favour of cycle lanes. Of course, opinion is somewhat divided on these measures, but there are now sufficiently numerous people in favour that local authorities are willing to proceed with such things. Per capita distance driven had more or less stopped growing by the mid 00s and the number of driving licences held by young people has fallen dramatically.

So the rest of Europe may have gone further than the UK but things have changed in the UK as well.