MPs launch inquiry into health of the bus market

[Hophead]

The Transport Committee is launching a wide-ranging inquiry into the bus market in England outside London.

Bus service in decline
Bus service use in England is in decline according to annual bus statistics produced by the Department for Transport. Although bus use per person has increased significantly in London over the last 25 years (+52%), it has fallen by 40% in other English metropolitan areas.

MPs will consider the reliability of bus services, how they are run in metro-mayor, other metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, how bus services are financed and examples of innovation and best practice.

Send us your views
The Committee is particularly interested to receive evidence on:

• the effectiveness and ambition of the Department for Transport’s policies on buses;
• factors affecting bus use, including the reliability of the bus service, congestion and the ways bus companies are dealing with congestion, and the effectiveness of bus priority measures;
• the provision of services to isolated communities in rural and urban areas, and the reliance of particular communities and groups of people on bus services;
• the viability and long-term sustainability of bus services, including the effectiveness of funding, fare structures and public grants;
• regulations affecting the provision of bus services and the adequacy of guidance to operators and local authorities.

Submit your views through the Health of the bus market inquiry page.

Deadline for written submissions is Monday 24 September 2018.

It seems that Jeremy Corbyn's PMQs intervention has seen the industry gain a greater exposure. Whether this leads to anything remains to be seen. Most people seem to have fairly entrenched views one way or the other and are disinclined to consider other viewpoints.

As to the terms of reference I've quoted above, I'm intrigued as to how one is supposed to comment on the first bullet point: I really had no idea that the Department had any policy on buses at all! Does anybody know what it might be?

 

[overthewater]

Just before they all go there holls in England.

 

[radamfi]

Although bus use per person has increased significantly in London over the last 25 years (+52%), it has fallen by 40% in other English metropolitan areas.

40% drop is irrelevant. As long as bus companies can still make some money through commercial services by hiking fares to extreme levels the government can leave well alone. When it stops being possible to make money from commercial services, then the bus companies will get out their begging bowl and demand government intervention.

 

[Typhoon]

As to the terms of reference I've quoted above, I'm intrigued as to how one is supposed to comment on the first bullet point: I really had no idea that the Department had any policy on buses at all! Does anybody know what it might be?

If they do have a policy it appears to have fooled my search engine of choice. Of course, their policy might be to ignore the industry completely!

I do know that the 'minister' responsible is Old Etonian, Jesse Norman, a former director of Barclays. He is actually Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Roads, Local Transport and Devolution, which includes (road) freight, road safety, light rail and electric vehicles. He is also an author (nothing exciting, his most recent offering is "Adam Smith: What He Thought and Why It matters" - £25 through the Evening Standard).

Given all of this, I'm not expecting much and in no great hurry - the remit might be 'don't come up with anything concrete before the next election'.

 

[Typhoon]

He does, at least, appear to know what a bus is!

http://www.passengertransport.co.uk/2017/07/minister-backs-bus-campaign/

 

[Man of Kent]

If they do have a policy it appears to have fooled my search engine of choice. Of course, their policy might be to ignore the industry completely!

I do know that the 'minister' responsible is Old Etonian, Jesse Norman, a former director of Barclays. He is actually Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Roads, Local Transport and Devolution, which includes (road) freight, road safety, light rail and electric vehicles. He is also an author (nothing exciting, his most recent offering is "Adam Smith: What He Thought and Why It matters" - £25 through the Evening Standard).

Given all of this, I'm not expecting much and in no great hurry - the remit might be 'don't come up with anything concrete before the next election'.

No, responsibilities were shuffled round and the relevant MP is now Nusrat Ghani (full details on the DfT website). Jesse Norman's area of interest still includes 'local roads policy and funding'.

 

[carlberry]

The Transport Committee is launching a wide-ranging inquiry into the bus market in England outside London.

• factors affecting bus use, including the reliability of the bus service, congestion and the ways bus companies are dealing with congestion, and the effectiveness of bus priority measures;

​

No suggestion that comments about how the county councils are dealing with congestion would be more useful then! And the starting point is that London is perfect dispute bus use in London dropping in recent years.

 

[Typhoon]

No, responsibilities were shuffled round and the relevant MP is now Nusrat Ghani (full details on the DfT website). Jesse Norman's area of interest still includes 'local roads policy and funding'.

Apologies. Teach me not to rely on Wikipedia,

She appears to be number 5 in the department, however, bar HS2, she doesn't appear to have that much else to distract her.

 

[alex397]

This might be a learning curve for the majority of MPs - they might actually learn what a bus is and how they work.

 

[radamfi]

And the starting point is that London is perfect dispute bus use in London dropping in recent years.

If someone consistently gets an A+ in school tests, then gets a A-, that is still better than someone who only gets Ds. Per capita usage in London is still way higher than elsewhere.

 

[carlberry]

This might be a learning curve for the majority of MPs - they might actually learn what a bus is and how they work.

The problem is that most MPs already know what a bus is.

They're big, red there's loads of them (as they see them all the time) and they cause all the pollution in the world (as they're the first target for all the low pollution zones). They're a problem because bus companies withdraw them dispute thousands of people wanting to use them (as they fill up the MPs postbag).

 

[carlberry]

If someone consistently gets an A+ in school tests, then gets a A-, that is still better than someone who only gets Ds. Per capita usage in London is still way higher than elsewhere.

Accepting that London isn't a special case, accepting that usage has gone down and finding/accepting the reasons for that would produce a much better starting point than the idea that London is perfect and the problems are elsewhere. Otherwise the likely outcome is the usual 'do the same as London' which immediately falters as there isn't any money. It might even be that London learns something that it could change!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

If someone consistently gets an A+ in school tests, then gets a A-, that is still better than someone who only gets Ds. Per capita usage in London is still way higher than elsewhere.

Not withstanding the massive amount of investment in public transport in London compared to the Provinces. To carry on the education analogy, it is like comparing a state schools with fee paying grammar schools. Performance is markedly different but only because state schools do not get the level of investment.

We all know the massive disparities involved. London gets over 50% of all transport infrastructure spending in England - four times the amount per capita than in the North of England. We all know that the increase in bus service provision in London from 2000 to 2010 was underpinned by a massive increase in subsidy - from £41m in 2000 to £560m in 2008. The money has now reduced and that has now affected London ridership.

Anyone who believes that provision and expenditure aren't linked is in denial. It has been cited (on another thread) that people are increasingly in favour of spending more on public services and, by default, on public transport spending. That isn't backed by independent polling - spending on the NHS, Education and Social Care is certainly backed but not public transport (see referenda in both GM and Bristol).

As for the MPs launching the review, isn't it really like asking them to mark their own homework. Can you imagine the Tories on the select committee to agree that it's the removal of half of BSOG, or the reduction in ENCTS, or the swingeing austerity cuts not to be the problem..... I can! Also, the solution is to remove subsidies and transfer the liability to local bodies (yes, you can decide locally which services get cut!).

Then you have the Labour side who don't believe in capitalism - John McDonnell's conference speech where he promised to bring Royal Mail, the railways, the water companies et al into public ownership. No prizes for guessing what they will believe is the way forward!!

What won't be forthcoming is adequate funding for bus services. Instead both main parties are in a bizarre form of consensus but for different reasons. Labour now has an ideological issue with private companies providing public services so taking local control suits. Conservatives want to divest funding, farming it out to local government and hoping that they can cut central spending. What isn't on offer is more money!

 

[A0wen]

What won't be forthcoming is adequate funding for bus services. Instead both main parties are in a bizarre form of consensus but for different reasons. Labour now has an ideological issue with private companies providing public services so taking local control suits. Conservatives want to divest funding, farming it out to local government and hoping that they can cut central spending. What isn't on offer is more money!

Perhaps all bus services should be demand led - too many buses run around empty or half empty which nulls out the supposed environmental / emission gains they are supposed to offer.

A good example is one of the routes I often see which is threatened by the current round of LA "cuts" - this route at 8 am in the morning (so peak commuting time) when arriving in the penultimate village before heading to the major town which is its terminus has fewer than 10 people on. That means a Solo or similar is half-empty.

Yes, there's alot of noise about the fact this service is under threat, but its usage is ridiculously low.

 

[radamfi]

We all know the massive disparities involved. London gets over 50% of all transport infrastructure spending in England - four times the amount per capita than in the North of England. We all know that the increase in bus service provision in London from 2000 to 2010 was underpinned by a massive increase in subsidy - from £41m in 2000 to £560m in 2008. The money has now reduced and that has now affected London ridership.

But many people reading this and in the industry don't actually want more spending on buses. The existing situation suits them fine.

By the way, I thought it was established recently that there is no such thing as "subsidy" in the bus industry?

Anyone who believes that provision and expenditure aren't linked is in denial. It has been cited (on another thread) that people are increasingly in favour of spending more on public services and, by default, on public transport spending. That isn't backed by independent polling - spending on the NHS, Education and Social Care is certainly backed but not public transport (see referenda in both GM and Bristol).

Just because some things are more considered important, that doesn't mean ALL spending has to go to the most important thing. Health is more important than education but we don't give everything to health and nothing to education. Other countries spend more on transport than the UK but they also probably spend more on health than transport.

 

[radamfi]

Perhaps all bus services should be demand led - too many buses run around empty or half empty which nulls out the supposed environmental / emission gains they are supposed to offer.

A good example is one of the routes I often see which is threatened by the current round of LA "cuts" - this route at 8 am in the morning (so peak commuting time) when arriving in the penultimate village before heading to the major town which is its terminus has fewer than 10 people on. That means a Solo or similar is half-empty.

Yes, there's alot of noise about the fact this service is under threat, but its usage is ridiculously low.

The issue here is that the subsidy (if we are calling it that) is targeted at filling in gaps in the commercial bus market. Commercial bus services are often not heavily used anyway, which inevitably means tendered services will be very poorly used indeed. Other countries hardly run rural services and prefer to put their funding into urban services instead.

Even in urban areas, the public transport networks in some foreign cities may seem quite sparse compared to a British city, but because they operate as a network rather than individual standalone routes, they achieve respectable ridership levels, meaning better occupancy rates. My usual example is Zurich which is modest sized city, on a par with maybe Bristol. There are more bus routes in Bristol than bus/tram routes in Zurich yet Zurich has one of the highest PT mode shares in the world. The difference is that almost all bus routes in Bristol go to the city centre whereas many routes in Zurich don't. There may even be more public transport vehicles running in Bristol.

On major corridors in deregulated cities outside London you can get frequencies every 5 minutes or even better where buses are nowhere near full. Whereas several London routes have overcrowding on many routes with a 8/10/12 frequency. Running at unnecessarily high frequency is bad for the environment and doesn't necessarily lead to high usage.

 

[goldisgood]

On major corridors in deregulated cities outside London you can get frequencies every 5 minutes or even better where buses are nowhere near full. Whereas several London routes have overcrowding on many routes with a 8/10/12 frequency. Running at unnecessarily high frequency is bad for the environment and doesn't necessarily lead to high usage.

But often in these corridors the usage at peak will be much much higher than in off peak - quite often buses run packed at peak times, but close to empty off-peak. There are some areas in Central London where I saw at most 7 passengers per double decker bus off-peak, although this was just a small observation.

 

[PeterC]

But often in these corridors the usage at peak will be much much higher than in off peak - quite often buses run packed at peak times, but close to empty off-peak. There are some areas in Central London where I saw at most 7 passengers per double decker bus off-peak, although this was just a small observation.

I am afraid that that reminds me of a comment that my late mother once made about "empty buses". We were passing a vehicle that had just set down at the terminus at the time. Any comment about ridership is meaningless without knowing location, route, direction of travel and time of day.

 

[goldisgood]

I am afraid that that reminds me of a comment that my late mother once made about "empty buses". We were passing a vehicle that had just set down at the terminus at the time. Any comment about ridership is meaningless without knowing location, route, direction of travel and time of day.

It was sitting in a cafe on Piccadilly just after Green Park for around 45 minutes about half past 11 on a weekday. I wouldn't say that any routes were particularly close to their end there, the 38 was the closest I think at about a mile to go.

 

[A0wen]

The issue here is that the subsidy (if we are calling it that) is targeted at filling in gaps in the commercial bus market. Commercial bus services are often not heavily used anyway, which inevitably means tendered services will be very poorly used indeed. Other countries hardly run rural services and prefer to put their funding into urban services instead.

Even in urban areas, the public transport networks in some foreign cities may seem quite sparse compared to a British city, but because they operate as a network rather than individual standalone routes, they achieve respectable ridership levels, meaning better occupancy rates. My usual example is Zurich which is modest sized city, on a par with maybe Bristol. There are more bus routes in Bristol than bus/tram routes in Zurich yet Zurich has one of the highest PT mode shares in the world. The difference is that almost all bus routes in Bristol go to the city centre whereas many routes in Zurich don't. There may even be more public transport vehicles running in Bristol.

On major corridors in deregulated cities outside London you can get frequencies every 5 minutes or even better where buses are nowhere near full. Whereas several London routes have overcrowding on many routes with a 8/10/12 frequency. Running at unnecessarily high frequency is bad for the environment and doesn't necessarily lead to high usage.

No doubt the subsidised routes are filling the gaps where a commercial offer isn't viable - but there has to be a point where running a bus isn't viable, the question is where that point is. And given so often the use of buses is promoted for the "environmental" benefits, you have to question whether a 10 year old Solo with fewer than 10 people on (including the driver) delivers this against those 10 people using a more modern car or taxi.

 

[bluenoxid]

On major corridors in deregulated cities outside London you can get frequencies every 5 minutes or even better where buses are nowhere near full. Whereas several London routes have overcrowding on many routes with a 8/10/12 frequency. Running at unnecessarily high frequency is bad for the environment and doesn't necessarily lead to high usage.

Many of the high frequency corridors tend to split in the suburbs in my experience of Leeds. In addition, in peak hour, congestion causes timetabled frequency to drop.

No doubt the subsidised routes are filling the gaps where a commercial offer isn't viable - but there has to be a point where running a bus isn't viable, the question is where that point is. And given so often the use of buses is promoted for the "environmental" benefits, you have to question whether a 10 year old Solo with fewer than 10 people on (including the driver) delivers this against those 10 people using a more modern car or taxi.

It’s not just the back end emissions though. Those vehicles need to be stored both during the day and night.

 

[radamfi]

Many of the high frequency corridors tend to split in the suburbs in my experience of Leeds. In addition, in peak hour, congestion causes timetabled frequency to drop.

They split in many other cities too. Because of the perceived need to provide a direct service from every suburb to the city centre, you end up with excess provision on the common section. The alternative solution, used quite widely outside the UK but rarely within the UK, is to have separate connecting routes for different suburbs. This way you can provide a good frequency to each suburb at the same time as minimising the number of vehicles used.

 

[RT4038]

They split in many other cities too. Because of the perceived need to provide a direct service from every suburb to the city centre, you end up with excess provision on the common section. The alternative solution, used quite widely outside the UK but rarely within the UK, is to have separate connecting routes for different suburbs. This way you can provide a good frequency to each suburb at the same time as minimising the number of vehicles used.

Possibly because we in this country have a very long history of unreliable services (for a variety of reasons). In many areas elaborate systems of connections were prevalent in the 50s/early 60s but were gradually dismantled as passenger numbers dropped - management perceiving that the need to change buses was a cause. I can quite believe it was - passengers probably do not like to spend the first part of their journey stressing that they will be marooned at the change point!

 

[158756]

Possibly because we in this country have a very long history of unreliable services (for a variety of reasons). In many areas elaborate systems of connections were prevalent in the 50s/early 60s but were gradually dismantled as passenger numbers dropped - management perceiving that the need to change buses was a cause. I can quite believe it was - passengers probably do not like to spend the first part of their journey stressing that they will be marooned at the change point!

Removing direct links is never going to be popular in this country. You might be able to get away with, with proper ticketing arrangements, getting people to change to a faster (railed) mode of transport, but standing in the rain at some random suburban bus stop won't fly - it's just a worse service, however you look at it.

 

[Megafuss]

In no order, these are the issues facing the industry.

1 - Roadworks. I think what would benefit everyone is if when a TRO is put in, the contractors need to contact the bus operator the serves a road and stop to see if anything can be done. At the minute this does not happen (well in my area anyway)

2 Reliability. When Roadworks occur it incurs extra cost to bus operators to put buses in to a cycle or costs time when you divert. Should a compensation scheme be set up for us to offset these extra costs?

3 Timetabling. This is a double edged sword, if you change a timetable to many times it puts people off, if you don't change it when a trend occurs you get complaints. This is where the new registration process might actually work, as operators now have to properly think changes through. I would hate to be a scheduler where in some places on one day the service runs fine and the next it's a shower of poo. What can you do?

4 Fares. Buses cost money to operate, certainly in a commercial environment where the only "subsidy" you get is BSOG, that itself is a subsidy straight to the passenger as it helps keeps fares down. So either someone subsides the fares even further (like TfL) or the end user pays for it. That said, I think some young persons fares are almost scandalous and some parts of the industry does not help itself keep younger passengers.

5 Branding. The first thing a potential customer sees is the bus itself. I am sorry to say, but if you visit some First Bus/ARRIVA and even the odd Stagecoach location, the turnout of the vehicles is awful. As an industry we need to attract folk to the buses. Barbie buses and horrible shades of turquoise is NOT a good look. Neither is a clapped out Trident with a faded Stagecoach beach all logo. If we cannot show we care for our own vehicles, then why should someone sat in a nice BMW switch?

 

[Jamm]

Removing direct links is never going to be popular in this country. You might be able to get away with, with proper ticketing arrangements, getting people to change to a faster (railed) mode of transport, but standing in the rain at some random suburban bus stop won't fly - it's just a worse service, however you look at it.

Yet many bus operators have already moved (or starting to move) to frequent buses to city centres model rather than improved bus connectivity between suburbs model. Granted, a lot of people have complained but with a few exceptions, nothing happened once after the changes are implemented.

This poses an interesting problem, any changes made to a bus network due to a cost cutting exercise will cause passenger number drop which necessitates further changes made to the bus network and so on...

Also, increasing traffic congestion will cause people to drive more because buses are too slow and thus causing further traffic congestion.

We need a radical solution soon.

 

[158756]

Yet many bus operators have already moved (or starting to move) to frequent buses to city centres model rather than improved bus connectivity between suburbs model. Granted, a lot of people have complained but with a few exceptions, nothing happened once after the changes are implemented.

? I thought that was what I was saying - people want a direct bus to the city centre, converging on a possibly overbussed route into the city, as opposed to having to change somewhere for a bus that actually goes there.

 

[radamfi]

Removing direct links is never going to be popular in this country. You might be able to get away with, with proper ticketing arrangements, getting people to change to a faster (railed) mode of transport, but standing in the rain at some random suburban bus stop won't fly - it's just a worse service, however you look at it.

But the traditional British way of doing things is not exactly delivering good patronage levels. The industry claims to be skint, yet this kind of operation is expensive because of so much route overlapping. As far as I know, there hasn't been a serious attempt of using connections in an urban context since 1986. I suppose you could argue that London buses don't really work on corridors and they have been rationalising overlapping routes recently. Admittedly out of financial necessity rather than any other reason.

 

[RT4038]

But the traditional British way of doing things is not exactly delivering good patronage levels. The industry claims to be skint, yet this kind of operation is expensive because of so much route overlapping. As far as I know, there hasn't been a serious attempt of using connections in an urban context since 1986. I suppose you could argue that London buses don't really work on corridors and they have been rationalising overlapping routes recently. Admittedly out of financial necessity rather than any other reason.

The traditional British way of doing things is not delivering good patronage levels, but relying on connections / forcing passengers to change will not either. In a de-regulated environment, forcing passengers to change / wait longer / take circuitous routes etc. just invites competition, so it is hardly surprising that there has been no serious attempt of using connections in an urban context since 1986. And thank goodness. Don't think there was much successful before 1986 either. A monopoly, a hefty fares subsidy to induce demand and a pretty fundamental cultural change towards timekeping/ reliability would be necessary to get this idea to work here!

 

[radamfi]

wait longer / take circuitous routes

But if the areas off the branch have a more frequent service then the total journey time can be quicker even if you have to change. If you have 6 routes running every 30 minutes with a combined frequency of 5 minutes on the trunk section, you could replace that with a trunk service and connecting routes running every 10 minutes, meaning that everywhere has a 10 minute service instead of some places only having a 30 minute service, with the added bonus of saving on the number of buses required.

A monopoly, a hefty fares subsidy to induce demand and a pretty fundamental cultural change towards timekeping/ reliability would be necessary to get this idea to work here!

So, in principle, it can be done. And it is done like this in many places. London is crippled by traffic more than anywhere else in the country yet they rely on connections the most. In London you often have to change as direct routes are not always provided.